Your first priority is to avoid the teacher in question. A zombie can’t bite you if it can’t find you. Right? Unfortunately, school is designed so that students are regularly required to all be in the same room and easily available. For teachers this arrangement is called ‘classroom’, but for zombies it is closer to ‘school cafeteria’.

Lessons might sound like a terrible idea if your teacher is in fact one of the recently risen (and that does not mean they only just woke up). But let’s think about it carefully. Is a zombie likely to walk into a room full of succulent young people and simply open a tatty file and start calling out your names? Or are they likely to tell you to turn to page 21 momentarily before ripping your throat out? The answer is ‘no’ (although it is probably worth noting that it is not only zombies which try to rip throats out, so you should still be careful not to lower your guard concerning werewolves, ghouls, maniacs, deranged cannibals, or people with a very bad hangover and twenty painful years of failing to get the stupid little bastards to learn a single bloody thing about anything).

In short, if your teacher comes into the classroom carrying their usual collection of comfort items and proceeds to start teaching, then there is no pressing need to take evasive action (unless, of course, your teacher is anything like a teacher I once had who was so utterly, terminally, dull that he could disengage the frontal cortexes of the entire class with a single sentence about the chemical bonding of something or another, in which case evasion is a pretty good idea). However, if you and the vile bullying halfwits which we laughingly, and with a truly dark and cutting sense of irony, call your ‘classmates’ are all sitting waiting for the usual fun and games, and your teacher lurches into the room, glassy eyed, moaning, uncoordinated, and with a splatter of blood dribbling from the corner of their mouth, there may be cause to worry. What should you do?

First, try to persuade one of your least favourite classmates to go and check that the blood is not actually the tomato juice of a Bloody Mary (see ‘how to tell if your teacher is a zombie’, Q1 Check point 4) urgently taken to help alleviate a particularly vicious hangover. If they survive, then breathe a sigh of relief. If, however, the teacher makes a violent bid to sink their teeth into your buddy’s jugular, then evasive action moves to the top of your ‘to do’ list.

Question 1. Did you make sure to sit as far from the front-of-the-classroom door as possible?

If not,well, you won’t make that mistake again in a hurry, will you? If you did, is your seat close to the back door or, in classrooms in direct contravention of fire regulations which have only one door, close to a window?

If yes,make a hasty retreat through whatever exit is furthest from the zombie.

Note:Sometimes teachers assign seats. The whole purpose of this is to allow them to make a ‘seating chart’ which in turn is simply a convenient alternative to actually remembering students’ names (after all, ‘you’ll only teach them for a year or so and then you’ll be rid of the revolting little oiks, so what’s the point in learning their horrible little names anyway?’ or arguments to the same effect). However, if you make sufficient fuss about wanting to sit near the door/window, especially if you plead ‘allergies’ or unfortunate behavioural problems/phobias/urinary tract infections, then the teacher will probably remember your name anyway and will therefore have no reason to refuse your request. If your teacher continues to be unreasonable, simply persevere in your request (and exaggerate the ‘behavioural problems’). The teacher will either fold in the face of your superior endurance, or else send you off to see the school councillor and/or the headmaster. In any event, you will not be stuck in a ‘no hope seat’ and your mission is accomplished.

Question 2. Did you check outside before making your escape?

If not, then ha ha, silly you, you have probably just run into the waiting arms and teeth of zombie No 2. Not a lot of people seem to realise that although zombies are notnoted for their cunning and forethought, notnoted for their communication skills, and arenoted for their violently antisocial behaviours, they still seem perfectly capable of working in teams, varying in size from the standard zombie duo all the way up to horror movie class A ‘ravening hoard’. So, lesson learned, send another ‘classmate’ through the door first, just to be sure that the coast is clear.

Question 3. If you exited (yes, that is a word, and a good one too, because it really upsets the older, more tide-bound members of the teaching profession) through a window, what floor were you on?

Did you use the nearest drainpipe, or are you the idiot that all the other students use for a soft landing? Nuf said. The basic battle plan here is check your exits before you need to escape the living dead, and/or send another classmate out first.