The changing of Winter | ✔

|19| - Finale

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"I can't believe I'm doing this." Chiara shook her head in disbelief. "I mean, I like acting, but this is---"

"You owe me," I said as I climbed into the shallow grave and laid down in the dirt.

"I said I was sorry." Standing nearby, leaning against a tree, Chiara straightened the dress she'd borrowed. It was Brenda's favorite, the first one she drove over with her car after she was diagnosed.

"And after this, you'll be forgiven," I assured her. "I mean, other best friends might be mad that you came to school and didn't talk to them at all, but not me. I'm totally over the fact that you ran off with the Ghouls."

"I wanted to be part of the fashion show," she explained for the zillionth time. "I thought you'd be surprised. Brett asked me to do it."

"Talking about me?" Brett popped his head out from the open grave next to me.

"Yes," Chiara said. "Winter's still mad at us."

"I'm not mad," I said. "I know not to get too emotional." I smiled, flashing my sharp teeth. "I still kind of wish you'd have been honest a long time earlier, but seriously, I'm glad that you two are going out." The news hadn't been a surprise. And truly, I was fine with it. Brett and Chiara made a cute couple.

I rolled on my side to look at Brett. "I forgive you too, even though you tried to eat my brains."

"You gave me a virus and turned me into a monster!"

"Did not." This time instead of fighting, I shrugged and smiled. "At least not on purpose."

"Yeah. I know." Brett sighed. "I just wish someone had given me a zombie rule book. No one told me that there was an unwritten zombie code that zombies don't ever eat other zombies."

In the hours after the fashion show disaster, Brett had snapped out of his nastiness. Nurse Karen explained that the shock he'd been in when he first arrived had only seemed to disappear, but didn't go away all together.

"I wasn't in control. I'm not usually mean like that," he said. "I have zombitus, you know."

"We both still have zombitus," I reminded him.

We hadn't taken the cure yet because I made a deal. So I convinced Brett and Chiara to help me out. We were all going to be in Danny's horror movie.

Mine and Brett's transformation back to the living was going to be the movie's big climactic scene. But first, Danny wanted a zombie chase.

"Is every one ready?" Danny asked. He straightened his floppy beret and pointed the video camera at the two graves Dr. Shelly and Mr. Jones helped dig them in the wooded area near the research center. Joy painted the prop grave stones, and the whole time, she complained about working with grey paint, instead of black.

When I returned to Mr. Jones's bungalow with Jesse and the cure, there had been a lot to explain. And a lot to apologize for. Turns out, though, that no one was as angry as I expected.

In fact, Chiara and Brett were the first to apologize to me. Followed by the Bs.

The Bs had sneakily invited Joy's parents to the show, hoping they'd like the fashion line, but until clothes were thrashed and the perfume spilled, the Yevermans were not interested. After the show, Mr. Yeverman offered to make the torn and fragrant Zom-B chic clothing a part of their fall Halloween inspired collection.

Brenda, Brooke, and Becky were all going back to their old schools, but thanks to me, they'd never be the unpopular girls they were before. They were going to be fashionistas. I hope they treat other students better---now that they knew both sides of popularity.