Free Stink and the Midnight Zombie Walk by Megan McDonald

 
     
    G uts!
     
         Brains!
     
            Eyeballs!
     
    “Take that. You’re dead,” said Fred Zombie.
     
    “I’m not dead. I’m
un
-dead,” said Voodoo Zombie.
     
    Stink and Webster were playing Attack of the Knitting Needle Zombies when Fred Zombie’s eye fell off and rolled across the floor.
     
    “Holy eyeball!” yelled Stink.
     
    “Hey, where did you get these way-cool zombies anyway?” said Webster.
     
    “When I was, like, five, my grandma Lou made me monsters out of yarn. So I turned them into zombies. See? This one still has a needle in his head.”
     
    “Stick a needle in his eye,” said Webster. “Sick.”
     
    “One more week,” said Stink.
     
    “One more week,” said Webster.
     
    “One more week till what?” asked Judy Moody, Stink’s big sister. Sometimes she was such a Nosy Parker.
     

     
    “DUH! The Midnight Zombie Walk!” Stink and Webster said at the same time. Stink pointed to the website.
     

     
    Webster pointed to the countdown clock. “See? Only seven more days!”
     
    “Book Five.
Creature with the Cootie Brain
,” said Stink.
     
    “Zombies. Cootie brains. What’s so great about those books, anyway?” Judy asked.
     
    “Only
everything
!” said Stink.
     
    “They’re funny,” said Webster.
     
    “And gross,” said Stink.
     
    “And creepy,” said Webster.
     
    “Vomitocious!” said Stink and Webster.
     
    “And they have comics at the end of every chapter,” said Stink.
     
    “And they count for reading points toward the one million minutes,” said Webster.
     
    “Our school is trying to reach one million minutes of reading,” said Stink.
     
    “Hel-lo! I know! I go to your same school,” said Judy. She waved a Nancy Drew book in front of them.
     
    “See, there are four zombies, named Hoodoo, Voodoo, Gilgamesh, and Fred. And they speak in Zombie,” said Stink.
     
    “Yeah, in Zombie everything starts with a
Z,
” said Webster.
     
    “Like, your name would be Zudy Zoody, my zorky zister,” said Stink.
     
    “Very funny, Zink!” said Judy.
     
    “In Book One, super-galactic alien zombies from outer space descend on Braintree, Massachusetts, and take over Nightmare Street,” said Stink.
     
    “And in Book Two, the zombies can’t get enough brains. So they take over fifth-grade recess! Fifth-grade brains are juicy.”
     
    “Then there’s
Dr. Decay and the Zombies of Doom.
In that one, Hoodoo gets bitten by this evil zombie, Dr. Decay, and his brains are all hanging out and —”
     
    “Gross,” said Judy. “I didn’t ask for a book report!”
     

     
    “You’d like it,” said Stink. “There’s even a Band-Aid–crazy zombie, like you.”
     
    “You guys have zombies on the brain,” said Judy.
     
    Webster picked up Hoodoo and Voodoo. “We’re going to brain you!” Hoodoo and Voodoo said to Fred.
     
    “We eat brains!” said Stink.
     
    Fred attacked Voodoo. “Mmm, mmm, good.”
     
    “Brains for lunch,” said Webster. “Munch, munch munch-a-roni.”
     
    “And breakfast. And dinner. Body parts. Yum. We love body parts!”
     
    “Somebody ate
your
brain, Stink, if you think you’re going to a Midnight Zombie Walk,” Judy said.
     
    “Why?”
     
    “Hel-lo! Mid-night! That means staying up as late as Santa on Christmas Eve.”
     
    “So? I can eat a whole bunch of Zombie Zitz and get hyper and stay awake past midnight.”
     
    “Actually, the walk starts at ten o’clock,” said Webster.
     
    “Ten o’clock is
so
not midnight,” Judy said. “Besides, it says here you have to buy the new zombie book to get in. Books cost money. Twelve dollars and ninety-nine cents each.”
     
    “Twelve ninety-nine plus twelve ninety-nine. That’s like . . . ninety-nine dollars,” said Stink.
     
    “Twenty-five dollars and ninety-eight cents, to be exact,” said Judy. “You spent all your money on that video game,
Zombietron 4.3.
Where are you guys going to get twenty-five dollars and