Terry and I look at each other in horror.
“Do you see who I see?” says Terry.
“Yes!” I say. “It’s Bill.”
“But it can’t be!” says Terry. “In the last book we saw his skeleton in the Maze of Doom, remember?”
“Yes, of course I remember!” I whisper. “Which means that it can’t be Bill down there … It must be a zombie!”
“Delivery!” calls the zombie.
“It sounds like Bill,” says Terry.
“That’s part of its evil plan,” I say.
“What evil plan?” says Terry.
“To deliver our mail and then eat our brains!” I say. “Don’t you know anything about zombies?”
“Andy?” calls the zombie. “Terry? Anyone home?”
“He knows our names!” says Terry. “It must be Bill.”
“Yeah,” I say, “Bill the ZOMBIE!”
“Come on, you two chuckleheads,” says the zombie. “I can hear you up there. I’ve got a package for you.”
“Can you leave it at the door?” I say. “We’re kind of busy.”
“Afraid not,” says the zombie. “It’s a special delivery from Switches‘R’Us … I’m going to need you to sign for it.”
“We need that switch, Andy,” whispers Terry.
“Yeah, and we also need our brains,” I whisper back.
“I’m not a zombie, you know,” calls the zombie.
“Did you hear that, Andy?” says Terry. “He says he’s not a zombie.”
“That’s exactly the sort of thing a zombie would say,” I tell him. “We can’t risk it.”
“All right, then,” calls Bill. “If you won’t come down, then I’m coming up!”
“Oh no!” I yell. “It’s a zombie attack! Grab the flame-throwers, Terry!”
“What flame-throwers?”
“The ones you were supposed to make to protect us against zombie attack!”
“Oh, those flame-throwers,” says Terry. “I didn’t get around to it. I was too busy working on the 39th level.”
“They won’t be necessary,” says Bill as he climbs onto our level. “I’m not a zombie. I’m very much alive.”
“But we thought you were dead,” says Terry.
Bill grins. “So did I when I read The 26-Story Treehouse and saw that picture of a skeleton wearing my postman’s cap. I was very sad for a while until I realized that if I was feeling sad, then I must still be alive—so it couldn’t have been me in the picture after all!”
“But if it wasn’t you,” says Terry, “then who was it?”
“Well, it’s a bit of a long story,” says Bill, “and as you know, long stories take longer to tell than short stories, which—”
“Yes, we know!” I say. “Can you make it a short long story?”
“Sure,” says Bill, beginning to tell his short long story. “Well, you may not know this but a postman’s life is not an easy one. We get chased by dogs …
attacked by birds …
and spat at by camels.
But worse than any of these things is the ever-present threat of being ambushed by the Birthday Card Bandits.”
“The Birthday Card Bandits?” says Terry. “They sound bad.”
“They are bad,” says Bill. “Badder than you can imagine, and feared by postal workers throughout the land.”
“Why?” I say. “What do they do that’s so bad?”
“Well,” says Bill, “they dig holes in the ground …
cover them with sticks and leaves …
and then wait for poor innocent postmen like me to fall into them.”
“Once they’ve caught a bunch of postmen, they take their uniforms …
dress up in them …
and then go through the sacks of mail and steal the money in the birthday cards that kind grandparents have sent to their grandchildren for their birthdays.
And as if that’s not bad enough, they write back to the grandparents pretending to be the child …
and ask the grandparents to send more money to replace what was stolen …
and when they do send more money the Birthday Card Bandits steal that as well!”
“That’s terrible!” says Terry.
“I know,” says Bill, “but that’s not even the worst thing they do.”
“What could they possibly do that is worse than stealing a child’s birthday money?” I say.
“I’ll tell you what,” says Bill. “Sometimes they intercept the children’s birthday party invitations as well!
Then they go around to the houses where the birthday parties are being held …
and steal the balloons right off the front gate!
And that’s not all … They steal the children’s party hats,
party blowers,
presents
and sometimes they even steal the birthday boy or girl’s birthday wish by blowing out the candles on their birthday cake first!”
“Those fiends!” says Terry.
“Those fiendish fiends!” I say. “But how does all this explain what that fake postman was doing in the Maze of Doom in your uniform?”
“Well,” says Bill, “like many postmen, I too was captured by the Birthday Card Bandits. They stole my uniform and tied me up.
I guess the bandit who was wearing my uniform must have gone into the Maze of Doom to hide from the police and, of course, couldn’t find his way out again. If only he’d taken those warning signs seriously.”
“Well, I’m glad it wasn’t you in the Maze of Doom,” I say.
“Me too,” says Terry, “and I’m going to add another sign to the entrance so there’s no chance of that ever happening again.”
