Night of the Zombie Chickens (14 page)

“It was perfect,” I assure her. “I couldn't have written it better myself.”

We head upstairs, where the sun is already starting to set. We grab the last shot of Mallory walking into the sunset. Sure, it's a little cliché, but it looks great. Another lump rises in my throat. My zombie movie is in the can, as the movie people say. This is the moment I've been waiting for. I get to shout the three sacred words of moviedom used by every director, big and small. The woods swell with birdsong, a cool breeze blows against my cheek, and Margaret's hair looks like it's caught fire in the late-afternoon light. I wonder if George Lucas felt this good when he finished
Star
Wars
.

I fill my lungs with air and shout: “IT'S A WRAP!”

W
e mill around in the road for a while as I savor the wonderful feeling of finishing my movie. Then suddenly, I'm starving hungry. My mother makes a pizza and ­Margaret, Doris, and I sit on the back steps, laughing and talking. It feels good to be hanging out with friends. ­Margaret and Doris both seem excited about being in my film. It's definitely a big change from my last shoot with Alyssa and Lydia.

Margaret turns to me and says out of the blue: “I heard Paul Corbett got in big trouble a few days ago.”

This doesn't surprise me. He's always in trouble. “What did he do this time?”

“Stealing. He got caught at the Quik-Hop Pit-Stop stealing a CD.” Her big blue eyes turn on me. “Isn't that stupid?”

She seems to be waiting for a reply, so I nod. It feels like all the leaves around us have stopped moving, and my heart along with them. Is Margaret just making conversation, or is she making a point?

“He probably thought it was no big deal,” Margaret says. I wish she would look away. I feel pinned under her bright blue gaze. “But now he has to go in front of a judge. And my mom says he'll probably have to do community service work.”

“It will do him good,” I mutter. I look away and fumble with my drink. Why does Margaret keep staring at me?

She looks down but an accusing silence remains.
She knows, she knows, she knows.
The words drum in my head. I can feel myself starting to sweat. Finally, I can't stand it any longer. “Just what are you trying to say?” I ask loudly.

Margaret gazes at me. Her eyes are a little too wide open, a little
too
surprised. “What do you mean?”

“You know what I mean.” I feel like I'm choking on the words.

She gives me the same innocent look. “What would I be trying to say?”

“If you don't know, then I don't know, either,” I mutter.

Doris is staring between us like we're both crazy. “What are you talking about?”

I feel like I'm suddenly in an old Donald Duck cartoon, with a tiny angel perched on one shoulder and a red devil on the other.

It will be a relief to tell someone,
the angel whispers.
She already knows, anyway. It
'
s time to come c
lean.

Don
'
t be stupid!
the devil screams.
Keep it a secret! Cover your tr
acks!

Yes, I need to keep it secret. It's funny, though, how a secret can feel so heavy. After a while, you just want to put it down and rest. I close my eyes and listen to the leaves murmuring in the trees. It sounds like they're saying
shush, shush, shush
. But I can't.

“I did it,” I whisper.

Doris peers at me. “Did what?”

Then, just like that, my desire to confess is gone, replaced by icy-cold fear. I can't afford to lose the only two friends I have. I grab another piece of pizza. “Nothing,” I say through a mouthful of cheese. “Just kidding.”

It's the first time I've seen Doris look so confused. Margaret also takes a slice and nibbles on it. The way she's not looking at me, I know it's too late.

I nod, even though she hasn't asked.

“The wig?” Her voice is so quiet I almost don't hear it.

I keep nodding. My cheeks are burning and I wish I could sink into the dirt.

“The wig?” Doris echoes. “Are you talking about the red wig Alyssa took?”

I'm hoping Margaret will jump in and explain everything, but she just looks at me.

“I took it,” I mutter. “It wasn't Alyssa.”

“You?” Doris sounds surprised. “Why would you take it?”

I thought I would feel better getting it off my chest, but I only feel ashamed. My face burns as I explain my plan and I can hardly get the words out. I even explain about film noir and how the bad guys always take the fall, and how Alyssa was the bad guy. As I say it out loud, it all sounds pretty lame.

Margaret gazes down at her pizza when I get to the part about using her to get the note to Alyssa. “I wanted to teach her a valuable lesson,” I say quickly. “I wanted her to know what it's like to get hurt by her friends, so she won't do it again to someone else.”

Doris nods like she gets it. “You wanted revenge.”

“No!” I wriggle in my seat. “Well, maybe a little. Can you blame me?”

Now even Margaret and Doris think badly of me. What if they don't want to sit with me anymore at lunch? It would be like a so-sad-it's-funny scene out of a movie—Alyssa and me eating our lunches in side-by-side bathroom stalls because no one else wants to sit with us.

Finally, Margaret speaks. I'm expecting she'll be mad, but her voice is quiet. “I get why you did it, after the way Alyssa treated you. It was really stupid, but I get it. But now I'm kind of part of it. You made me an accessory.”

“No one would blame you,” I quickly say. “Anyway, no one will know.” I give them a sideways look. “I mean, unless you decide to tell someone.”

Doris has been busy polishing her glasses, not looking at me. A few weeks ago, I was embarrassed to sit with her. Now I feel a horrible sinking in my stomach at the thought I've disappointed her. She finally glances at me. Her brown eyes are really sort of pretty now that I can actually see them. “That depends on what you're going to do.”

“I was only going to hold on to the wig a couple of weeks and then return it,” I say eagerly. “Once the wig is back, no one will care. No harm done.”

“People will still think Alyssa took it,” Margaret points out. “They'll always remember. Even in high school, she'll be the girl who stole the wig in seventh grade.”

“And I'll still be remembered as Crapkate,” I retort. “They're going to write in my yearbook:
The girl most likely to step in crap
.” My voice goes up a notch. “I only did to her what she did to me!”

Doris carefully replaces her glasses. She turns her newly cleaned focus on me. “Do you think it was Alyssa's fault that crap fell off your shoe?”

“Well, no. She made fun of me afterward, though. She ditched me to hang out with Lydia.”

“So she made things worse, but she didn't cause the problem,” Doris says slowly, like she's working out a logic problem. “She didn't set out to hurt you on purpose, correct?”

I'm not sure how to answer, so I just shrug.

“And she didn't try to get you in trouble at school, or with the other kids.”

“No,” I mutter. Doris has dissected the ugly matter like it was a dead frog in biology class. My shriveled black heart lies exposed for all the world to see. I know it's selfish to worry about myself, but I can't help asking again, “Are you guys going to tell anyone?”

Margaret and Doris glance at each other. My life hangs in the balance. They both shake their heads, and I breathe a huge sigh of relief.

“I think we should help you undo the mess, not make it worse,” Margaret says. “We need to come up with a new plan.”

O
ver the next few days, I think hard, but once again I come up blank. I have no idea how to return the wig and get Alyssa off the hook for taking it. I can only hope that Margaret's and Doris's supersize brains will hatch a plan. I'm so thankful they're not giving me the cold shoulder that I would gladly follow any scheme they come up with.

I also don't want to think about the baby monitor stuffed in my closet. After risking my life to rescue it from the basement, I can't find the nerve to use it. I'm scared of what I might hear. Plus, I'm not keen about adding
snoop
to my list of dubious achievements.

It's much easier to focus on my movie. I'm excited as I watch the final scene we shot. I've already edited parts of my movie, but now it's time to get serious about finishing it. I recently read on the Internet that making a movie longer than two hours is a serious no-no unless you're a big-name director with a megastar cast. Movie theaters can't show a long movie as many times per night, which means they make less money. It's all about pushing the popcorn and making a buck. I figure if the big boys can keep their blockbusters to two hours, then so can I. I have to grit my teeth as I slash scenes that took days of work to write, plan, and shoot. It feels a little like I'm slashing my own children.

It turns out I have way too many scenes of Alyssa being chased by zombies and not enough footage of the hens. At least, not good footage. Even though Alyssa and I tried to capture zombie behavior, in most shots the hens are running away from the camera.

If I had a big budget, I could call up one of those Holly­wood animal companies and it'd ship me over some trained chickens, no problem. They probably have hens that will drop dead on command or run around in circles and act berserk. Or I could hire a special effects guy to make their eyes glow red and give them huge razor claws and beaks. But since I'm on a shoestring budget, it's all up to me. I've got to make those ladies perform.

I take my camera out to the chicken coop, watching the hens from the corner of my eye. In
Chicken Run
, the hens have a secret room underneath the chicken coop where they make all their plans. I jump up and down, testing the floorboards. They seem solid enough. I stroll over to their laying beds and dig under the straw. No hidden trap doors.

Suddenly, I feel silly. Of course there aren't any trap doors. That was an animated film about hens that built an airplane, blew up a barn, and flew the coop. These ladies clucking at my feet are real birds, simple barnyard animals. There's no plan to ruin my life. The only thing they know how to do is eat and peck and poop. They're all watching me right now, but only because they're used to me serving up their meals. They probably can't figure out why I'm not feeding them.

My camera is set up on its tripod in a corner of the coop. I turn it on, then take out a box of my mom's organic oatmeal. Hens love oatmeal. I grab two handfuls of it and fling them into the air. The hens go crazy, trying to snap up the flakes. I throw another handful and some of it lands on their backs, so now the hens are pecking at each other, too. They're not hurting each other—they just want the oatmeal—but in the camera it looks like a chicken mob scene. In my movie, this scene will come right after the hens have eaten the polluted chicken feed, when they're all starting to zombify.

After the oatmeal is gone, a hen I've named Spike wanders over and pecks at my tripod, like she's hoping it's a big black worm she can gobble up. Spike may not have lots of brains, but she's at the top of the pecking pyramid. She's a tough chick, with a mean beak and a quick claw. I'm surprised her eggs don't come out hard-boiled.

Spike tries to peck at my shoe, and I shove her away with my foot, but this gives me an idea. I've been trying to get a super close-up shot of just an eye and a beak, but whenever I get near a hen with my camera, she gets nervous and bolts. Spike seems pretty fearless; maybe she will let me get my shot.

I open the coop door and the hens bolt out after me.

I shake out some more oatmeal in the grass, then sink down at eye level near Spike and focus my camera. At first she gives me the evil eye, but she's distracted by the oatmeal. The shot would be better if her eyes were rolling backward and rabid foam dripped from her beak, but I can't get too picky. Just as I hit the on button, I hear the loud crunch of gravel behind me, and Derek shouts, “Whatcha doin'?”

Spike squawks and runs away. The rest of the birds scatter. Another great film moment lost forever. “Derek!” I shout. “You scared them off!”

“Sorry,” he says, his voice whiny. “I just wanted to see what you were doing.”

Sometimes I think Spike has a bigger IQ than Derek. “When I'm pointing my camera at something and looking through the viewfinder, that means I'm shooting video.”

I say it sarcastically, but he just nods and kicks at the grass. Then he grins sideways at me. “Wanna see something funny?”

“No.”

“Come on,” he whines. “It's really funny.”

“Fine, whatever. Just hurry up.”

I'm thinking he's got something stupid in his pocket to show me, but he reaches up and sticks his finger in his nose and starts shoveling around inside.

“That is not funny,” I inform him. “That is totally lame.”

“Just wait.” He's actually biting his tongue in concentration as he fishes around. I watch him, horrified. How will I ever win back friends with a little brother like this?

Derek finally pulls out his finger and shows me his disgusting prize. Then he leans over and offers it to a nearby hen. She cranes her neck forward. It probably looks like squished worm guts. She nervously dances around, then darts over and gobbles it off his finger. Derek grins at me like he's just taught the bird to speak French.

I'm so revolted I don't even know what to say. But I can't help it; the corner of my mouth twitches. The thought of my mother's elite hens eating Derek's nose snot is kind of funny.

Derek lets out a hoot. “Trevor and I must have fed them half a pound yesterday. They love it!”

“You are so weird,” I murmur. “You're lucky Mom didn't catch you.”

“Yeah, she'd be like”—he scrunches up his face and makes his voice screechy—“‘Derek, those boogers aren't certified organic. What are you thinking?'”

At this, I break out laughing and Derek grins.

“What are you doing?” he asks again. “Can I help?”

“Ha. Like you helped last time with the egg in the pocket? I don't think so.”

“Aw, come on, that was just a joke. I promise, I'll do whatever you say.” He looks at me, jiggling up and down like's he's cold, even though it's perfectly warm out. “Come on, ple-e-ease? Pretty please? I'll get the chickens to do whatever you want. Please please please please...”

“Fine!” I tell him, just to shut him up. I sigh loudly but secretly I'm glad. It's more fun shooting with someone else.

As Derek helps me herd the hens, it reminds me of when we were younger. He and I used to spend hours playing together with our toys. We loved to pretend that his trolls were slaves in my Barbie castle. They had to brush the Barbies' hair, cook their meals, and wash their dresses, all because of a curse laid on them by the evil Transformer space aliens. In the last couple of years, we've done more fighting than playing. Maybe fighting is the only thing we know how to do together anymore, now that I'm too old to play with toys.

“So what kind of shots do you want?” Derek asks, suddenly all business.

“I'd love to get a hen flying at the camera like it's attacking, but it's impossible. I've tried sprinkling oatmeal near the lens, and insects....”

Derek snaps his fingers like, no big deal. “I'll throw one at the camera. It'll look like it's attacking.”

“Derek!” I may not like the chickens, but I can't believe he wants to throw one. “Mom would kill us.”

“A little toss doesn't hurt them,” he scoffs. “They have wings. They land on their feet.”

“You mean you've done this before?”

He grins. “Trevor and I had a contest once to see which hen would fly the farthest.”

“Who won?”

“Henrietta. She went about half a mile trying to get away from us!”

Derek runs after Henrietta, as if to show me. She tries to scurry away, but he catches her like an old pro. I'm impressed despite myself. I tried to pick up Spike once, and she gave me a nasty peck on the hand. Since then, I've avoided trying to grab the ladies.

Derek carries Henrietta inside the coop, where our mother can't see us. I set my camera at a low angle in a corner, and he stands just out of frame. When I give him the cue, he gives Henrietta a gentle toss. Sure enough, she flaps her wings like crazy and lands right in front of the lens. She skids a little, kicking up dust, then squawks and bolts away.

“That was perfect!” I shout.

Derek grins modestly. It occurs to me that I should have hired him a lot earlier. I never would have gotten that shot with Alyssa. She's even more scared than I am to touch the chickens.

We spend the rest of the afternoon shooting together. Derek even grabs Spike and holds her tight so I can finally zoom in and get my crazed eyeball shot.

I'd forgotten how much fun my little brother can be. I even let Derek hold my camera and get a few shots on his own. When we're done, he hands the camera back to me.

“You know, I think I'm going to make a movie, too,” he says.

On another day this might have made me mad, because he's always copying what I do. But I realize it's probably the biggest compliment Derek can pay me. It's like he's saying that he wants to be like me.

So I clap him on the shoulder. “Just do yourself a favor. DON'T make a movie about chickens.”

“Nah,” he says. “Mine's going to be about vampires.”

“Good choice.”

He grins sideways at me. “Race you to the house?”

I roll my eyes. “We're not six anymore.”

He looks down and I'm gone, camera and all, feet pounding as fast as I can. It feels good to run, to hear him hooting and hollering behind me, to laugh as we collapse on the porch steps together. Most of all, it feels good to get there a step ahead of Derek. It won't be too many years before he will suddenly be taller than I am, with a deep voice rumble I won't even recognize. I know, because I already see the boys at school changing. At least for now, though, Derek still looks up to me. At least for now, I'm still faster than my little squirt brother.