The Big Nap (5 page)

We strode across the grass. Near the library steps, Natalie and I slowed to let a small herd of kids cross our path.

Tony Newt, Bo's twin brother, leaned from the crowd. "Hey, Chet!" he said. "Check this out. It's the latest thing."

He waved some boxy toy at me. But I had no time for fun and frolic. Danger was blooming like zits on a junk-food junkie.

Tony and his group trompled down the hall. At the library door, Natalie grabbed my shoulder.

"Wait," she said. "Just how are we gonna get in there? And when we do, how are we gonna stop him? That's one jumbo-sized possum, Chet."

"Hah!" I said. "Would Sam Spade let some big lug scare him? Would Sherlock Holmes worry about having a plan?"

Natalie nodded. "Yes," she said, "they would."

I paused. "Okay ... then, let's—"

Rrrinnng!
went the class bell.

"—investigate it at lunch," I said.

Natalie sniggered. "Good plan."

The only problem with lunch is that you have to suffer through history class to get to it. Don't take me wrong, it's usually one of my better subjects. (History, I mean, not lunch. Lunch isn't a subject; it's a higher calling.)

But Mr. Ratnose's history class could make an ancient Roman start roamin' again.

I put the time to good use, pondering how Natalie and I were going to get into the library's locked room. We could try the simple approach, of course: Knock on the door, then improvise.

Simple, but also a good way to get captured.

Or we could create a diversion. Set off a stink bomb in the library and sneak in while everyone was—

"
Psst,
Chet!"

"Huh?" I looked up to see Sammy the weasel toss me a folded note. I caught it with my tongue. The paper tasted of crayons and chalk.

Psst, Chett! Isn't this Dullsville? How wud you like to com over to my house todday for snacks? It'll be funn!!!

—
Sammy

I was no spelling whiz, but even I could see that Sammy's spelling wasn't exactly minding its p's and q's. But never mind.

I gave him the thumbs-up. Sammy grinned. I figured I could wrap up the case at lunch and still have plenty of time to goof off after school.

Boy, was I dreaming.

After a third helping of centipede burritos (hey, it pays to befriend the cafeteria ladies), I was ready to rock and roll. Or at least dance the Hokey Pokey.

I snagged Natalie and explained my plan, on the way to the library.

"Okay," she said doubtfully, "if you're sure."

"Natalie, when have I ever steered you wrong?"

She shot me a look. "You want the full list, or just the Reader's Digest highlights?"

"
Ha, ha,
" I said. We stood beside the library. "Now, easy does it."

Natalie flapped lazily to the roof of the building. I scuttled up the wall, no sweat. In my line of work, it pays to be a lizard.

We began searching the rooftop for a heating vent or skylight.

"If we can catch him in the act," I said, "we'll have the proof we need to put Cool Beans out of business."

Natalie sniffed and fanned a wing. "Speaking of beans, Chet, I wish you hadn't gone for that third burrito."

Just then, I spotted a likely-looking hump on the roof. "Hello, what's this?"

Natalie joined me near the skylight. "Bingo!" she said.

We crept toward the edge of the glass panel. Moving slower than the last lap of an arctic-slug race, I eased forward until I could check out the room below. I blinked in surprise.

"Yuck!" I said. "Don't they ever clean these windows?"

The skylight was crudded over with a thick coating of scuzz and grime. It was about as see-through as a pair of lead underpants.

Natalie brushed a wing across the surface. No effect. I rubbed with my coat sleeve. The grease smeared, but we still couldn't see into the locked room.

"Well, at least they can't see us, either," said Natalie. "Let's try listening in."

She leaned onto the skylight and pressed her cheek to the smudged glass.

"Hear anything?" I asked. "What are they saying?"

"They say,
'Roblgiv snorggle zzshvbble zhnovv.'
" She imitated the sound of muffled voices. Mockingbirds can be a real hoot sometimes.

"Here, let me try," I said, nudging her aside and crawling onto the skylight.

"Chet, I don't think you—"

"Relax, willya?" I snaked toward the middle and put my ear to the glass. "This skylight is strong enough to handle heavy weather; it's strong enough to handle us."

The sound was clearer toward the middle. I heard,
So what do you think he meant by
... craaackkk.

"
'Craaackkk'?
" I muttered. "What's—"

C-r-a-a-a-c-k-k-k!
went the skylight.

Oh.

The glass buckled like a bawling bully in Principal Zero's office. As I plummeted downward, the last thing I saw was Natalie's worried face.

Bomf!

In a spray of glass and grime, I hit the tabletop.
Ooooch.
The extra burritos rearranged themselves in my aching gut.

As landings go, it was a doozy. But I thought the East German judges might take off a few points for my style.

I shook my head to clear it. My breath came back in a wheeze, and I checked out the room.

The big round table was littered with books and glass chunks. Half the kids had jumped to their feet. The rest sat and stared like puppets with their strings cut. Zombies!

Too late for them, but maybe I could save the others.

"Run for your lives!" I shouted. "He's trying to turn you into zombies!"

A big fifth-grade owl blinked at me. "Who?" he asked.

You get that from owls.

I staggered to my feet, shaking glass from my coat and hat. "Cool Beans, that's who. He's hypnotizing you for evil purposes."

"Evil porpoises?" A deep voice chuckled behind me. "Why, I don't even have any grumpy dolphins. You're wiggin' out, Winston."

Cool Beans stepped through the open door.

"Nice try, mister," I said. I waved an arm at the stupefied students. "We know all about your little zombie factory."

The librarian chortled again and put his massive paws on his hips.

I clenched my fists and readied for action.

"Don't blow a gasket, daddy-o," said Cool Beans. He surveyed the room with sleepy eyes. "You just, heh,
dropped in
on my extra-credit book club."

Book club?

"And now," purred a different voice, "won't you drop in on my office?" I knew that voice, and I didn't like it.

Behind the librarian, a broad belly poked through the doorway. A fat cat head followed. It was Principal Zero, wearing his someone's-gonna-get-it expression.

I could guess who that someone was.

His whiskers bristled as he thrust a broom and dustpan at me, then pointed at the glass fragments. "Shall we say, in ten minutes?"

Shall we say, on the twelfth of never?
I thought. But you don't tell that to an angry principal.

You just grin, sweep, and bear it.

There are two theories on how to argue with a principal. Neither one works.

"But that book club is just a front for his zombie operation," I said.

Principal Zero's claws kneaded his scarred desktop. "Nonsense," he rumbled. "Aloyicious Theonlyest Bunk is the most respected librarian in town. Neither he nor anyone else at this school is, as you put it, turning students into zombies."

"But—"

"Gecko, the only reason I'm not giving you a month of detention—and believe me, I want to—is that Mr. Bunk has asked me to pardon you." Principal Zero sniffed. "He's more lenient with the students than I am."

I tried another approach. "Look, Mr. Zero. Every day, I see more and more zombies around school.
Somebody's
making them."

He smoothed the fur on his jowls and watched me with narrowed eyes, the way I watch a horsefly I'm planning to lunch on. "I see," he said. "And how do you know they're zombies?"

"They walk like zombies, they talk like zombies..." I gripped the edge of the desktop. "They speak only when spoken to, and they even clean the blackboards."

Principal Zero smiled a Cheshire cat smile. Or the smile that the Cheshire cat would've worn if he'd been an overweight pussycat with a bad attitude.

"You, Chet Gecko, are a deluded troublemaker. You see good students, and you think they're zombies." Mr. Zero's tail twitched. He snarled, "If you know what's good for you, you'll drop this case."

My mouth fell open. "Drop it?" I said. "But my—"

"Drop it now," said Principal Zero. "Or I'll drop you so fast you'll bounce."

His tail twitched faster, back and forth, like a cockeyed cobra getting ready to strike.

"Is that all?" I asked.

His fangs gleamed. "Let me give you a friendly
piece of advice, Chet Gecko. Now would be a good time to keep your nose clean."

"Anything else?"

"Yes. Don't talk with your mouth full ... keep your elbows off the table ... never eat a dish called Chef's Surprise..."

He was worse than my mother. I slowly backed from the room as Principal Zero rambled on.

Lunch was over; kids were back in class. I dawdled through the halls while that bowl of soggy Froot Loops I call my brain puzzled over this confusing case.

So Waldo wasn't the zombie master. And according to Principal Zero—if I believed him—neither was Cool Beans.

Then who was? And how was he, she, or it turning my classmates into zombies?

And on top of all that,
why
were they doing it?

My head hurt. This was harder than my bogus science project of turning chocolate to gold. (I needn't have bothered; chocolate is more valuable, anyway.)

Where was Natalie when I needed her brainpower? In class, that's where. She'd flown the coop when I got in trouble. Some partner.

With these thoughts tumbling through my mind
like a woodchuck in a washing machine, of course I bumped into the second-to-last person I wanted to see.

Meena Moe.

She clutched a hall pass in one delicate paw. Her expression was anything but delicate.

"Chet Gecko!" she said.

"Where?" I asked.

Meena
harrumphed.
(At least I think she harrumphed. It sounded more like a gopher snake choking on a gum ball.) "None of your foolishness," she said. "Why have you not reported to me?"

"Not much to report," I said. "Yes, your sister's a zombie. And no, I don't know how she got that way or how to cure her."

Meena's eyes grew big. She gasped, "I knew it! Poor Eena." She twisted the hall pass in her paws. "You must help her. Can you discover how to restore her to normalcy?"

Normalcy?
Is that how fifth graders talk? If so, I wasn't looking forward to my next year of school.

I scratched my chin. "I don't know. That's a pretty tough nut to crack."

"I don't care a fig for nuts," she said. "If you can cure Eena, I'll give you a special bonus."

This sounded interesting. "Like what?" I asked.

Meena eyed my belly and made a small, very small, smile. "How about all the mosquito milk shakes you can drink?"

For a goody-goody, this guinea pig was a shrewd bargainer.

"Done," I said. I eyed her book bag. "Now, how's about a down payment?"

The rest of the school day slipped by in a haze of geology and gum (Meena had parted with fifty cents for a snack). Still steamed at my partner, I spent recess avoiding Natalie.

But I did revisit the library. Despite Mr. Zero's guarantees, something was funny about Cool Beans.

I turned the knob. The library door swung silently open.

And there he was.

The huge possum was slumped at his desk in the dimness, lively as a statue of cool carved from an iceberg. I strolled closer, keeping a wary eye out.

Was he napping? Or zombified?

"Uh, Cool Beans?" I said.

No response.

Was he breathing? I couldn't tell.

I scanned the mess on his desktop for clues. A handful of jazz CDs ... a bag of gourmet coffee ... a pile of papers and letters ... a glossy eight-by-ten photo autographed by someone named Kilometers Davis ... and near the librarian's right hand, a thick book:
Understanding the Undead.