Free The Great Brain by Paul Stafford

‘Mick Living-Dead. Mick Living-Dead?’
    Mr Grimsweather peered up from the ancient leather-bound rollcall book and surveyed the class maliciously. ‘Anyone seen Mr Living-Dead?’
    â€˜He’s away, sir,’ droned Geoff Dandyline. ‘Religious holiday.’
    â€˜Religious holiday,’ hissed Grimsweather. ‘When’s he back?’
    â€˜Not till next year, sir.’
    â€˜Next year!’ thundered Grimsweather. ‘It’s only October! What does he think this holiday is?’
    â€˜Extended zombie Christmas break, sir,’ replied Dandyline, his grinning buckteeth reflecting the overhead fluro lights and nearly blinding the rest of the class in the process. ‘It’s a zombie thing.’
    â€˜Zombie thing,’ muttered Grimsweather. ‘I’ll give him “zombie thing”. Extended zombie Christmas break. Why does it take zombies so long to celebrate Christmas?’
    Dandyline grinned again and his monstrous teeth slid out his mouth like a beggar’s bowl at a G8 Summit. ‘It takes them a long time to warm up, sir – being dead and all. Zombie thing, sir.’
    â€˜Shut up, Dandyline!’
    A forbidding silence descended on the class.
    â€˜Extended zombie Christmas break,’ Grimsweather mumbled angrily to himself. God, he couldn’t wait to retire from this job; he was fed up making allowances for every dumbwit, dipso, freak-out student inthis kooky, bug-house school. He expelled a long breath of venomous gases.
    Dandyline fancied he could see steam seeping out of the Rollcall Master’s ears and squirmed in his seat with barely repressed delight – the old geezer was obviously close to losing it.
    â€˜Blast that zombie!’ snapped Grimsweather. ‘Mick Living-Dead better be back for my annual maths test or he’s a dead man.’
    â€˜Already been done, sir,’ chipped Dandyline. ‘Zombie thing.’
    â€˜ Shut up, Dandyline! Do I have to tell you seven hundred times, or do you think you’ll get the message with the standard six hundred and ninety-nine repeats?’
    â€˜Not sure, sir,’ gaped the bucktoothed boy wonder (the ‘wonder’ being how Horror High hadn’t yet permanently terminated its most irritating scholar). ‘What was the question again?’
    â€˜The question, Dandyline, was not a question at all. It was a statement, an order, a proclamation, a command – shut up! ’
    â€˜That’s right, sir. Sorry, sir,’ gushed Dandyline. ‘Forgot, sir.’ Then, grinning foolishly like an overgrown puppy with outsized fang implants, he added, ‘Interesting, though.’
    Grimsweather stared hard at Dandyline, and the temptation to kill the boy on the spot with a blunt axe was obvious in the Rollcall Master’s face. He was wrestling between this perfectly reasonable instinct and a bugging curiosity at just how dimwitted Dandyline’s observation would be.
    Curiosity won.
    Softly, portentously, Grimsweather asked, ‘ What exactly, Dandyline?’
    â€˜Sorry, sir?’ replied Dandyline.
    â€˜What exactly are you talking about?’
    â€˜I’m not talking, sir,’ Dandyline grinned. ‘You are.’
    â€˜ You spoke, Dandyline,’ Grimsweather seethed. ‘You said, “interesting, though”. What, exactly, is “interesting, though”?’
    â€˜Not sure, sir,’ replied Dandyline grinning. ‘You, sir?’
    Now Grimsweather lost it. He blew his top, shouting hard, ‘No! Not me! You spoke. You said it. What did you mean by it? Tell me now, Dandyline, or you’re dead.’
    Dandyline fell to the floor, fawning pathetically at Grimsweather’s cloven feet. ‘Please, sir. No, sir. Don’t kill me, sir. Mercy, sir. I’m too young to die, sir. Got my whole life in front of me, sir. ’
    â€˜Your whole life? Blast you, Dandyline – you’ve got your whole