My Zombie Hamster (2 page)

“Roll up! Win a prize every time … the prize of death!”

Hmm. Not great, that one. I was losing a bit of
inspiration by this time. But still—not bad.

At this point, I was doubled over with laughter. But then I noticed the silence spreading out around me. That very particular silence you get when you’ve done something wrong and it’s been discovered.

I stopped laughing and straightened up. Mom was glaring at me with that special look of hers, and everyone else was shaking their heads and making
tut-tut
noises. Charlie was laughing hysterically. Dad was trying to look angry, but I could see he was holding in a grin.

See, that’s the thing about my dad. He’s not truly a grown-up. I don’t think he passed the test they give out when you’re supposed to become a real adult.

Everyone was so busy glaring at me that no one actually noticed the deadbeats. They’d reacted to my voice track and were heading straight toward the Zee-Zees. Not only that, but it seemed my voice was drawing more out of the trees also. Maybe the zombies liked the same movies my dad did.

The first deadbeat arrived at the Zee-Zee directly below us and stumbled inside with a drawn-out moan. There was a bright flash of light,
an electrical hum, then a sad little wisp of smoke drifted up into the gray sky.

I lifted my hands in the air and did a little victory dance.

Then Mom grabbed my ear and dragged me back home.

WEDNESDAY, DECEMBER 25

10:00 a.m
. So far, today has been a total waste of time. I don’t know why I even bother asking for presents. Every year it’s the same thing.

“Matt,” my mom says, “what do you want Santa to bring you?”

And every year since I was eight, I give my mom a look of utter scorn that she fails to recognize and tell her what I want Santa to bring.

Then on Christmas morning I unwrap a gift that is light-years away from what I asked for.

I’m not talking slightly different here, like the kind of mistake you expect parents to make. (For instance, asking for Runespell 5 and being given
the expansion pack for Runespell 4 instead.) That kind of thing is expected. You clear a spot on your day-after-Christmas schedule to head off to the mall on an exchange run, where you join the lines of others doing exactly the same thing.

No, what I’m talking about is so extreme it can only be intentional. I reckon my parents are either, A: experimenting on me, to see what kind of adult they can create by constantly disappointing me as a child, or B: they’ve laid bets on how long it will take for me to break down and ask to see a shrink.

This year I asked for the Runesword that would let me play Runespell without the control pad. (My cleric is twenty-eighth level, and I’ve been playing him for two years now.) Charlie, Calvin, and Aren are all asking for the same thing, and we planned on spending Christmas afternoon playing online.

Guess what I got. Go on. I bet you’ll never get it.

Give up?

Fine.

I got a hamster.

I’m not even kidding.

A hamster.

Called Snuffles.

I stared at my parents as they stood next to
the Christmas tree. I thought it was some kind of joke, that they would step aside with a flourish and shout “Surprise!” as they handed over the sword.

No such luck. Instead, they stared at me expectantly with big smiles on their faces.

“We know it’s not what you asked for,” said Mom.

A million points to Mom for stating the obvious.

Dad stepped in. “But your mother—that is,
we
—thought this would be better for you,” he said. “Teach you how to look after something, to nurture another living being. That kind of thing.”

I didn’t want to nurture another living being! I wanted to cut down hordes of goblins with a plastic sword! Why couldn’t people understand that? It was a very simple concept.

I looked at Snuffles. He was standing on his hind legs, staring at me with eyes as black as a shark’s. I got the distinct feeling he was laughing at me.

Still, I didn’t want to hurt their feelings, so I forced a smile onto my face. “Um … thanks?”

But because I had to express my disappointment somehow, I decided to resort to a bit of passive-aggressiveness.

“I’ll just watch him on his wheel while Charlie and the others are fighting goblins and orcs with their swords.”

I should have known that kind of thing was too subtle for them.

“You see?” Mom said to Dad. “I told you he’d prefer a hamster to a stupid sword.”

Dad said nothing, but I noticed the brief look of shame that flashed across his face.

He knew! He knew how I would feel about the hamster, and he caved in to Mom.

I’d make him pay for that.

I looked at Katie’s presents. No Christmas morning disappointment for her. She got the huge dollhouse she asked for as well as the really expensive dolls that went with it.

Was that fair?

1:00 p.m
. My mom’s sister, Aunt Carla, and Gran arrived while Mom was preparing Christmas dinner.

Gran’s first words when she came through the door were, “Smells like something’s burning.”

Mom sprinted to the kitchen to check on the turkey. Gran smiled at me while Aunt Carla looked
around her with her usual expression of disapproval. (She looks like she’s constantly sucking on a lemon. Her mouth is all pursed and frowny.) She ran her finger over the bannister, checking for dust. Muffled wails erupted from the kitchen.

It had started.

2:00 p.m
. My mom must have inherited her gift-giving genes from Gran. Katie got gift vouchers to spend on whatever she wanted. I was really happy when I saw that. I could put them toward buying the Runesword I wanted.

But my destiny in life is to be constantly disappointed. Mom and Gran must have conspired, because Gran got me one of those weird hamster houses. You know, the ones that have the two holes in the casing that you attach all those plastic tubes to. You’re supposed to spend your allowance on buying more of the tubes and make all those weird shapes so the hamster can climb through them and have “hours of hamstery fun,” as the box puts it.

“Can I trade it in for the cash instead?” I asked.

Mom opened her mouth, probably to shout at
me, but before she could say anything there was a heavy knock at the door.

2:30 p.m
. A few minutes later, we (and everyone else in the street) had been herded out of our houses and told to stand in the freezing cold, hopping from foot to foot while tall, scary officials dressed head to toe in black body armor ordered us around like cattle.

Our street was undergoing a surprise Zombie Squad inspection.

The Zombie Squad’s job is to make sure that everyone who said they were alive really was alive and hadn’t passed away and turned into a zombie or something.

That was everyone’s greatest fear: a deadbeat turning up
inside
Edenvale’s walls.

“The longer you complain, the longer this will take!” shouted the leader of the squad. He wore a black helmet with a tinted visor covering the top half of his face. He looked a bit like RoboCop. Or Judge Dredd.

“It’s Christmas Day!” said Mom, who happened to be first in line. “Why didn’t you do this last week?”

The man tilted his head down and stared at Mom. He probably expected this to intimidate her, but he obviously didn’t know my mom.

“I’m cooking Christmas dinner,” she said. “You didn’t even let me turn the oven off. If my turkey burns I’m suing you.”

“Ma’am, do you think I
want
to be here? Don’t you think I’d rather be at home with my own family on Christmas Day?”

Mom softened slightly, and the Zombie Squad leader bared his teeth in what might have been a smile.

“But I don’t have a family, do I? So to answer your question, yes, we could have done this last week, but it’s easier for us to do it today. Everyone gathered at their homes on Christmas Day? Makes our job a hundred times easier. Wrist!”

Mom bit her tongue and held out her wrist. The Zombie Squad leader ran a handheld device over the lifechip embedded deep beneath her skin, then read the display.

“Emma Hunter. Husband. Three children. Where is your family?”

We raised our hands, and he ran the device
very slowly over our lifechips.

“Says here you’re all still alive. Well done.”

“Of course we’re alive, you idiot!” snapped Gran. “You can see that!”

He turned to Gran. “Can’t always trust the eyes, ma’am. You could be a new breed of particularly cunning zombie. Have to make sure.”

The Zombie Squad officer ran the scanner over Gran’s wrist and read the display. Then he did it again, just to be on the safe side.

I should point out that Zombie Squad officers aren’t really known for their sharp wits. They’re more like a volunteer police force. Normal people with a craving for power. I imagine the entry exams go something like this.

Entry Exam for Being a Zombie Squad Person