My Zombie Hamster (6 page)

1:00 a.m
. Party went off without a hitch. Everyone surprised. Especially Mom. She floated around the house congratulating herself on a great party. I understand why she did it, but it must have looked a bit self-absorbed to those who didn’t know our history of terrible events. Even Dad’s rendition of “Danny Boy” got a smattering of polite applause. Everyone’s gone home now. Time for sleep.

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 1

I couldn’t be bothered writing this last night because I was too exhausted after the party, but as I was closing my curtains to get ready for bed I saw a movement in the yard below. I opened the window and leaned out into the cold air, trying to see what had caught my attention.

Then I saw him.

Anti-Snuffles.

He was sitting in the middle of the lawn, basking in the glow of the streetlight. Staring at me. Seriously. He was staring directly at me. If he’d had fingers he’d have been doing that
pointing-at-his-own-eyes-then-pointing-at-me thing. You know, the one that means “I’m watching you.”

I grabbed the butterfly net and ran downstairs, but by the time I opened the front door he’d vanished.

Seriously worried about this. Was he coming for me? Did turning into a zombie hamster give him some sort of superintelligence? Was he the world’s first zombie hamster supervillain?

THURSDAY, JANUARY 2

I e-mailed Charlie and told her to come over. I couldn’t keep this a secret any longer.

“So let me get this straight,” she said, after I’d explained it to her. “Your dad bought you a hamster from a sleazy store, and now it’s turned into a zombie?”

“Yes!”

“And it’s escaped?”

“Yes!”

“And you called it Snuffles?” she asked, trying not to laugh.

“I didn’t call it Snuffles! The name sort of came with the hamster. But now he’s called”—I paused dramatically—“Anti-Snuffles.”

Charlie frowned at me. “Auntie Snuffles? That’s a weird name for a zombie hamster.”

“Not ‘Auntie’ as in a relative. ‘Anti’ as in the opposite of. The evil version.”

“Got it. Well, I like the name Auntie Snuffles. Was the hamster a boy or a girl?”

“I have no idea.”

“A girl, I think. Auntie Snuffles, the zombie hamster. It has a nice ring to it.”

“It’s Anti-Snuffles!” I protested. I mean, come on. It’s kind of hard to be freaked out by a hamster called Auntie Snuffles.

“Do you want my help?” Charlie asked.

“Well, obviously,” I said. “Why else would I call you over?”

“Then what’s her name?” asked Charlie pointedly.

I sighed. “Auntie Snuffles,” I mumbled.

“Good,” said Charlie brightly. “Now, let’s see if we can find her and release her into the wild.”

I should point out here that Charlie is a bit of an activist, even though, in my opinion, she sometimes gets a bit confused about what she’s being an activist
for
. She’s currently a member of the Undead Liberation Front, a group of students
campaigning to allow deadbeats to roam around outside the walled cities and live their own lives without interference from us. Free from Zee-Zees and that kind of stuff. When I tried to point out to her that it was hard to give zombies their freedom when all they really wanted to do was leap for your throat, she told me it was an
internal
liberation.

Then she punched me in the arm.

We put on our deadbeat defense uniforms. Charlie had a hockey goalkeeper outfit. I was a bit jealous of that, especially when I pulled on my mom’s boots and Charlie laughed and headed out into the backyard.

We spent ages searching for any sign of Anti-Snuffles (I refuse to call him Auntie Snuffles), but couldn’t find anything. I even got my Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass to check for footprints, but the ground was frozen solid.

Charlie eventually got bored and went home to play Runespell against Calvin and Aren.

FRIDAY, JANUARY 3

Had to come up with a plan. I couldn’t let Mom or Dad find out about Snuffles. I mean, that’s obvious. First, I’d get into trouble because I let the hamster die, even though it wasn’t my fault, and second, Dad would get into serious trouble (from Mom and from the authorities) for buying a pet without the proper paperwork. So I took Katie to the local Toys ᴙ Us. (I had to take her with me. What if I’d been spotted buying what I wanted to buy? My already shaky street cred would have gone up in smoke.)

Of course, getting Katie there in the first place wasn’t exactly easy. When I went upstairs to ask her, she was playing with her Cally and Edward
dolls, the ones she got for Christmas, pushing them in Cally’s pink car. But as I watched she rammed the car full speed into her new dollhouse. Cally’s head flew from her shoulders, and an explosion of red burst from the headless doll, splattering up everywhere. Tomato sauce. I hoped.

Edward was flung from the car as well. Katie made him crawl across the carpet and propped him up against the dollhouse with Cally’s plastic head in his lap.

“Oh, Cally,” said Katie in her Edward voice, “this is all my fault. If only I had a brain instead of good looks, I would have told you to put your safety belt on. But my brain is the size of a walnut, and now all I’ve got left is your head.”

Katie then put on her Cally voice. “Oh, Edward. Did you realize that the human brain can still function for up to three minutes after decapitation? Kiss me, my love. Let my last sight be your beautiful but stupid lips.”

She then switched to her Edward voice again. “Eew, gross, Cally. Anyway, I was bringing you here to break up with you. I’m seeing your sister Sally. So this all worked out really well for me. Ha-ha-ha.”

Cally voice: “Foiled again! It serves me right for not paying attention in school and relying on my good looks to get me through life. If only—
eurgh
.”

Edward voice: “Good. Now she is dead. Perhaps a bear will eat her, and I won’t even have to bother with a funeral.”

It was at this point I closed my wide-open mouth and interrupted her, asking her to come with me. She agreed, but only if I bought her a Wednesday Addams doll.

A small price to pay to keep from being found out, I’m sure you’ll agree.

So I’ve kept up the suspense long enough. I bet you’re wondering what I bought. I went down there planning on buying a small remote-control dog, or a hamster or a guinea pig. Anything that I could bury in the sawdust and activate whenever Mom came near. My thinking was that I could move it around in the sawdust so she thought he was still alive.

I found something even better. Okay, it’s a kitten, but a kitten that activates whenever someone comes close to it. Some kind of infrared sensor or something. I had to take out its voice box, though,
seeing as it meowed and purred every time you walked past it.

(Katie walked in on me doing that. A knife poised above the toy’s throat. She stared at me for a while, then nodded and said, “I approve, big brother. Carry on.”)

But it’s all set up perfectly now. I’ve put the cage in the corner of my room, by the top of my bed. No one needs to go near there for anything. If Mom does venture up that way, Snuffles 2.0 will wriggle around a bit beneath the sawdust, looking like a real, living hamster.

It’s even brown, just like Snuffles 1.0.

SATURDAY, JANUARY 4

10.00 a.m
. Had a visit from the Neighborhood Communications Officer. She was a tall, thin woman with her hair tied up so tight it pulled her face back as if she was standing in a gale-force wind. Every time she talked, the tension made her hairline shiver and tremble. I kept expecting her hair to burst free from its bindings, erupting into a huge, bushy halo, while her face sagged back into its natural wrinkles and lines.

“Is your mother/father/caregiver or nanny in?” she asked when I answered the door.

I thought about this. “Yes, yes, no, and no.”

She frowned slightly. At least she tried to, but the only outward appearance was a tiny line
appearing in the center of her forehead.

“May I speak with one of them?”

I thought back to the last time I had seen my parents. Mom had been standing in front of our faulty oven, scolding it hysterically and trying to stop it from popping open, and Dad had been trying to do something he called the moonwalk instead of writing like he was supposed to be doing.

“They’re a bit busy,” I said. “Can I take a message?”

“I suppose so. But make sure you tell them, yes? Failure to pass on a message from a designated NCO can result in a fine and/or imprisonment. Do you understand?”

I nodded.

“Good. Message is as follows: All families are to report to the town green tomorrow at eleven a.m. sharp, when there will be an important government announcement. Good day to you, child.”

10:30 p.m
. As I was drifting off I suddenly realized I had forgotten to tell Mom and Dad about the meeting on the town green. Will cook them breakfast before I break the news. That should soften them up.

SUNDAY, JANUARY 5