Chapter 5

Chapter five I must have eventually fallen asleep because when I opened my eyes, it was light out. I checked my room to make sure that it was zombie-free. Everything was in its place, except for Frankie. His sleeping bag was empty. Oh no! Did the zombies get him instead of me? I jumped out of bed and called out his name. But there was no answer. Slowly, I tiptoed across the carpet. The movie last night said that zombies are attracted to loud noises, so I wanted to be extra special quiet. I opened the door to my room and looked down the hall. It was empty. I counted to three and ran as fast as I could into the bathroom. I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hank," I whispered to myself. "Your imagination has gone wild. This is not a movie. This is real life and you're in your real bathroom. With real toothpaste and a real shower curtain that I'm going to check again now." I grabbed the curtain and pulled it all the way to one side. "Aaagggghhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!" I screamed at the top of my lungs. There, in my real bathtub was a real zombie. His face was green. His lips were green. And his body was covered in torn rags. He let out a long, low moan. "Haaaaaaaaank," he groaned over and over. "Haaaaaaaaaaaank."

I almost jumped out of my pajamas without unbuttoning them. I opened my mouth to scream, and nothing came out. Well, something came out. It was a little chunk of last night's dinner. I wasn't going to stay around long enough to clean it up. I turned on my heels and bolted for the hall. "Zip," a familiar voice said. "It's just me, Frankie."

"Frankie!" I wheeled around to look at him. "Did they get you, too? Are you a zombie?" Frankie laughed and stood up in the bathtub. "It's just me in my Halloween costume," he answered. "I had it in my bag, so I thought I'd test it out for trick-or-treating tonight. Looks like it worked." I wanted to tell Frankie that his little test had scared me so much that my whole forehead had broken out in a cold sweat. But I was ashamed to admit that the zombie movie had gotten to me. "Tell the truth," Frankie said, climbing out of the bathtub. "I had you believing I was a real zombie, didn't I?" "No way," I answered, using my coolest voice. "I knew it was you all along." I heard small feet stomping down the hall. Then a hiss. It could only be Emily. No one else in my family walks like an elephant and wears a hissing iguana around her neck like a scarf. "Hi, Frankie," she said as she came into the

bathroom, not even blinking at his zombie costume. Wait a minute. Emily is younger than me, and she wasn't scared for one single second by Frankie's zombie-ness. What was wrong with me? "Hank, Papa Pete's on the phone for you," Emily said. "He wants to make a plan for today —although I don't get why anyone would want to spend the day with you. I'd rather spend the day with a banana peel." That was such a weird thing to say, I didn't even know how to answer her. So instead, I just made like a banana peel and slid all the way to the phone.

"Hankie, my boy," Papa Pete said. I could hear the smile in his voice. "How's your throwing arm today? Are you in the mood to go to the park and have a little pre–trick-or-treat catch?" "Sure, Papa Pete. But I had a bad night's sleep, so I don't know how good I'll be." "You don't have to be good. We're just going to have fun together. I've got my karate class this morning, so I'll come by after lunch." "Okay," I said. Then just before I hung up, I added, "Papa Pete, you don't think there are going to be any zombies in the park, do you?" "Zombies?" He sounded surprised at my