Excerpt: Zombie Dawn

“All right, everyone. I need you to shut up and pay attention.” A woman at the front of the room barked out. She was not exactly the image of a mean teacher, at least not physically. Her hair was blonde and cut smoothly around her ears which accentuated her smooth face and chubby features. Her eyes were a sparkling blue that seemed alert and wise, even when her thin eyebrows were jutting down like a capital V. She was not overly fat, but there was definitely some unneeded blubber around her arms and middle region. In fact, if I had not known her, I would think that she was a perfectly nice and jovial woman. She was not, and was instead Mrs. Baker, the English teacher that at that time was sure had sprouted up from Hell.
I had gotten Mrs. Baker for English last year as well, and was wondering what faculty member had it out for me so badly to put me in her class again. It was a good thing that she only taught Freshmen and Sophomores. Unless someone pulled some incredibly heavy strings, next year I would get someone who did not think that torturing the entire class was a good method of education. At least this year Angela was going to suffer with me. Not that I liked seeing my friend in agony, but it was nice to have someone that could help me through the ordeal. “I see there are some familiar faces this year.” Mrs. Baker continued, “As well as some new comers. Well, for those who do not know me, I am Mrs. Baker. I will not tolerate disrespect of any kind. No drinking, eating, talking, chewing gum, texting, calling, sketching, doing homework for other classes, listening to music, throwing paper airplanes, or daydreaming will be tolerated. I do not give warnings, extra credit, or second chances. It should also be noted that trying to transfer to another class with the excuse that ‘Mrs. Baker is mean’ will be promptly thrown into the admissions office trash bin. Are there any questions?” Just like last year, there was an incredibly awkward silence and nothing more. After all, what is there to say after a teacher yells out a crisply rehearsed speech about how absolutely nothing will be tolerated and that there is no way out of it? I had heard this speech last year, but it still blew me away. I think that my jaw fell open, making me look like a dazed fuzzy brown porcupine.
Mrs. Baker waited a few more seconds for any questions from the students that she had just scared into submission, and then continued as if she had not paused at all. “I am going to assign seats, so everyone get up and move to the wall.” We all groaned, but slowly made our way to the far wall to line up as if we were cattle. Angela stood right next to me and handed me another pixie stix, smiling slightly. “She is not as bad as I thought she would be.” My friend told me, opening up her own sacred sack of sugar, “Strict, maybe, but I do not think that this will be the end of the world.” At that moment, Mrs. Baker turned to look at us, and our powdered elixirs of life that we had in our hands. “You two, detention.” She yelped, and I was half-inclined to throw what was left of my candy into her bouncy blonde hair.
Angela shrugged a bit, smiled at Mrs. Baker and said in a very cheerful voice, “I am very sorry Mrs. Baker, it will not happen again.” However, Mrs. Baker did not seem that impressed, “I highly doubt that.” She growled, and started to assign seats. The first desk belonged to Marissa Ackers, so I quickly guessed that the teacher was going by alphabetical order. She was, and I sat there hoping that somehow Angela and I would match up, privately wishing that my desire of having someone to help me get through this ordeal would not be thwarted by the evil conspiracy that was an assigned seating chart. Angela was seated, and I had to wait awkwardly by myself for my own name to be called.
Now might be a good time to tell you that I do not have many friends. It is not because I am weird or unlikable, it is just because I like the weird and unlikable people that no one else seems to. The problem with this is that weird people seem to actually be in the minority, and not all of them want to be friends with me. Some of them are perfectly content with sitting around and looking scary, so I let them and leave them alone. I did not used to, but after being thrown into a dumpster a couple of times, I learned which of the outsiders were there on purpose and which ones really wanted friends but were too much on the edges to have many.
The point of all that was to explain why out of a class of thirty-three, Angela was the only one I was comfortable enough with to talk to. None of my other friends were in my English class this year, so I was kind of depending on Angela to help me through it. Unfortunately, another row filled and all the seats next to her were occupied by students. I sighed, although fairly quietly because I did not want to attract the attention of Mrs. Baker.
“Is something wrong?” a voice asked, and I ended up jumping at the sound of it. It was not exactly an abnormal voice, a bit gravelly maybe, but it had taken me by surprise. I turned to look at the source of the voice, and caught the gaze of a boy who I did not recognize. He had dark eyes that kind of resembled Angela’s, but his hair was much darker than hers was. It fell messily down to his shoulders, and had a slight curl to it. His skin reminded me of a bar of Hershey’s Special Dark chocolate, which made me think about how painfully pale I must look next to him. I was now a drowned fuzzy brown porcupine. I came back to his eyes, just because they were slightly strange. They were not cross-eyed or anything, but there was some sort of far off quality to them, as if he was not actually in the classroom with me, but miles and miles away. “No, nothing is wrong. Mind your own business.” I snapped at him. Apparently the holy bag of sugar had not worked. The boy just nodded and turned away without another word. I thought that was strange, but I had told him to mind his own business, so I decided to not think about it all that much. The name Trent Ma-something-or-other was called, and the strange boy walked to the seat that Mrs. Baker was pointing at with a slow, deliberate walk. It was very strange, and at that moment I realized that I really wanted to be this guy’s friend.