My Teacher is a Zombie (Supernatural Learning Book 1) (2 page)

Bert dumped his lunch trash. "Yeah, but doesn't she get upset with you if you use your phone in school? I had mine taken away once and now my mom makes me keep it off during school."

"Nah, she doesn't care, but I've never had it taken away either. You need to be careful and just make sure the teachers don't catch you with them, is all."

Stanley dumped his trash as well and they made their way to American History. Fortunately they'd made it to their seats before the bell rang. Even though they hadn't gotten in trouble the day before, Mrs. Applebaum wasn't one to take lightly tardiness two days in a row. Even if they had managed to sneak into the room, Polly would alert the teacher. She'd done it to them more than once. She could be annoying like that.

Mrs. Applebaum sat at her desk. She looked around the room, but her hugely magnified eyes didn't seem to focus on any one person. It wasn't until the murmur of confused classmates brought her attention back to reality that she addressed the class.

"Alright, quiet down. Quiet down. Polly, could you pass back the test from last week? I'm very disappointed with the grades this time around, as I'm sure you will be. Well, except for Bill, Polly, and a couple others, the grades were far lower than expected."

Polly passed back the tests, giving each person a sniff or a shrug. She smiled at William. Bert got almost no reaction at all. She saved the best for Stanley. She held the paper between two fingers like a dirty tissue and dropped it to his desk with an "ew."

A 'D' minus. He'd have to hide this one from his mom if he ever hoped to spend Friday night with Bert. The last thing he needed was to show her another low grade. She didn't expect straight 'A's from him, but she did at least expect him to keep a high 'C' or better. This was going to bring his grade down for sure.

The phone in his pocket began to vibrate. Polly stopped. Her head snapped back to stare at him. Again the phone vibrated.

"Mrs. Applebaum! Mrs. Applebaum. Stanley has his phone on in class."

He couldn't believe she'd just done that. He tried to wrestle the phone out of his pocket. He didn't want to get it taken away. A 'D' minus and his phone taken away during school would surely get him grounded.

Mrs. Applebaum got to her feet. For a moment she swayed and looked like she might go down, but she stayed upright and plodded back to Stanley's desk. She got there at the same time he got the still vibrating phone from his pocket.

"Let's have it, Stanley."

The teacher stood with her hand open in front of him. He needed to see what the message said. No one ever sent him text messages during class. He'd sent his mom a text, but she never replied while at work. He looked at the black screen.

The meter stick smacked the desk. "Now, Stanley."

He hadn't even seen her pick up her favorite weapon. The phone almost leapt from his hand to hers as if it'd gotten scared itself.

She held the phone up and looked at it, then handed it to Polly. "Could you read the last message on Stanley's phone for me?"

There were few times in Stanley's life that he wished he could disappear. The sudden realization that he did not have a password on his phone and Polly Gunderson was about to read a message was one of those moments.

"Sure, Mrs. Applebaum."

She pressed the button to turn the phone on. At first he didn't think it was anything. Perhaps it was some strange spam message. Sure. That was it. He'd gotten those before.

Polly smiled.

"Honey, I think it's a great idea for you and Bert to have a sleepover. He's so adorable. You can tell him I said that. Why don't you ask him to have a sleep over here on Saturday? And don't eat too much at his house. You know how you get poopy when you do."

Stanley tried to shrink into his chair. Did his mother just use 'poopy' in a text that got read to the now laughing class? When did he suddenly go from being thirteen to being eight? This was even worse than yesterday.

"Stanley." Mrs. Applebaum leaned down. She smelled like old gym socks. "I'm highly disappointed in you." Her eyes looked yellowish and her breath smelled like rancid onions. "I think you need to see me after school to get your phone back."

"Yes, ma'am."

Only Bert did not join in the laughter. Stanley wanted to think it was because they were best friends, but it was more likely because they were both part of the same joke. Bert looked pale and, with his dark skin, that wasn't easy.

Stanley spent the rest of the class trying to remain unnoticed. He thought about asking for a hall pass to go to the bathroom, but the last thing he needed was more attention. All he wanted to do was get out of there.

Until something curious happened.

Mrs. Applebaum wrote something on the board. Bill raised his hand first and cleared his throat to try and get her attention, but to no avail. At first it just looked like scribbles, but it started to take on an odd shape. Almost like some ancient language. Perhaps it was hieroglyphs or something like that, but it looked weird.

"Mrs. Applebaum?" Polly spoke up.

William raised his hand. "Is this some new homework?"

The teacher turned around; her eyes completely out of focus and looking off in the distance. One eye looked to be out of whack with the other eye. Not cross-eyed, but the opposite. Slowly she shook her head and looked at the students.

"Ms. Gunderson, could you please write the homework on the board?"

The words had left her mouth and the bell rang. Not waiting for the homework to be written on the board, kids started leaving the class quickly. She waved a hand in the air and looked as if she were about to say something, but instead flopped back in her seat.

"Let's go, Stanley. If we're lucky people will forget about her reading that text message in class."

"One second. I need to see something."

Stanley walked past William and Polly and stood next to Mrs. Applebaum. She didn't look ill; she looked worse. She looked as if she'd fall out of her chair any moment. She swayed from side to side.

"Mrs. Applebaum, are you alright?" William asked.

She looked at him and scrunched up her forehead as if she didn't recognize him at first. Then her eyes lit up. "Yes, I'm fine. Thank you for asking. Perhaps my lunch didn't agree with me. You kids go on now."

"Could I get my phone back?" Stanley asked, hoping that she'd forget that he was supposed to come back after school. By school policy she was supposed to notify the office and his parents that he had his phone taken away.

"School isn't over." Polly snapped.

"It's alright, dear. I think it'll be alright this time." Mrs. Applebaum handed the phone to Stanley.

"Thank you ma'am."

Without waiting for anything to go wrong at this point, he turned and headed straight out of the class. He also needed to get away from the smell. How Bill and Polly could stand so close to her with the strange gym sock smell was beyond him. Perhaps they felt like they needed more brownie points with her or something.

"What was all that about?" Bert asked as Stanley exited the classroom.

"I think Mrs. Applebaum is sick. There's no homework so let's just be happy. Maybe we'll get a sub tomorrow. That'd be great for a Friday."

"Yeah, and no homework tonight. That means pretty much a free period tomorrow."

Chapter 3

Mrs. Applebaum looked even worse than the day before. She no longer looked sick, she looked dead. Her skin had a gray pallor and her eyes had partially clouded over. The entire class just sat and started at her as her head bobbed from side to side. Everyone feared to say anything. At one point her mouth opened and closed, but she didn't say anything.

"What should we do?" Bert whispered to Stanley.

"I don't know. I'm afraid to go up there. She doesn't look right."

"Should we call the front office?"

"It's Friday. This can wait until Monday."

Even though he said the words, Stanley didn't believe them. Everyone, even William and Polly, just sat dumbfounded by the teacher in the front of the class. They'd never experienced anything like this before. Probably no one had ever experienced anything like this before. Could they all really just sit and do nothing?

"Do you think I should go and talk to her?"

"Someone has to, Stanley. Look at everyone. They're just staring at her."

Stanley swallowed hard. Mrs. Applebaum was scary enough. Having to go up to the front of the class to see if she was alright was downright terrifying. Still, someone had to go and check on her. It might as well be him, right?

Getting up from his chair caused a squeak and the entire class turned to look at him. Several shook their heads, but Bert nodded and motioned for Stanley to continue. Even Polly looked like she wanted him to continue.

Each step felt like an eternity. One by one he made his way to her desk. With each step her smell grew in his nose. How could the kids in the front of the class be sitting so close to her? She smelled like a wet dog. Not just any wet dog, but one that had rolled in week-old dead fish that had died in a stagnant swamp. Stanley thought he would gag for sure.

Despite his brain telling him to turn around and go back to his desk, he stood before Mrs. Applebaum. From this close her gray skin looked as if it were going to slough off and fall to the floor. Several suspicious lumps bulged in spots and what looked like a mushroom grew out of her neck.

"Are you alright, Mrs. Applebaum?" Stanley asked.

A collective gasp rose from the room as the teacher turned her head to look at him. Her eyes couldn't possibly be focused on him as they had gone a milky white. A little bit of spittle dribbled down her chin and unless he was mistaken the mushroom on her shoulder twitched a little. She made some sound, but it wasn't anything Stanley could make out. More of a grunting groan or a groaning grunt.

"Mrs. Applebaum? Should I call the office or something?" Stanley struggled to stay standing next to her. He wanted to turn and run. He wanted to smash her head with a fire extinguisher. He wanted to throw up. None of those were an option until he knew what was wrong with her.

At least none of them were an option until she stood up and held her hands out. That's when the entire class took running as an option. Stanley, being furthest from the door, got stuck at the end of the crush of bodies trying to get out.

His backpack!

He couldn't leave school without his backpack. Sure he wouldn't have any history homework, but he did have other homework. He turned to run back to his desk and Mrs. Applebaum more stumbled than walked across the class room. With her going so slowly he'd have enough time to gather his things and...

William Schneider! He hadn't moved. He sat in his wheelchair looking at Mrs. Applebaum. Stanley snatched up his backpack and ran to the front of the classroom and pulled William backward. The sudden movement of his chair brought his attention to Stanley.

"What are you doing?"

"I'm getting you out of here. Let someone else deal with her."

"Fine, pull me out, but get my backpack first. It's right there on the floor."

Mrs. Applebaum had just made it around her desk. She moved so slowly that he'd have more than enough time to get the backpack and still get William out in time. The rest of the class was still trying to push their way out of the room at the same time. If he wasn't so scared, he'd laugh.

He fetched William's backpack and dropped it in his lap before spinning the chair around and heading for the door. The kids all poured out and ran screaming from the room and Stanley finally emerged with William. Thankfully Bert stood and was waiting for him just outside the door. He wasn't quite as happy to see Polly standing there as well.

"What are we going to do?" Polly asked, more annoyed than scared.

"I think we need to lock her in there somehow." Stanley said.

"And just how do you recommend we do that?" she snapped.

Bert moved in front of her. "How do we lock the door? We don't have a key."

"That's not entirely true."

All three looked at William.

"What? Being a good student has its perks. I have a set of keys."

"Hand them over. We'll lock her in the room." Stanley held out his hand waiting for William to hand over the keys.

He fished through his back pack and produced a single key.

"I thought you said 'keys'."

"This is the one for Mrs. Applebaum's classroom."

Stanley shoved the key in the lock and as he turned it, something slammed against the door. All four of them jumped back. It pounded on the door again. The key started to turn back.

"She's unlocking the door!" Polly yelled in Stanley's ear.

"No kidding." He reached for the key and started to fight to turn it back. At first it didn't give, but then locked all the way. As soon as he let go, it started to turn back again.

"She's still trying to unlock the door." Bert reached for the key and turned it back and held it.

"Hold on, I've got something here." William dug through his back pack and produced what looked like a lighter with two fluid-filled, glass containers.