Free Zombie Blondes by Brian James

sniffle. I was always worried that he’d somehow get snot all over the back of my chair and it used to make me squirm. So one time when he started his disgusting routine of snorting and sniveling, I turned around and wrinkled up my nose at him to let him know he was the grossest creature on the face of the earth.
    We were enemies ever after and he developed more and more disgusting noises to go along with the ones that already upset me. Purposely exaggerating them to get on my nerves and giggling when it caused me to squirm. There wasdefinitely something not right with him and I remember thinking he belonged in the special class at the end of the hall. His eyes always had a faint yellow glow to them like cats’ eyes whenever he looked at me. Planning. Scheming. Waiting for the moment to strike until the time was right.
    During one particular outburst of sneezing, I swore I felt a drop of something wet and slimy touch the back of my neck. I screamed. Yelled out to the teacher without raising my hand that Jason had spread his germs to me. Our other classmates felt the same way about him as I did and took my side, erupting in laughter and forever giving Jason the nickname of Germ Boy.
    The next day, he struck back.
    There was no warning. No series of sniffling or sneezes or snotty throat clearing. He struck in silence. Only the feel of his fingers combing through my hair with a sticky substance that made me freeze. By the time I turned around in my seat, the damage was done.
    My hair didn’t turn with the rest of me. It was stuck to his dirt-stained fingers with something more horrifying than snot. A pink web of chewing gum stretched from his palm to the clumped strands of my curly hair. The streaks of gum growing thinner as he pulled farther until they snapped, dangling like pink plastic hair weaved into my own.
    The horrified faces of my friends confirmed my worst fears as I put my hand up to gauge how bad it really was. All the twisting and fighting I’d done had made it worse and left me with knotted tangles of stiff hair like the twigs of a bird’s nest.
    I didn’t cry until I saw the first snip of my hair falling to the floor in the nurse’s office as she closed the scissors effortlessly in her crooked hand. That’s when I cried. The tears running down my face with each clipping until I thought I’d run out of hair for her to cut because the floor was littered with clumps that looked like furry kittens scattered for a nap.
    When I finally saw my reflection in the medicine cabinet, I was as ugly as a boy.
    I refused to go back to class. I made the nurse call my dad and made him leave work to come pick me up. He did his best to smile when he saw me. Ruffled my hair and told me I was still the prettiest girl in Brooklyn but I could tell by the angry sneer he gave the school nurse that he was as pissed as I was that she hadn’t let a professional hairstylist handle the operation. And I could tell he also wanted to squeeze his hands around Jason’s neck so tightly that his yellow eyes popped out of his head and all the snot oozed out of his sockets.
    I’m not sure why this is the story that pops into my head as I lie on the ground with my eyes closed. Not sure if it’s because I want my dad to come ruffle my hair and tell me it’ll all be all right or if it’s just because I feel the same way I did then. Never wanting to face anyone again. I stayed home from school for a week after that. I didn’t want to leave the house because everyone would think I was a boy. I wore dresses and ribbons for a month until my hair grew out. And as bad as it was, at least there was a way around it. I don’t see my present situation having any sucheasy solutions.
    “Someone help her up,” Mrs. Donner’s creaky voice says through the fog that clouds my thoughts.
    I hear other voices, too. Closer ones. Kneeling beside me. Slithering voices of the girls whose arms I last saw stretched across the ground to catch me, only to break