Zomboy

Larry hasn't left his bedroom in two years. Not really. Chronic fatigue syndrome saw to that - the wheelchair, the four good hours a day, the whole of his world shrunk down to eleven feet by nine and whatever's loaded on the console.Then the hospital in Leek starts putting up notices about a "Summer Flu." His mum comes home from the chemist's with a stranger's tears drying on her sleeve. And Leeroy - the family friend who's turned up every Tuesday for two years without fail - comes back from a routine hospital visit not quite himself any more.Turns out two years of being too tired to run doesn't just teach a boy patience. It teaches him to watch. To ration. To notice a chain-link fence sagging three hours before anyone else does. While the rest of Leek falls apart, it turns out the least able-bodied person in town has been training for the apocalypse the whole time, and nobody - least of all Larry - ever knew it.Zomboy is a horror-comedy about the end of the world arriving for a boy who was never getting anywhere fast anyway, and about the mother who'd rather build a fortress out of dining chairs and an old umbrella stand than lose him. Fast, funny, and considerably more heart than you'd expect from a book where a rolling pin is a recurring weapon.