Adventures of a Middle School Zombie by Scott Craven Page B

mom told me what you said, and I know where it’s coming from. I know you’re pissed off—” I was kind of startled a little, because Dad never said words like pissed “—and I don’t blame you. I get it. But if you let that anger grow, it’s going to eat you alive.”
    “Alive?” I said. “Yeah, I wish. I wish that could happen.”
    Dad reached over and put his hand on my knee. I knew he was doing it for comfort, but I pulled back. The look on his face told me I’d scored.
    “Jed, I can’t even pretend to know what it’s like,” Dad said. “I’m not going to sit here and tell you those kinds of lies. You are—unique—and no one knows what it’s like to be you except you.
    “But son, we’ve all faced our hardships. Everyone faces tough times. No one skates through life; it’s just not done. And all of us have to find a way to deal with the crap, to find a way to take charge and rise above.”
    I shook my head. “But that’s so easy to say. You’re not a zombie. I can’t wake up and say, ‘Hey, I’m going to rise above it all today, I’m going to stop being a zombie.’ I can’t change the one thing I really want to change.”
    “You think you’re the only one who’s faced hardships because of the way you were born? Huh? Do you? Have your mom and I really done that badly, to raise you in a way that you believe bad things only happen to you?”
    Oh crap. Ever since I was little, Mom and Dad have constantly reminded me that, even though I would face challenges as a zombie, I did not have to let that define me. That I could act in a way to show people that I am Jed Rivers, capable of intelligent thought and good deeds, and that my lack of vital signs was just another part of me, like my sports and video games hobbies, or the fact that I really liked romantic comedies, especially ones with Sandra Bullock.
    I was probably the only four-year-old who knew all about Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King, Jr., and Stephen Hawking and Jim Abbott (a pitcher who threw a no-hitter for the New York Yankees even though he was born with a hand missing). Every time there was a story in the newspaper about a Bosnian refugee who made a new life after his family was killed, or a Lost Boy from Sudan who had just graduated from college and was entering law school, they would cut it out and put it in my scrapbook (Dad wrote “Never Give Up” on the cover, which you could barely make out anymore).
    I didn’t say a thing. But I could feel the anger loosen its grip just a little.
    “Are you ready to tell me what happened?”
    “It’s just—” I stopped. I wanted to tell him everything, but I knew how much he’d be hurt. And if I told him, I know what he’d do—the same thing he’d done every time stuff like this happened. He would call the school, and the kids responsible would be called in, and they would receive some sort of punishment, and at some point they’d get back at me.
    You know the “Circle of Life” in the Lion King , where everything that goes around comes around? This was my own little “Circle of Death.” It all wound up coming back to me.
    “Just the same old thing, Dad,” I continued. “Teasing and stuff. Little things, but it piles up, and it just got to me today.”
    Dad put his hand on my knee again. I didn’t pull back. “I get it. And Jed, there isn’t a day that goes by that I don’t think about how it would be different if you were like everyone else.
    “But right after that I think of how it would be if you were just like everyone else. Remember when we were bowling and your finger got stuck in the ball, and you pulled, and your finger just came off?” I did remember. I had gone ahead and rolled, getting a strike before taking the ball to the clerk and asking him if he had pliers. Dad continued, “Do you remember the look on his face when he saw why you needed pliers?
    “Or when we went to the lake with Uncle Moses and Aunt Brenda and you decided to walk along the