"Jean Greyhound's hurt?" said Arthur in astonished disbelief. "How? When?"
George shrugged. "I'm not sure. There was some sort of fight. We found another dog on the scene that was dead."
"Tell us everything, George," said Arthur insistently.
The moose boy described his family's nocturnal trek in detail, to the growing dismay of Arthur and D.W. "This sounds pretty serious," said Arthur, shaking his head slowly. "Anyone who can defeat the X-Pets that badly…"
"The X-whats?" said George.
"I'll explain," offered Arthur, and a bell suddenly rang. "After first period."
Little did Arthur and George suspect that the break between first and second period would bring with it more questions than answers…
"And that's why you should brush your teeth after every meal," said Mrs. Frensky to her first-grade charges. "Does anyone have a question for Tabitha the Talking Tooth?"
"Yeah," said Nadine, raising her hand. "Are you related to Tina the Talking Tabby?"
"No," replied the white, fuzzy sock puppet on the teacher's hand, "but I knew Tina back when she was popular. By the following Christmas she had disappeared from the store shelves, and I never saw her again."
"Now let's all enjoy five minutes of playtime," said Mrs. Frensky in her own voice.
"But I want ten minutes of playtime," complained Tabitha the Taking Tooth.
"You get five minutes of playtime because first period ends in five minutes," said the teacher sternly. "T'sokay?"
"T'saright," said the tooth.
After a few minutes of collaborative coloring, D.W., Nadine, Tommy, Timmy, Emily, Vicita, James, and the other children began to suggest more exciting activities. "Let's all rub glue in our hair," said Tommy. "Let's play catch with D.W.'s weird-looking ball," proposed Timmy.
"Let's play Zombies again," said James in a squeaky voice. Most of the other pupils cheered with delight.
"How do you play Zombies?" asked Nadine. "I was sick yesterday."
"It's easy," said D.W. As her left hand idly rolled the strange sphere around inside her pocket, she explained, "I pick one of you to be a zombie, and then you have to walk around like a zombie and touch people, and everybody you touch turns into a zombie, and everybody they touch turns into a zombie, and so on."
"How do zombies walk?" inquired Emily.
"Like this!" said Vicita, lumbering about with her arms outstretched.
"And they groan a lot," James added. "Uuuunnngghhhh…"
"Sounds like fun," said Nadine gleefully. "Can I be the first zombie?"
"Sure," said D.W., gently tapping her shoulder. "You're it."
Without a second's hesitation, the squirrel girl stuck out her arms and walked forward in a stiff, robotic manner. "Urgh," she mumbled. "Uuuurrgghhh…"
"Everybody run!" cried James. "Nadine's a zombie!"
Nearly all of the children shrieked and ran to the corners of the classroom, hoping to avoid the clutches of the mindlessly marching Nadine. "Hey, you're pretty good," said D.W. to her friend. "Are you sure you haven't done this before?"
"Uuurrrghh," was Nadine's only response.
"Settle down, kids," cautioned Mrs. Frensky. "I don't want you running into each other."
Nadine, seemingly attracted by the woman's voice, swiveled and began to trudge in her direction. D.W. deftly hopped out of her path as she approached the teacher's desk, moaning flatly. Mrs. Frensky only grinned as Nadine lunged forward and made hand-to-leg contact with her.
Then…she stopped grinning.
Upon leaving Mrs. Krantz's room, Fern accosted Muffy for a serious talk. "I'm worried about you," said the poodle girl. "The people who tried to steal your dress will strike again. You've got to put it in a safe place, or hide it…but you can't keep wearing it everywhere you go."
Muffy responded with a carefree smile. "After today, the dress will no longer be my problem," she boasted. "I'm going to contribute it to a worthy cause."
"What cause?" asked Fern stubbornly.
"I was hoping to make it a surprise," said Muffy. "But if you absolutely have to know, then meet me at Mavis Cutler's house tonight at 7 o'clock. You remember how to get there, don't you?"
"Actually," said Fern, "I don't."
As Muffy prepared to recite the directions, she noticed an odd, but not entirely unexpected, scene transpiring outside the entrance to Mrs. Frensky's classroom. Nadine, Vicita, Tommy, Timmy, Emily, D.W., James, and every one of their classmates were stumbling about, waving their arms frighteningly and making guttural noises. Odder still, Mrs. Frensky herself was participating in the charade, her eyes looking bizarrely empty.
"What's that all about?" wondered Fern as she watched the zombie-like children spread out through the center court.
"It's that stupid game they play," Muffy told her. "Mrs. Frensky really shouldn't be encouraging them, if you ask me." She waved playfully at the groaning mob. "Hey, zombies! Over here!"
Out of the pack, only D.W. and James responded to her taunt. "Must…eat…brains…of living," grumbled D.W. as she marched their way. James, for his part, merely trudged after D.W. and uttered nothing but moans.
"They're coming to get you, Barbara," said Muffy to Fern in a mocking tone.
D.W. arrived first, poking her fingers into Muffy's midsection. An irresistible urge seized the monkey girl's mind, and her hands shot up so quickly that one of them slapped Fern on the chin.
"Ow!" was the last thing Fern managed to say before she too was compelled to waddle away with her arms pointing forward.
D.W. stopped, lowered her hands, and watched in bemusement as Muffy and Fern trudged away, groaning eerily. "Whoa," she remarked to the unresponsive James. "I had no idea this game was so popular!"
To be continued