The Mystery of the Graffiti Ghoul

by Marty Chan

  Ms. Tyler bounded to me, happily carrying a large book. “Sorry I took so long. Why is that when you’re looking for something, it’s always in the last place you look?”

  “Why would you keep looking after you found it?” I asked.

  She laughed. “That’s why it’s always in the last place I look. Very clever.”

  I thought it was just common sense.

  “You’re in luck. This encyclopedia gives great descriptions and even some drawings of monsters. Look at this one of the Cyclops.”

  “Who?”

  She covered one eye and tromped around the computer station, acting like One-Eyed Pete. “From the Greek story, The Odyssey.”

  “Are there ghouls in it?” I asked.

  She shook her head, then noticed the computer screen. “Ooh. Ghouls. What do you want to know about them?”

  “Where they come from,” I said.

  “Ah. I might be able to help you out there.”

  Ms. Tyler’s knowledge of trivia might come in handy today; I might not need to sift through 440,000 web sites.

  “Where do ghouls come from?”

  “Don’t believe what they tell you in the movies. The real story is much scarier.”

  She explained that the myth of ghouls, also known as zombies or the walking dead, began long ago in a village on an island called Haiti. One day, a villager died mysteriously in his sleep. His wife mourned for him and buried him in the graveyard, but when his brothers visited the cemetery the next day, the grave had been dug up and the body was missing. Some superstitious villagers believed the dead man crawled out of the ground himself and became a zombie. This sounded suspiciously similar to Monique’s story about the Gangstas. I peeked around, expecting Brian to jump out and scare me.

  “That’s not what really happened,” Ms. Tyler said. “A visitor, a man from far away, had drinks with the villager, and he slipped a secret potion into the villager’s cup, which put him into a deep sleep. Nothing could wake the villager up.”

  “My dad sleeps like that on Sundays. Except he snores so loud that it sounds like an airplane is landing in the living room. Didn’t this guy snore?”

  “No. The potion paralyzed him so he couldn’t move or make a sound. So when his family found him in bed, they thought he’d died. They buried him, but he was still alive. Unfortunately, the only person who knew this was the zombie-maker, who went to the graveyard at night and dug the man up.”

  “Why did he do that?”

  “To get slaves to work on a plantation. Free labour.”

  “You mean like when my dad makes me take out the garbage or mop the floors?”

  “Not quite.”

  “Wait a minute. The villager had to know he didn’t belong on the plantation.”

  She shook her head. “The potion wiped out his memory. He couldn’t remember his village or his family, and the zombie-maker convinced him that he had worked on the plantation all his life.”

  “Yes, but his family must have looked for him.”

  “They thought he was the walking dead. If they saw him, they’d run away in fear. Can you imagine your own friends and family avoiding you?”

  I thought about how the French kids steered around Remi in the morning, and how everyone avoided me all the time. A person didn’t need to drink a zombie potion to be treated like the undead.

  “Do you know what goes in the potion?” I asked.

  “The main ingredient is the poison from a puffer fish, but the rest of the recipe is a secret. No one knows for sure, and no one should ever try to make the potion. It’s very dangerous. One sip and zap! You get a brain freeze, and the next thing you know you’re a zombie.”

  Brain freeze! The connection between Trina and ghouls became crystal clear. Zombie potions gave people brain freezes; what else gave people brain freezes? Slushies! Trina had been pushing all the kids at school to drink slushies. She wasn’t a ghoul; she wanted to make ghouls.

  “Thanks, Ms. Tyler. That’s all I need to know.”

  “Wait. Don’t you want to take out the bo — ”

  I was out the library door before she finished her question. The sooner I confronted Trina, the sooner I’d clear Remi’s name. But classes were over and most kids had gone home; the only ones left were The Rake’s troublemakers, who had to serve detention. Shane Baxter lumbered out of the cafeteria, which doubled as the detention hall. Behind him, Natalie, the nasty French girl from the schoolyard, shuffled out. They walked toward me. She stuck her tongue out at me while he hip-checked me into the wall. Detention didn’t make people behave better: it only made them meaner.

  “Mr. Baxter, back in the room.” Mr. Henday stood behind us.

  “I was just fooling around with my good buddy,” Shane claimed.

  I said nothing.

  “Back in detention, Mr. Baxter.”

  Shane shambled back to the detention hall.

  “Mr. Henday, I know who really drew the graffiti,” I said.

  “I’m not interested. Go home, Mr. Chan.”

  He had made up his mind about my friend. The only way to convince The Rake of the truth was to get the zombie-maker herself to confess. Maybe I could trick her into admitting her guilt and record her. I’d seen the same tactic on TV police shows. If it worked on TV, it should work in real life.

  The next morning I borrowed my parents’ cassette tape recorder. The ancient machine was as big as a box of Cornflakes and as heavy as a bucket of kitty litter. On TV, the police attached tiny microphones to witnesses’ stomachs with tabs of tape. The only thing that would hold this giant machine to my chest was duct tape. Lots of duct tape. After I’d fastened the tape recorder to myself, I looked like a grey mummy. The bulky contraption was so big that none of my own clothes could cover it. I had to borrow my dad’s baggy brown sweater.

  As I slipped into the itchy wool sweater, Mom yelled from the kitchen, “Take out the garbage before you go to school.”

  “Okay, Mom.” The sweater sleeves hung off my arms like elephant trunks. They flapped against the slippery garbage bag and I couldn’t get a good grip.

  Mom turned around. “Aiya, why you wear your dad’s sweater?”

  “It’s cold at school,” I lied.

  “I find you something to wear.”

  I worried she’d make me wear another one of her dresses. “It’s okay, Mom.” Quickly, I rolled up one sleeve, grabbed the plastic bag and ran to the back of the store.

  “How about a scarf?” she called after me.

  “The sweater’s warm enough,” I yelled back.

  Outside, I hurled the green bag in the dumpster. The tape recorder shifted against my chest, giving me a nurple. Ouch! I tried to adjust the tape recorder into a less painful position. When I turned around, the pain went away, replaced with shock from what I saw. On the back wall of my parents’ store, a yellow and red message screamed:

  DON’T MESS WITH US GHOULS!

  SIXTEEN

  The graffiti message didn’t look like the one on the school shed. The first message looked like balloons while this one looked like flames. Instead of black outlines, these letters were outlined with red. There were no artsy squiggles or star patterns around the words. The big, fat message stood out on the white cement wall, as if the painter wanted people to see the warning and nothing else. Still, I had no doubt that Graffiti Ghoul, a.k.a. Trina, had written this warning. With the words “us ghouls,” she was telling me that her slushies had worked: she now had a zombie army.

  Dad quietly surveyed the graffiti while Mom acted like the store was on fire, barking orders to no one in particular about cleaning the graffiti “right now!” She stormed into the store, muttering that she had to get her cleaning supplies. She popped back out a second later.

  “What you waiting for?” she yelled at Dad. “We have to clean it.”

  She went back inside. A second later, she returned but had no supplies.

  “Did your friends do this?” she yelled at me.

  “No
, Mom.”

  She ran inside the store.

  Dad shook his head. “Who would do this?”

  He didn’t look at me. He wasn’t expecting an answer.

  “Why did they do this to our store?” he asked the air.

  I wanted to tell him the message was meant for me, but I didn’t know if he’d understand.

  He wiped the wall with his butcher’s apron. The paint was already dry. “What did I do to deserve this? Why not the bakery or the bar? Why me?”

  A vein bulged on Dad’s forehead. He yanked off his apron, but the strings knotted behind his neck. This only seemed to make him madder. He thrashed around, finally ripping the apron strings off.

  “Why?” he yelled.

  He hurled the apron against the message. Then he stared at the graffiti, panting like he’d been running a marathon.

  “Are you okay, Dad?”

  He ran his hand over his bald spot and calmed down. “I’m sorry. Never show people you are angry. Remember that.”

  “Can I do anything?” I asked.

  “No. You go to school. I have to go check on something in the store.”

  Any time Dad was upset, he checked on the diapers or, more accurately, the bottle of rye he stashed behind the diapers.

  “Your mom and I will clean this up.” He went inside the store.

  I took one last look at Trina’s message, then I walked to the wall and picked up Dad’s apron. As I lifted up the cloth, I noticed a glint. Underneath the apron was a shiny earring. I picked it up. Specks of red paint covered the silver trinket, which was in the shape of an “s”. It was just like the “s” on the board that Trina had been carrying around. “S” stood for sneaky graffiti artist. “S” stood for shameful criminal mastermind. “S” stood for solid evidence against Trina. I pocketed her earring and went inside.

  At the kitchen sink Mom filled a bucket with hot water, muttering to herself about how hard it was to remove paint and how she should have never let Dad talk her into moving to Bouvier. I tossed the apron on the counter beside her.

  “You know who do this?” she asked, wringing a sponge tightly.

  The image of Trina sprang to mind. She puckered for a kiss, and I shoved her back. My arch enemy smiled, flashing rotten green teeth. While she was pretty on the outside, she was nothing but a ghoul on the inside.

  “You come home right after school and help me clean up the wall,” Mom ordered.

  “I will.”

  “And Marty . . . you not tell anyone about this.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “I not want people talking about this. It just make more trouble.”

  “Okay.”

  But it was too late. News of the graffiti beat me to school. No one worried about Crossing The Line; French kids and English kids flocked together and chirped about what happened. When they spotted me, they flocked to me like magpies to road kill. I tried to shoo them away, but they pecked at me with questions.

  “What did the graffiti look like?” Jean Boissonault asked.

  Eric crowed, “My brother saw it on his way to school. He said it was bigger than the message on the school shed. Was it?”

  “Where did they paint it?” Shane Baxter asked.

  “What did it say?” Natalie demanded.

  “Who did it?” Colette wondered.

  “Do you have any enemies?” Samantha asked.

  I wanted to say everyone was my enemy, but I promised Mom I’d say nothing about the graffiti. Instead I glared at Trina, who was part of the crowd. She looked away, saying nothing, letting her zombie army do her dirty work. The kids came up with answers to their own questions. None of their answers were right.

  “I heard Marty had a fight with Remi,” Natalie said.

  “My brother said Remi tried to punch him, but Marty used his kung fu and knocked Remi on his back,” said Jacques.

  “They were fighting about the spray paint,” said Eric.

  “I bet Remi wrote the message on Marty’s store,”

  Shane suggested.

  No way would I let this rumour catch fire. “Remi’s not that kind of guy.”

  “You’re standing up for him?” Natalie asked. “After what he did?”

  “He didn’t paint the graffiti,” I said.

  “Of course he did,” Natalie said. “He’s trailer trash.”

  “Does anyone have proof that he did it?” I demanded.

  Colette raised her hand. The other kids giggled. She stammered, “Well, i-it’s just that. I-I mean, h-he did have a can of paint in his locker.”

  “And he lives in the trailer park,” Eric Johnson said.

  “Forest Heights Estates,” I corrected him.

  “Only criminals live in trailer parks,” Shane said.

  “Forest Heights Estates,” I repeated.

  Colette said, “Not everyone in Forest Heights is bad.”

  “Says the girl who lives in the trailer park,” said Natalie.

  “Forest Heights Estates!” I shouted.

  The kids quieted down.

  “Remi’s family is very nice,” Colette argued. “His dad fixed our car. And his mom brought over rhubarb-apple pie last week.”

  Trina’s eyes popped wide. “Remi does live in the trailer park?”

  Samantha looked at Trina, puzzled. “You’re the one who told us.”

  Trina looked down at her feet.

  Jean said to Colette, “I bet his dad was gonna steal your guys’ car.”

  Eric added, “And they stole the rhubarb apples.”

  “There’s no such thing as rhubarb apples. It’s rhubarbs and apples,” said Samantha, shaking her curly brown hair.

  “You mean he stole two things?” he asked.

  The talk turned to how a thief got his start. Everyone became an expert. Some claimed thieves were born to steal. Others said crime had to be learned and, just like riding a bike, thieves never forgot how to steal. But everyone agreed that robbers got their start in trailer parks.

  “You’ve got it all wrong,” I said.

  The kids ignored me as I tried to shout down their false rumours, all of which I was sure Trina had started.

  She controlled the kids with her zombie potion; they believed her every word, even when each word was an outrageous lie. I had to get her alone, away from her army of ghouls, so I could expose the truth.

  “If there’s graffiti in town, there might be more on the school,” I said.

  “I didn’t see anything,” Natalie said.

  “Maybe it’s being painted right now,” I suggested.

  “Where’s Remi?” Jacques yelled.

  The kids looked around.

  Eric yelled, “Let’s get him!”

  Everyone fanned out across the school grounds to look for Remi, while Trina broke away from the crowd and walked to the swings. She didn’t have to do anything now that she had the students under her control. Not for long, I hoped. While her back was to me, I reached under my big sweater and pushed the “Record” button on the tape machine. Music blared out of my stomach and a man with a high voice screeched out a Chinese opera song.

  “Haaaaaayyyyy soooonnnn siiiiiiii jiiiiiiiiiiii!”

  Wrong button. I stabbed at my stomach until I hit the stop button and the noise cut off. Lifting my sweater, I found the “Record” button, pressed it, turned and headed toward my target.

  “Trina, I want to talk about the graffiti.”

  “Go away. I don’t feel like talking to anyone,” she said.

  “Why did you lie to Principal Henday?” I demanded.

  “I didn’t lie.”

  “Yes you did,” I accused.

  “It’s your word against mine,” she snapped.

  If my trick worked, it would be her recorded word against her spoken word, and there was no way she could argue against herself. “Admit it. You were lying.”

  “Bug off.”

  She was tougher to peel than a hard-boiled egg. “I know about the slushies,” I said.

>   Her face turned egg white. “You d-do not,” she said.

  I tapped away at her tough shell. “Sure I do. You’re making all the kids try them. You’re getting them to go buy them at the gas station. I know the whole story.”

  She jumped off the swing and walked away. “No one will believe you.”

  I cut off her escape. She zigged; I zagged. She bobbed; I weaved. She weebled; I wobbled. I didn’t fall down, but Trina’s tough attitude did.

  “You know what you’re doing is wrong,” I said.

  She said nothing.

  “Why are you doing it? What do you get out of the slushie deal?”

  I crossed my arms and tapped my elbow while I stared into her blue eyes. Tap. Tap. Tap. She tried to act cool, but her watery eyes gave her away. Tap. Tap. Tap. Her lips quivered. The thought of kissing them popped back in my mind. I shuddered.

  “Principal Henday might go easy on you if you come clean now,” I said. Tap. Tap. Tap.

  The finger of interrogation worked. She finally cracked. “My uncle owns the gas station. When I get people to buy slushies, he gives me free ones. Get it?”

  What did her uncle have to do with zombies? Maybe the zit-faced gas jockeys were his slushie slaves, and Trina was recruiting new ones. Unsure of the connection, I nodded and pretended her confession was old news. “So what?”

  “Once you taste a slushie, you get hungry for a chocolate bar. And once you eat a chocolate bar, you get thirsty for a slushie. It goes on and on and on and on. Uncle Jerry calls it his ‘circle of life.’ You eat, you drink, you eat. He makes money.”

  How could Trina and her uncle be so cold? The very idea that they used slushies to create zombies for profit made me sick. It reminded me of TV beer commercials, where the grown-ups had perfect teeth, perfect hair and perfect eyes, and they seemed to be having great fun at a party that never ended, making TV watchers think beer drinkers were cool. The ads didn’t fool me; I knew the truth. People who drank alcohol didn’t look like the actors in the beer commercials; they were pot-bellied and bald like my dad, and he definitely didn’t look like he was having fun. When he drank he wasn’t cool; he was cranky. The ads were misleading and wrong, and so was the Brewster family slushie scam.

  “You’re not pushing slushies on anyone any more,” I said.