Why I Quit Zombie School
Matt Krinsky is said to always see the bad. He’s moved to a new town and a new school. As soon as he gets to his new boarding school, he knows there’s something off about it. Even the name-Romero Academy-is weird to Matt. And he ought to know because he’s into all things horror. The first thing he notices is that even tho it’s sunny, the school is hidden in shadow. Matt explores the school while his parents go to get his stuff settled in.
Matt sees three boys standing around a trash can. They’re eating something that turns out to be .., a dead squirrel. When Matt tries to point them out to his parens and sister (Jaime) they’ve vanished. They tell him to save his stories for a creative writing class, but he knows what he saw. Or did he?
The principal-a pale man with yellow-green eyes- introduces himself as Mr. Craven and encourages Matt to join their team “The Vultures”. He’s then introduced to Franny and weirdly he introduces Matt as “the newest victim”. Fanny says the school is big and doesn’t want him to get lost and never seen again. She offers to give him the tour. Franny describes the school as “dead” but tells Matt he’ll get use it. He also notices that everyone is moving slowly. The hall also smells funky and musty. He asks why everyone is moving so slowly. She tells him don’t make stupid jokes. Then two guys step up and block the hall. They ask if he’s the new kid. Their eyes don’t have pupils.
Franny introduced them to Wayne and Angelo (twins). When they leave, he asks what’s up with their eyes. But she answers so? Like this is normal. Wayne and Angelo come back and take over the tour. Wayne shows Matt the lunch room and says they eat all their meals there. That is unless they go out for prowling. Matt doesn’t know what in the world their talking about. There are sounds like chocking coming from the room.
Another weird thing he says is the coach “still has the juice” when he mentions everything in the gym is new. Again he notices how slow everyone is playing in the volley ball game. Wayne then asks him if he has night troubles and confides in him sometimes he has “moon fever.” He says sometimes Angelo get it too but he just won’t admit it. He also shows him the “reviver” room. On the way back to Matt’s family, Matt notices a book on the floor. Wayne slips on it, falls, his head cracks, and he plunges down all the steps.Angelo doesn’t do anything so Matt starts to scream.
He runs to get a teacher. They put him on a stretcher and carry him off. Surprisingly Angelo just tells Matt he’s glad he came there. Now they’ll have a replacement for his brother on the soccer time. To his brother being hurt he just says you know how it is. His parents and sister just think he’s over-reacting again. After they leave, he puts out his monster figurines and puts up his movie-monster- posters. Then he takes out his monster makeup and puts black makeup around his eyes, turns his skin pale, and makes his flesh look ripped, and his lips black with blood trickling down his chin.
He sees Frany in the mirror and decides to scare her but Franny acts like this is nothing out of the ordiary and starts complimenting his room. Then she offers to go on a walk with him. He tells her to let him wash the makeup off and she says “You mean it’s makeup?” He asks about Wayne and she says it’s not good. They took him to the reviver room but it didn’t take. Matt asks what goes on in the room and after a tick she answers you go in that room if your low or damaged and they turn on the power. The high voltage shock she says is so high it usually revives them. She says Wayne didn’t come around. He’s gone!
They go outside and crows fly overhead. Franny says he’ll get use to this. There’s a black fence. Franny says no one wants to go there. Its too depressing and sad. She asks does he want to go back there and he says no, not realizing he’ll be there soon. Days go on. Angelo doesn’t mention his twin so Matt doesn’t either. Franny starts to give him weird vibes. She seems to be.. studying him. He asks her how long she’s been to the school. She says she doesn’[t know. Time gets messed up in your head.
Things get weirder. One day, he watch’s a boy climb up the balcony and fall off. No one does anything to stop him. Then everyone starts to cheer. Then everyone else starts jumping off the balcony. Matt is confused. Angelo tells him it’s one way bungee jumping. Then urges him to try it. When he tries to tell his sister about it she doesn’t believe him. He’s sickened and tells her the worse part is when they got up from the jump they were all fine. He starts to tell her the school is weird but then she tells him she has to go.
Even tho he’s lost his appetite he goes to lunch and ses the kids eating what looks like raw meat-chicken legs- and gray soup sluring it down. The drink machine has a thick, clotted, drink that looks like blood. Matt asks Angelo why the school is so strange and he says he’ll get use to it. Before he can get more of an answer a kid starts to chock and then throw up brown stuff everywhere. Again, everyone acts like this is normal! The boy stumbles out of the dinning room. Angelo tells him no worries. He’ll be ok. He’s going to the reviver room.
Matt tries to get Franny alone to ask her the many questions he has. In the library they’re interrupted and then she leaves and tells him she’ll talk to him later. Before she leaves tho she asks him when he died. Franny is shocked to find out he’s alive and tells him then they’re the only two alive in the school. Then she drops the bomb. It’s a ZOMBIE school. Fanny says they have to keep it a secret they’re alive. They have to walk slow, act dumb, and be a little clumsy. If not they’re in danger. Matt says forget that. He’s leaving. He can run to the highway. She tells him the crows are trained to guard the school and they’ll alert the others. She says if they find out they’re alive they’ll kill them,
Of course, Matt’s parents don’t take him serious. His mom tells him he just needs to make some friends. Then she wishes him luck. WORSE PARENTS EVER! She tells him they’ll be there Saturday for parents week. The door burst open and Angelo and three other boys tell Matt they just heard about him. But they just found out he was all star on his old school’s soccer team and want him to try out.
Matt tho forgets when he’s trying out to dial it back and starts to get looks of suspicion. He starts to play at a more believable rate but then he kicks one of the players to hard and his leg comes off. David is taken to the reviver room. Coach tells him not to worry. Injuries like this happen all the time and sends Matt back to his room for the rest of the afternoon. Angelo and some of the guys question him after the game. He tells them it was nerves. They ask when he died and he tells them very recently. They let it go.
Saturday comes. Matt makes a deal with his parents that they’ll keep an open mind. If he can’t convince them by lunch he’ll drop it. It’s raining this day. Mr. Craven is ushering parents in. Matt tells them to shake his hand. It’ll be dry and cold but he lets them move past him without shaking hands. He shows them the other kids having breakfast but his parents just think it’s normal for kids to toss food around and eat messily. They see everyone walking slow and think it’s jutt “a relaxed atmosphere”.
A blond girl jumps off the balcony but at the same time Matt’s dad has dropped his phone so his parents backs are turned. In a last ditch effort he sees Franny and asks her to tell them what’s special about the school. She tells them the library stays open late, they have good computers, and the dining room is special. She invites Matt to a dance that night. His parents encourage him to go to get out of his fantasy world. Later, Franny tells him there were too many kids around them listening. She says some of the others are starting to suspect him and warns him to be careful at the dance.
At the dance, a kid chocks up his tongue. The dances goes on and they all do “The Stomp”. After this some guys surround Matt and the leader introduces himself as Ernie. They comment that he’s not to good a t the Stomp and he needs to practice with them. But Franny pulls him away. They claim their “just making friends”. Franny tells him their dangerous. She pulls them behind the bleacher’s when a food fight breaks out. Franny tells them they suspect him. He wants to know why they don’t suspect her. She says she’s a better actor. She tells him she’s going to help him. First he wants her to dance with him. Then he has to go to the food table and convince them.
He does a convincing stomp. Then when a girl named Evie asks him to ate some of the meat, he gets down a rotted pear instead. He asks Evie to dance but then she discovers his hand is WARM! HES STILL ALIVE! Angelo and some of the others ask when he died. He says last Sunday but they say he arrived two Sunday’s ago. Then he says 2 or 3 weeks ago. Angelo says test him. They take him to the balcony. A rubber hand saves him when he drops it, but now Ernie wants him to go to the reviver room to reattach it. But some kids drag Ernie from the room and back to the Stomp contest.
The next morning, he gives his skin a tint of blue. But it runs off when Matt has to “run” in gym class. He starts to sweat and a ring of it gets on his tee-shirt. He’s snatched up by some guys in the locker room. They notice he has a heartbeat. Matt takes off running. But he’s hit by a softball and falls. He recovers and runs to the tall, black, fence. The zombies catch up. Matt sees a rock, makes a leap, and swings himself over the fence. He lands hard on his back. On the other side of the fence is a graveyard. He’s locked in and the sun is going down. He sees Franny’s tombstone.
Matt realizes she must have been spying for the other kids. He thinks he sees two snakes but it’s someone tossing down a rope ladder to him. It’s Franny. Fanny confesses the kids made her spy on him because they need to know if a live kid doesn’t come there by mistake. But she says she likes him and that’s why she helped him. She said that if he comes back in the morning they’ll give him the final test. They throw you in the stone quarry and force you to stay there 20 minutes. They’ll run a car over him and throw him off a cliff. Before leaving, she wishes him luck.
Matt sneaks back to his room and gives himself the best makeup job he’s ever done. But will it be enough? Turns out he does TOO good a job and they all think he’s falling apart. They host him up and carry him to the reviver room. Inside he meets the reviver who says he’ll make him good as new. He says he’ll be more careful this time. The last boy he burnt. Then he pulls down the switch. The machine tho is out of juice from the other kid. Matt tho jumps up and says he’s fixed. The reviver is convinced and tells him to go back to class.
In a week, Matt begs his parents and he’s put in another boarding school for normal kids. Only when he’s drinking from the water fountain-the water is red-. The kids in the dining hall are drinking something from bowls that’s red. The principal has fangs and he welcoms him to “Dracula Middle School.”
My Thoughts
Of all the horror books I’ve read about monsters, I think zombie stories have been the least of all. So, I did enjoy this one. I didn’t have a lot of comments for it. It’s just one of those books that you like just because you like and that’s all the reason you need. I did wonder tho why these parents always have to be so unbelieving and clueless. If my child told me they were ia school that was dangerous and they feared for their lives, I don’t care how much of a jokester they were, I think I’d listen. And then I guess the lesson here is that you can’t just believe something -or think it’s a good idea- because you see it on the internet. Why would you even pick a school like that? Something like this actually did tho happen to someone in my family. He saw something on You Tube-an eating place- and he was driven two hours just to find out that the food he wanted was NOT good. But he listened to people saying how good it was. SMH! I think these parents just wanted to get rid of this kid so bad that they didn’t care *what* kind of school they sent him away too.
Rating: 7