The Big Nap (2 page)

It seemed only fair. That was her name.

"Okay, Meena Moe," I said. "Hey, you don't happen to have two sisters named Eena and Minah, do you?"

She caught her breath. "How did you know?"

"Lucky guess." I rubbed my chin and looked up at her. "So, what's the scam, ma'am?"

Meena gave me a quick once-over and toyed with her book bag some more. "What's a guy like you charge?" she asked.

"Why's a dame like you want to know?"

"I've got trouble."

"Don't we all," I said. "What's yours?"

"My youngest sister, Eena. Lately, she's been acting strangely."

"Maybe it's gas," said Natalie. She grinned.

Meena frowned. "Not likely. She's—well, she used to be so bright and chatty and chipper, and now she's a ... she's a zombie."

Natalie and I exchanged glances. A case at last! And a supernatural one, to boot.

"What kind of zombie?" I asked Meena. "A flesh-eating, undead, graveyard-robbing, walks-in-the-night kind of zombie?"

Her eyes flashed. "Certainly not!" she said. "Mother would never allow it. No, Eena just stares blankly and speaks in short sentences. Her vocabulary has deteriorated dreadfully—like she's been lobotomized!"

"Sounds like too much late-night TV to me," I said.

Meena sniffed. "
Hmph!
I know my sister. Something's wrong, and I'd like you to find out what it
is." She fished in her book bag. "How about fifty cents a day, plus expenses?"

I gave her my tough-guy smirk. "How about seventy-five cents a day, and fifty cents now, as a retainer?"

Meena squinched up her nose, calculating. Finally, she nodded.

I might not have liked her prissiness, but I liked her money okay. A gecko's gotta eat.

I dropped the coins into my pocket. "Now, where can we find the charming Miss Eena?"

"She's two years younger than me; so at present, she's a third grader. You'll find her in Ms. Glick's class." Meena turned and minced off. "Ta-ta. Keep me apprised of your progress."

I frowned. "
Apprised?
"

Natalie made a face. "Ms.
Glick?
"

Ms. Glick was known around school as the Beast of Room 3. We were really going to earn our fee this time.

The Beast could nurse a grudge long enough for it to have baby grudges of its own. She was not a card-carrying member of the Chet Gecko Fan Club.

But in spite of everything, I smiled. We had a case at last!

Oh, silly me.

Natalie and I sidled up to Ms. Glick's classroom. I tried the door. Locked. Her class was still at lunch or playing carefree third-grade games. I scoped out the empty hall.

Now, where would a guinea pig zombie go for fun?

"Natalie, what do you know about zombies?"

"Not much," she said. "But I know which zombie ate too much porridge."

"Eh? Who's that?"

Natalie's eyes twinkled. "
Ghoul
dilocks!" she cackled.

I shook my head. Sometimes, having a mockingbird partner can be a pain.

Natalie looked past my shoulder and stiffened.

"That's it, Natalie. To think like a zombie, act like a zombie."

"Well, well, what a pleasure," rasped a voice smooth as a gravel-and-chain-saw milk shake.

Ms. Glick!

Toe by toe, I peeled myself off the wall I'd jumped onto. Those quick gecko reflexes again. I climbed down and straightened my hat.

"Trying to get a head start on your next detention session, Mr. Gecko?" sneered the Beast of Room 3. A frown split her thick alligator snout.

I squinted up at her, pasting a counterfeit smile on my kisser. "Ah, Ms. Glick. When I'm away from you, the minutes pass like hours. I was just telling Natalie about the good ol' days in your classroom, when—"

"Do I look like a dinner roll to you?" she asked.

"Uh, no," I said.

"Then stop trying to butter me up," snarled Ms. Glick. "What do you want?"

Enough charm. "I'm on a case," I said. "Mister, you
are
a case."

I let that one slide. "It involves one of your students," I said. "Eena Moe."

Ms. Glick unlocked her door. She smiled back at us over a broad, scaly shoulder, her pearly choppers twinkling in the sunshine. "Come inside," she said.

Natalie gulped. We followed Ms. Glick. I glanced around at my old third-grade classroom. Booger-green walls, rusty heating vents, battered desks—ah, how the memories came rushing back.

Of course, they didn't have far to rush. One week earlier, I'd been in that same room for detention.

As Ms. Glick settled her bulk at the desk, I asked, "Have you noticed anything different about Eena lately?"

"And why should I tell you if I had?" she growled.

"Because of my winning personality?" I said.

"
Hah!
" She snorted.

I frowned at Natalie. We should've known Ms. Glick would play hardball. I drew myself up and squared my shoulders.

"Okay, fine," I said. "Don't help us. But just know, when poor, sad Eena goes down the drain like a soggy hankie—"

"You don't know what you're talking about," said the Beast. "Eena's a pip."

"A pip?" said Natalie, cocking her head.

"A peach, a sweetheart, a good egg," said Ms. Glick. "In fact, she's even nicer than usual, if possible."

"Huh?" I said. I'm a smooth interviewer. Sometimes.

"You want me to spell it out for you, detective boy?" said the Beast. "Okay. Eena doesn't gossip in class anymore. Eena cleans the erasers. Eena pays attention—unlike you, Chester."

I hate it when they use my full name. "So ... she's not a zombie?"

"
Zombie?!
Double
hah
!" Ms. Glick waved a leathery arm at the empty classroom. "Mister, if she's a zombie, I'd like a whole class of them!"

She chuckled. It sounded like a cave full of hungry werewolves converging on a meatball pizza.

"Now, buzz off!" snarled Ms. Glick.

We could take a hint. Natalie and I beat feet. Farther down the hall, we stopped to regroup.

"What do you make of that?" I asked.

"I don't know," said Natalie. "Those guinea pigs are a little squirrelly, if you ask me. Maybe Meena's imagining things."

I wasn't imagining Meena's cool quarters. I jingled the change in my pocket.

"She's the client," I said, "and she knows her sister. Let's humor her."

Still, as I watched Natalie head for her classroom, I wondered if this zombie business would turn out to
be just another soggy firecracker—more fizzle than sizzle.

But then again, what did I have on my plate that was more important than this case? Studying?

The lunch bell cut short my laugh.

I sighed and went to class.

If classrooms were drugstore products, Mr. Ratnose's class would be SnorMore, the cure for insomnia.

Right and left of me, heads and eyelids drooped like spaghetti from yesterday's food fight. Shirley Chameleon slumbered behind her book. Waldo the furball looked like he was hibernating.

And then Mr. Ratnose ratcheted up the snooze factor. "It's science time, boys and girls!"

Scattered groans greeted his remark.

"Geology is the study of the Earth and its history," he said. "Now, who can tell us what the Earth is made of?"

My attention wandered like a disobedient dog.
On a piece of notebook paper, I doodled a couple of aliens dissecting the planet. They had strapped it to an operating table and were slicing open the Earth like a ripe melon.

Maybe they'd do the same to my head and put me out of my misery.

I started to erase an alien's face, when—
kzztch!—
the last of my eraser wore down. The page tore.

Then an even worse sound hit my ears.

"Oh, Chet?"

It was my teacher. He held up a pointy rock in his hand like the Holy Lump of Saint Hasenpfeffer. "Can you tell us what kind of rock this is?" he asked.

"Rocks are rocks," I said. "I take 'em for granite."

Mr. Ratnose's lip curled in a sneer. "Not even close. Can anyone else tell us?"

Bitty Chu, the gopher, flagged her arm in the traditional oh-oh-oh-call-on-me signal.

My eyes drifted back to my drawing.
Drat!
I needed a new eraser to improve my latest masterpiece. Who would have one?

I looked around. There he was, right before me: Bo Newt, the sassy salamander—your fourth-grade source for rubber-band guns, whoopee cushions, squirting flowers, art supplies, and other trouble-making tools.

I hissed at him, "Bo! Lend me your eraser."

Nothing. He watched Mr. Ratnose closely. The back of Bo's thick head gleamed slightly, like a fridge in the moonlight.

Stronger measures were needed.

The spit wad sailed from my straw and bounced off Bo Newt's skull with a satisfying
thwop!

"Duhhh." Bo turned to me with a loose grin. His eyes were as empty as a bully's mailbox on Valentine's Day.

"I said, can I borrow your eraser?" I waved a hand before his face. But my classmate kept on staring like his choo-choo didn't go back to the station anymore.

"Science good," he slurred.

Uh-oh.

Something was definitely wrong. I'd seen students lobotomized by a boring science class before, but they usually snapped out of it after you hit them with a spit wad or gave them a double-strength noogie.

At last, Bo handed me his eraser. His wide-open mouth could've caught a freight load of flies, if he'd known how to shut it. Bo had never been the sharpest crayon in the pack, but this was ridiculous.

"Bo, you okay?" I whispered.

He put a finger to his lips. "
Shhh.
Teacher talking."

I frowned. Since when had Bo Newt ever cared
about anything Mr. Ratnose had to say, except "Class dismissed"?

"Heh, heh, heh." A quiet snicker drifted over from the next row. The new kid, that skinny weasel from the playground, waggled his eyebrows at me and imitated Bo's blank face.

Bo didn't even notice. He turned back to catch Mr. Ratnose's geology lecture, which was zipping along like a glacier with arthritis.

"He's as clueless as a porcupine at a polka lesson," Sammy whispered.

It was pretty rude. I had to admit, though, I liked the way he put things. It reminded me of someone.

But I couldn't stop to think who; my detective instincts had kicked in.

First, chatty Eena Moe went tongue-tied. Now, something had turned Bo the Brat into Percival Priss, Law-Abiding Student and All-Around Wuss.

One zombie is normal. But two zombies is strange, even for Emerson Hicky.

I smelled a mystery. And where mystery led, I followed.

Especially if it led away from science class.

At recess, I waited outside the classroom for Bo Newt. And waited. And waited.

Finally, after all the other kids had split, I poked my head through the door. What I saw left me colder than a penguin's lunch box.

A blackboard. A student. Bo was cleaning the blackboard! I blinked, then shook my head. Usually the teacher's pets—Igor Beaver, Bitty Chu, and Cassandra the Stool Pigeon—fought for the honor of erasing.

But Bo?

My salamander buddy liked to roughhouse, tell booger jokes, and draw rude pictures. He had about as much class as a wildebeest in a dinner jacket. Bo was no teacher's pet.

Things were worse than I'd thought.

At last, Bo finished erasing and exited the classroom with an armload of books.

I fell in beside him. "Hey, ace, what's shaking?"

He stared straight ahead, shuffling like a windup toy.

"Saw you at the blackboard," I said. "You haven't gone all teacher's pet on me, have you?"

This was a serious insult. The old Bo Newt would've decked me in a heartbeat.

This new Bo turned his head toward me stiffly. "Bo help teacher. Teacher good."

I grabbed his arm. "Okay, Bo. The gag's gone far enough. Nobody's laughing."

He slipped from my grasp and shambled off. "Bye-bye. Must study."

I blinked. Bo wasn't that good an actor. I knew; I'd been in a play with him. That meant that my classmate had had a serious personality transplant.