Billy's Zombie

“Billy, pay attention!”

Billy MacIntyre snapped his head up and stared at Miss Coleman, his Grade Eight maths teacher. “Huh? I mean, yes, Miss Coleman?”

“I asked you a question,” said Miss Coleman as she glared at the boy. “Now, please explain Pythagoras' theorem to the class?”

Billy answered by rote memorisation, “In a right-angled triangle the area of the square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum of the areas of the squares of the other two sides.”

“Very good, Billy,” answered Miss Coleman, a little irritated at this know-it-all child. “So, who can tell me the definition of 'hypotenuse'?”

Some hands shot up, including Sarah, sitting opposite Billy. Billy glared at her, and Sarah looked at him and stuck out her tongue.

There was no love lost between Billy and Sarah. Living two blocks down from him, at least she didn't call him a freak, like just about everybody else in his neighbourhood. She was a bit of a freak herself, but she disliked Billy just the same. Sarah’s parents had raised her to believe in the basic good of people, and she did a good job of living out her upbringing. Unless it involved Billy. There was something about him that rubbed young Sarah up the wrong way, and the feeling was mutual.

Billy looked around the class at the other kids. Miss Coleman wasn't particularly good at holding her students' attention. They were sniggering amongst themselves, or folding paper aeroplanes, or tossing crumpled up love letters to each other.

He glanced over at Sarah again. Miss Coleman was exclaiming what a clever girl she was, and Sarah was lapping her praise up, like a puppy dog. Something about Sarah gave Billy the creeps.

Well, he thought, maybe I'll let my zombie feast on her tonight!