Memoirs of a Neurotic Zombie Read Online Free Page A

stay up late watching the Twilight movies.’ *
    Ernesto put a claw on her leather-clad shoulder and said, ‘Camp will be great, and we’ll all be together. What’s funner than that?’
    Corina sneered at the chupa claw. ‘Do you want to be a candidate for human sacrifice?’
    ‘Good thing I’m not human,’ he said.
    ‘I’m sure exceptions can be made,’ she said.
    I motioned to Nesto to remove the claw from her Prada jacket. He slipped his claw off the leather and Corina smiled. ‘You’re right, Ernesto. At least we’ll be together.’
    * I wasn’t sure if this was a form of entertainment or torture.

5
In Which I Catch the Bus of Doom
    Morning arrived with the scent of slightly burned pancakes, tempting me upstairs to the land of the living. Adamini was already up, buzzing around the basement and eager to get out and stretch his wings.
    I rolled off Lumpy Cot and carefully made my bed, complete with hospital corners (not that I’d ever willingly spend any time in a hospital – they are just full of sick people). Adamini buzzed straight at me, tugging at my NinjaMan PJs. I was pretty sure the bee needed to pee.
    I opened the back door on the landing and reminded him to keep a low profile while he did his beesness. He nodded and buzzed off.
    I think he understood.
    Upstairs, Mom and Dad were sitting at the kitchen table, smiling at one another. Amanda gorged on atriple stack of pancakes topped with red liquorice bits.
    ‘Good morning, camper!’ boomed Dad. ‘Way to be up and Adam!’
    He actually slapped his knee, laughing to himself. The proper phrase is ‘up and at ’em’. I think he actually named me Adam just so he’d have a recurring joke.
    ‘Up and Adam.’ He giggled to himself again.
    ‘You’re all packed and ready to go,’ said Mom. It seemed she couldn’t wait to get rid of us. She pointed to my clothes neatly folded on my chair.
    ‘I took the liberty,’ she said.
    ‘You sure did,’ I replied, noticing that my T-shirt was folded vertically, not in my preferred horizontal format. *
    I grabbed my Mom-approved-outfit (NinjaMan retro tee, boxer briefs, cargo shorts) and rushed upstairs to get showered and changed. After a thorough cleansing, I moisturised and applied the make-up I needed to hide my grey zombie skin.
    When I returned downstairs, I spotted two large duffel bags dominating the still newly carpeted front hall. One was marked ‘Adam’ and the other ‘Amanda’.They looked worryingly like canvas coffins. I unzipped my bag to make sure all of the essentials were packed (they were), and stuffed in my trusty PJs.
    ‘What’s with the pancakes?’ I asked, returning to the kitchen.
    ‘Not the pancakes,’ said Mom, pouring brownish golden liquid over her stack. ‘The real question is what’s with the syrup ?’
    ‘Real maple syrup,’ said Dad with a smile.
    ‘I’ll pass on the tree secretion,’ I said.
    Amanda shook her head at me. ‘Trees don’t have secrets, stupid.’
    ‘ Canadian maple syrup,’ Dad added. ‘And why are we not buying American, you might want to know?’
    ‘Just load it on,’ ordered Amanda. ‘Don’t care where it comes from.’
    Mom leaned in. ‘Adam, Amanda, your camp is in Canada. Isn’t that exciting?’
    ‘So eat up, eh !’ said Dad with a smile.
    ‘That’s a foreign country,’ I said.
    ‘You can’t send us there,’ Amanda protested. ‘I doubt they even have the Internet in their igloos. And I cannot be out of touch.’
    ‘We’ve got good news for you dear on both fronts,’said Dad. ‘You’ll be in tents, not igloos, and a bunch of us parents got together and loads of the kids from Croxton are going to Camp Nowannakidda as well.’
    ‘So you can keep all your cliques intact,’ said Mom.
    ‘You’ll love it there, kids.’ Dad beamed. ‘The camp owner, a really nice old lady, came to town and she gave a big presentation. It looks like so much fun. Oh, to be a kid again.’
    ‘She showed a slide show of the campers