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like a dead girl, that was for sure. Adam realized that her clothes had distracted him from another difference--she had a slight, barely perceptible smile on her lips. A bemused smile, one not so different from the one he often caught on Phoebe's face. Most of the other zombies he'd seen wore blank expressions, as if their facial muscles had hardened into place like old caulk.
    Holly watched the girl pass, her fake strawberry lips curling. "It's so gross. Imagine having to touch her? I feel so bad for you. I hope the zombie gets cut from the team. There shouldn't be a dead Badger on the field. That would be so wrong. Can you imagine?"
    I can so imagine, Adam thought. He watched Phoebe turn from the bulletin board when the dead girl approached, and he saw Phoebe smile at her before turning back and pretending to read whatever was posted there for the eleventh time.
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    Phoebe was holding some books against a cocked hip, her opposite shoulder dragged down by a black canvas bag stuffed with still more books. "Get it? A dead Badger?" Holly was saying.
    "Hey, Holly. You'll have to excuse me. I need to go talk to Phoebe."
    Holly's sapphire-blue eyes narrowed with such speed that Adam thought she would pop out a contact. "Phoebe? Who's Phoebe?"
    "She is," Adam said, nodding over to where Phoebe stood, leaning precariously against the weight of her enormous satchel, while at the same time rubbing at the back of her calf with the toe of her black boot. "She's my best friend."
    "Her?" Holly said. "That goth over there?"
    "Yep," Adam replied. "I'll see you later."
    People moved out of his way when he cut across the hall to join Phoebe. He wasn't into pushing kids around like Pete and Stavis were, but he'd spent the past two years hanging around them, and he'd never lifted a finger to curtail their actions, either. That was something else that needed to change, he thought.
    "Hey, Pheeble," he called, a weird lightness spreading through his chest.
    "Hello, Adam," Phoebe said, looking startled. Adam lifted the heavy bag of books off her shoulder.
    Phoebe peeked out around him. "Uh, I think you might have ticked off Whatsername. She looks ready to rip the letter off your jacket."
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    "Yeah, I just dropped a bomb on her."
    "Really?" Phoebe said as they started to walk toward the library. "Did you propose marriage?" She giggled, and Adam felt the lightness move out to his extremities. "Or was it something more earthy?"
    "Ha-ha. And what makes you think it would be me doing the proposing?"
    "Good point."
    He heard his own voice slip out of banter mode, and for once he didn't care if Phoebe picked up on it. "I told Holly that we were friends. You and me."
    Phoebe stopped. "Really?"
    He looked at her. "Really."
    She lowered her gaze, but when she looked back up at him her eyes were filled with mirth. "Won't they revoke your charter membership in the cool kids club?"
    They started walking again. "Let 'em. The truth has set me free."
    She bumped into him, trying to throw him off balance, but it was like a butterfly trying to unsettle an oak tree.
    "I wish you'd taken karate a few years earlier, Adam," she said.
    "Shut up, Pheeble. Or I'll chop you." "Kii-ya!" she said, beating him to it.
    He walked her to the library, and then headed off to go practice with the living and the dead.
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    ***
    CHAPTER FIVE
    TOMMY WILLIAMS WAS THE last one to finish the warm-up lap around Oakvale Field.
    When he was a freshman, Adam had arrived back at the starting point consistently in the back of the pack, but Coach Konrathy didn't care, because Adam was about as wide as any two students and about as strong as any three. Six-foot-five freshmen were rare enough, but a six-foot-five freshman with muscles was like some exotic animal where Oakvale athletics was concerned.
    But now there was an even more exotic specimen on the field. Namely, a dead kid.
    Never before had a zombie tried out for any sport in the district. Tommy trotted--and what a weird trot, like