He's A Zombie By Now For Sure

Yesterday while sorting through books at the Dakota House library a little boy named R.J. was 'helping' me. He sat on the floor with one of those encyclopedia world books. It covered his whole lap and he had his head bent over it looking at the pictures.

Suddenly his head popped up and he said,"Oh that scared me by death!" (I think he meant TO death) "He just barely died yesterday!"

I looked at the picture. It was Albert Einstein.

"Really?" I asked. "How do you know that?"

"I saw it on the TV. He's a zombie by now for sure."

Naturally I asked for clarification.

"When you die you stay dead and then the spiders start biting you. Then you turn into a zombie and you gots to go around scaring people all the time."

"You know, R.J., there's really no such thing as zombies. That's make-believe."

"No Miss Jamie, it's true. My mom told me. Even I know because my dad is a zombie now. Or else he might be in jail. I can't know very much."

I can't know very much, either, but I know this: we've got a lot of work to do.