My Big Fat Zombie Goldfish (15 page)

The camera turned to Sanj, sitting at his laptop. He was looking straight into the lens. “I've now set the countdown clock. In exactly five minutes the BBEDLAM Zombie Fish Virus will upload onto the Internet. Then it will spread to every computer worldwide and everyone will see that I'm more gifted than anyone at that stupid gifted school.” He did his sinister wheeze. “Just try and stop me, little moron!” he added.

 

 

Just then some kid fish zombies staggered into the hall, and Pradeep was one of them.

As they got closer I could see he had a zombified Darren Schultz on his left and the zombified Mackenzie twins on his right. There was no way I could take them all. If only I had a mirror … I ran to the door and headed to the boys' bathroom. The zombies followed me. I stood in front of the mirrors as the zombies got closer. Darren was the first one to stand still, stunned. Then the Mackenzie twins stopped too. Pradeep looked to his left and right.

“Oh, I see you reversed the effects of the zombie stare by forcing eye contact with the opposite mirror reflection. That's cool, Tom,” Pradeep said.

“Is that what I'm doing?” I said. “Hey, wait, you're not a fish zombie after all.”

“No, I was looking for you to warn you about Sanj putting the virus on the Internet when Darren and the twins followed me. I couldn't blow my cover or they would have taken me prisoner.”

“We have to get up to the science lab, Pradeep,” I said. “They've got Frankie and Sami!”

“On the double,” Pradeep said, already heading for the stairs.

When we got to the science lab, I looked over at the countdown clock on Sanj's laptop: 02:43. There were only two minutes and forty-three seconds left to stop them.

Pradeep winked at me outside the door and then put on his zombie stare. He grabbed me by the arms and pulled me into the room.

“Swishy little fishy,” he droned.

“Moron!” Mark yelled. “Awesome. And you're too late. Ha! The fish is about to be toxic toast.”

“And you get to see my computer virus released on the world in two minutes and eleven seconds,” Sanj said.

Pradeep staggered nearer to Frankie, holding me tight like I was his prisoner. I pretended to struggle.

Sami looked over at us as she tried to squirm out of the trash can. She smiled at me and then stuck her tongue out at Pradeep, blowing a raspberry. “Ptbbllllllllbbbbbbbbllllbbbbbb! Naughty Pradeep,” she said.

Sanj grinned at me. “I think it's so fitting that my stupid little moron brother, your little moron best friend, is the one who turned you in. It's just so sad. I mean, he didn't even put up a fight or anything.…” Sanj babbled on and didn't even notice that Pradeep was zombie-walking over to the laptop cord, which was hanging over the other side of the table. Pradeep slowly reached out and yanked the cord, pulling the laptop out of Sanj's reach and into his own hands.

“Stupid little moron, huh?” Pradeep said and started typing. “Then how come I memorized your super-long ‘un-hackable' password just by watching you type it? Now I can shut this thing down.” Pradeep's fingers flew over the keyboard. Mark and Sanj both raced to stop him.

I grabbed Frankie's plastic jug and threw it at Mark. It clocked him right on the side of the head and knocked him off balance. He turned back to me. “You just did my job for me, moron, getting rid of the fish! Now I'll get rid of you.”

 

 

Sanj snatched the computer from Pradeep's hands and pushed him to the floor. You know, it is so unfair that no matter how much we outsmart our evil big brothers, they are still two feet taller and usually able to squash us if they want to. I watched Pradeep getting squashed and knew my own squashing was just a matter of time. “Forty-five seconds left and still five numbers to enter on my password code,” Sanj gloated. “There's no way to stop me now. I'll have a whole world of zombie fish slaves! You lose, I win, na-na na-na-na.”

“And you
so
lose!” Mark said as he caught up with me and grabbed me around my arms so I couldn't move.

I looked Mark right in the eye, and that's when I released my secret weapon. I opened my mouth and Frankie jumped out, slapping his tail hard across Mark's face until he fell backward into the mosquito net I'd been trapped under earlier. I quickly rolled the net around him as Frankie fell to the floor and skidded along its watery surface, skating toward Sanj.

“Look out, Frankie!” Pradeep yelled as Sanj stomped his feet, trying to squash Frankie. But Frankie bounced off the top of Sanj's boot, leaped over his head and landed on the laptop.

Ten seconds, read the clock. Frankie flipped around on the keyboard, thwacking keys with his tail and dodging Sanj's fist. The clock ticked on:

7 …

6 …

5 …

Thwack, thwack, thwack on the keys.

4 …

3 …

2 …

Tap tap, tap.

1 …

And then it froze.

Sanj stared at the screen. “Impossible,” he said. “How could a fish type in code?” Sanj collapsed on the floor talking to himself.

“Yeah, you'd have to be a stupid little moron to be outwitted by a couple of little kids and a fish,” I said. “Right, Frankie?”

That's when I saw the goldfish.

“Fishy not swishy?!” Sami struggled in the trash can, pointing to Frankie lying motionless on the laptop keyboard.

“No, Frankie, you can't!” I said. “Quick, we need to get him in some water!”

Pradeep ran to get the jug off the floor and filled it from the tap.

I gently placed Frankie in the water as Pradeep pulled Sami out of the trash can. She hugged him around the knees.

Sanj was still mumbling to himself on the floor. “How could he do that? How could the fish figure it out?”

Sami toddled over to Sanj and dumped the trash can on his head. “Naughty Sanj!” she said.

The lunch ladies who Frankie had hypnotized burst into the science lab with Gladys right behind them. “I don't know what they're doing,” she said. “Betty just put some eggs on a plate and Carol grabbed a moldy bread roll and they headed up here. We've stunned all the teachers and students now anyway. Although nobody can reach Mr. Walker. Ethel and Mildred have him cornered behind the salad bar—”