Zombie Field Day Read Free

searched his brain for the right word. What was it? Oh yeah. Backfired. Most of the kids were laughing. A lot of them were pretending to be zombies. This included loud moaning and falling on top of each other. Others were freaking out. This group was hugging and sharing lots of damp Kleenex.
    “LEONARD FRANCIS WILEY!” Again with the middle name? Principal V’s voice boomed over the intercom. “Report to my office RIGHT THIS SECOND!”
    Leo swallowed hard. He looked up at Shelly. Even she looked scared. “You’d better go,” she said. Then, maybe to be nice, “I won’t tell Dad.”
    Leo knew a lot about dread. It still surprised him though. All the different ways it could take over his body. This dread felt like someone squeezing that dangly piece of skin in the back of his throat.
    “Wiley!” Principal V was waiting outside the smoky glass door for him. Chad was next to him, wide-eyed and pale. He was wearing a green T-shirt with “You Say Mommy, I Say Zombie” stretched across the chest. “Walk faster!” Principal V barked. Leo quickened his pace and slid just behind Chad.
    Principal V leaned down so the boys’ heads were within inches of his white teeth and flickery tongue. “Because of your incredible disrespect, your reckless behavior, your disastrously bad judgment . . .” With every word, the boys blinked back a spray of spittle. “I sentence you to one hundred hours of hard labor!” The mushroom-headed principal stood up and took in a shuddery breath. “To be performed in my office starting immediately!”
    Principal V whipped two hula rags off his belt and presented one to each of the boys. He pushed them into his unicorned office. Then with one raised finger, he shouted, “DUST!”

    “Um, excuse me?” Leo said. A fifth grader was standing in front of the 800s shelf. She was staring at a white unicorn in her open hand. “Um, are you dusting in this area?” Leo asked.
    “Uuuuuuunnnnnh,” she said, curling up her top lip.
    “No problemo. Lots of room for unicorn dusters!” Leo said, making a wide circle around her.
    Mrs. Bird, Chad’s science teacher, was standing by the 200s shelf. She stared sadly at a green unicorn with red marble eyeballs.
    “Mrs. Bird, are you okay?” Chad asked. “Shouldn’t you be, um, teaching your students or something?”
    “P-p-p-p-p-p.” Mrs. Bird came at Chad, bubbles frothing on her lips.
    “Ahhhh!” Chad yelled.
    “QUIET!” Principal V’s voice boomed from the hallway.
    Chad shot Leo a look. There must have been half a dozen zombies “dusting” unicorns in Principal V’s office. What was that about?
    But Leo wasn’t looking. He was waving his arms in an attempt to reach something high above the 1200s shelf. Something bright green, and not at all pointy, in a corner behind a silver unicorn with black teeth. What was that? Were those leaves? It looked familiar. Leo checked for Principal V’s shadow outside the door. Nothing. He grabbed a stool from the corner and climbed up for a closer look. All of sudden, a hundred hours of hard labor seemed a lot more interesting.

CHAPTER 5
ZOMBIFIED
    "I have a theory,” Leo said. Six hours of dusting down, Chad and Leo were back in Leo’s lab with Roger. “Evil Principal V really is evil.”
    “Like, make-zombie-slaves-to-dust-your-miniature-unicorns evil?” Chad asked.
    “Exactly,” Leo said. “And I think he’s using this plant to do it.” Leo held out the sample of the bright green plant he’d taken from Principal V’s office. “It’s obviously some kind of cold-climate plant,” Leo said. “Notice the fine silky hairs on the leaves. That’s to trap heat. I know this plant,” Leo said. “I’ve read about it. But I don’t remember where or why.”
    “If you’ve read about it, it definitely has something to do with zombies,” Chad said. “As in, it probably turns people into zombies.”
    “That’s what I figured,” Leo said. “But I can’t find any record of it. Plus,” he