The Smoky Corridor

83

“Flip the flue!” Seth Donnelly said to his zombie.

“Yes, master.”

His slave shoved the lever forward. A damper blocked one exhaust chimney and redirected the fumes to the second smokestack.

“Have him open the door!” shouted Joseph.

“Open the door to the smoke chamber!”

“Yes, master.” The zombie shuffled over to the door. Opened it.

The corridor beyond was filling with a curling gray cloud.

“By jingo,” cried Joseph. “It’ll work! Keep the fire raging but divert the smoke back up to the main stack! Hurry! Tell him. He only listens to you!”

So Seth passed on the next set of commands.

The zombie strode back to the furnace. Shoved some levers.

“And have him leave the door open on this end! Best to air out the corridor so the grown-ups we send in don’t suspect nothin’!”

“Joseph?”

“What, Seth?”

“I’m not your zombie. You can’t keep bossing me around, telling me what to tell him.”

“Who’s gonna stop me, boy-o? You?”

Seth thought about that for a second. Joseph had been telling him what to do for 110 years and sometimes Seth just wanted to tell his big brother to stick a plug in his piehole.

But Joseph was all the family Seth had ever known. Their father had died before Seth was born; his mother while giving birth to him. He so longed to be set free from this place, this school, to be reunited up in heaven with the parents he’d never met.

But he wouldn’t leave without Joe. Joe had looked out for him for 110 years. And Joe wouldn’t leave until somebody paid for what Mr. Cooper had done.

“Leave the door open!” Seth barked at the zombie. “Let the room air out. We’re gonna snag us a grown-up today!”

“We sure are, little brother. Why, I figure we might even trap us a pretty little teacher named Daphne DuBois, who just happens to be related to Mr. Patrick J. Cooper himself!”

“Hot diggity dog!” said Seth. “If we kill her, then we can surely rest in peace.”

“Maybe, little brother,” said Joseph. “Maybe.”

And while the zombie fiddled with gauges and stoked the firebox, Joseph started whistling, then singing again.

Glory, glory, hallelujah

Teacher hit me with a ruler

Shot her in the butt with a rotten coconut

And she ain’t gonna teach no more.