~The Girl, the Plants, and the Zombies~

Chapter Four: Lawnmowers vs. Zombies

And that was how Maria-Elena found herself in the action as well - planting Peashooters and Sunflowers and moving Wall-Nuts and Tall-Nuts.

The first plant she planted was Sunflower herself. She had taken Repeater's advice - that sunflowers were the most basic plant so they should be planted first. She was able to collect enough sunlight to plant another sunflower. The sunlight she got from the two sunflowers were enough to plant a peashooter when the first zombie started to come.

She planted Potato-Mines in front of zombies wearing traffic cones on their heads because they were tougher than ordinary zombies. However, she remembered to plant them a few minutes before the zombies reached the Potato-Mines because she remembered Repeater's advice that Potato-Mines take a long time to get ready.

Then came zombies with metal buckets on their heads, but Maria-Elena was able to repel that too. She learnt that buckethead zombies were even tougher than conehead zombies, but the Potato-Mines were also enough to keep them away.

Repeater had said that her objective was to keep the zombies from entering her house.

"Why?" Maria-Elena had asked. The zombies had looked pretty weak and harmless to her.

Threepeater had stared at her.

"Because zombies like to eat people's brains, you," PeaOne had said.

"Yeah, you," PeaTwo had chimed in.

Of course, PeaThree hadn't said anything.

Maria-Elena was once a bit panicked when she saw a buckethead zombie that had escaped past her defenses, but Sunflower told her not to worry. She didn't know why she wasn't worried. Sure, there wasn't anyone else in her house whose brain can be eaten up but still, her parents would surely freak out if they knew that zombies had visited their modest, ordinary house in Mexico City. The plants, however, didn't seem to care, which to Maria-Elena was weird, since they were supposed to be protecting her house.

Then she saw why.

"Lawnmowers," said Repeater calmly as he and Maria-Elena watched a red lawnmower at the end of the lawn roar to life by itself and it practically shredded the buckethead zombie and every other zombie in its path. "They're super-effective to be your last-resort plan, when you don't have enough sunlight for a Cherry Bomb."

He casually turned to Maria-Elena, whose mouth was in a perfect O. "Lawnmowers are cool, but now you need to watch out for zombies in that lane. If another zombie in that lane reaches the house, you can say that you're jolly well zombie food because that lane is not protected by any lawnmowers anymore."

Finally, every zombie had been either hit to second death by the peas or shredded to tiny particles, and so Repeater's crew assembled by Tall-Nut's and Wall-Nut Junior's spot at the end of the garden.

"Well done, plants," said Repeater. "We jolly well sent those zombies packing."

"We didn't, you! We totally pulverized 'em!" shouted PeaOne. "Yeah, you!" exclaimed PeaTwo.

Repeater sighed. "Yes, well, OK if you want to put it that way." He turned to the other plants. "I think that's the last of 'em we'll see today, so let's just kick back and enjoy this zombie-less peace. You too, Maria-Elena. Well done," Repeater added.

"Muchas gracias," said Maria-Elena distractedly, but she was actually thinking about one of Repeater's comments.

That's the last of 'em we'll see today?