“Ghoul” wasn’t a nickname; it referred to what our graffiti artist was — an actual ghoul. I had to tell Remi, but he was covering his ears to shut out Monique’s moans. She kept pestering him as we left the schoolyard, claiming the ghouls were going to eat him.
“Are you done yet?” Remi asked his sister.
“Admit it. My story freaked you out or else you wouldn’t be covering your ears.”
He dropped his hands. “My ears are cold, that’s all. Besides, why should I believe you?”
“Because it’s the truth,” Monique said.
“Sure,” he scoffed. “Like you told the truth when you told Dad your watch died and that’s why you missed curfew.”
“My watch did break,” she said.
“Did Brian fix it for you? Or was he too busy sucking the tongue out of your mouth?”
“Shut your trap,” Monique said.
He smiled. “I think he’s the zombie, the way he was chewing on your ear.”
She smacked him in the arm.
“Didn’t hurt,” Remi said.
Monique shoved him aside and walked away, passing a green sign that read:
FOREST HEIGHTS ESTATES
“Is she crazy?” I asked. “She’s heading into the trailer park. Don’t you know who lives there?”
“Yeah. I live there,” he said.
“Oh,” I mumbled. “Sorry.”
I shouldn’t have called Remi’s neighbourhood “the trailer park.” To be fair, everyone called it that because it was, well, a park full of trailers. The long, narrow trailers were parked at angles so they could be towed out without hitting the houses across the lane.
“You don’t have to come over,” he grumbled.
“I want to,” I said, wondering if Lawrence Bennet’s claim that only criminals lived in the trailer park was true.
“You’re not going to make fun of where I live, are you?”
“I wouldn’t do that.”
“Everyone else does,” he said.
Teasing was like the flu; it made me feel like throwing up. The kids picked on me because I looked different, because I was Chinese, because I didn’t fit in, but Remi looked the same as everyone else. I thought he’d be immune to the disease I called teasitus, but there must’ve been more than one way to catch this awful sickness. If Remi could come down with teasitus, then anyone could.
“Living in Forest Heights Estates isn’t so bad,” I said, trying to cheer up my friend. “At least you don’t live in a grocery store.”
He looked puzzled. “What’s so rough about that? You get free candy whenever you want.”
“I wish. Dad says candy’s for paying customers. For snacks Mom sticks head cheese on crackers because it’s the only meat that no customer will buy.”
“What’s head cheese?”
“Lunch meat that looks like it’s been sliced from a cow’s head.”
“Gross.”
“Plus, because the store is so gigantic, it takes me two hours to do my chores. Do you know how many trips I have to make to the dumpster? I’d live in Forest Heights Estates any day.”
“Do you want to trade places?” Remi asked.
“Sure, you can let my mom dress you up in her clothes.”
“Never mind.”
“Are you going to invite me in your house? I’m freezing in this dress.”
He chuckled, seeming more like his old self, and walked past a windmill mail box toward his trailer.
Remi’s house reminded me of my home. All the rooms ran in a straight line like the back hallway of my parents’ store. The difference was that his home had carpets, while mine had cement floors, and he had a bratty big sister, while I had none.
“Watch out for the ghouls,” she moaned.
Remi led me along the wood-panelled hallway into his bedroom and shut the door, blocking out his sister’s moans.
Finally I could tell him about my theory. “I think one of the Gangstas is drawing the graffiti.”
“You can’t be serious,” he said. “You think we’re dealing with a spray-painting zombie?”
He opened the top drawer of his dresser and dumped his candy into it. A hockey trophy tumbled off the dresser and landed in an unzipped hockey bag. By the time he fished the trophy out, a jockstrap had hooked around the tiny golden hockey player. He untangled it and flicked the jockstrap on to his messy bed.
“It’s someone from the Gangstas,” I said. I grabbed a hockey stick propped against a Wayne Gretzky poster, knocked the jockstrap off Remi’s bed and sat down with the stick on my lap. “I think Monique’s story is real.”
“My sister always lies. Last week, she told my dad she was late coming home because there was a grease fire at her job and she had to clean the grill. But I saw her necking with her boyfriend in his car for like an hour outside the house before she came in.”
“What’s necking?” I asked.
He wrapped his arms around himself and smooched the air.
“Ew,” I said, shuddering at this one-sided wrestling match.
Remi lowered his arms. “You can’t trust anything that snot gobbler tells you.”
“How do you explain what we heard from the cemetery?”
“It doesn’t have to be ghouls,” he said.
“Who else has a good time in a graveyard?” I asked. “Think about it. Halloween is party time for zombies, and the cemetery is like their community hall. They’re probably bobbing for feet right now.”
Remi scrunched his face and squeezed his eyebrows together. He was either thinking hard or he needed to fart. “If it was one of the Gangstas, the graffiti should have said ‘Gangstas Rule’, but it said ‘Ghoul Rule’.”
“Didn’t Monique say that the Gangstas drank beer?”
“Yeah. So?”
“Don’t you remember what was at the school shed? Under the message?”
His farty-thinking face returned. I hoped he was thinking.
“A beer bottle,” I said. “It had to be from one of the Gangstas. What other proof do you need?
His face was still in fart-or-thinking mode. A slow trumpet toot was followed by the reek of rotten eggs. Nope, he wasn’t thinking.
“Ooops,” Remi said.
“Something crawled up you and died.” I fanned the stink away from me.
“Beans,” he said.
THUMP.
“What was that?” I asked.
THUMP. THUMP. Something was banging against the bedroom window.
“Someone’s trying to get in.” I stood up, clutching the hockey stick. “It’s the Gangsta Ghouls!”
“Don’t be silly,” Remi said. “There are no such things as zombies.”
He picked up his jockstrap and stretched it out like a slingshot.
“I thought you didn’t believe in zombies,” I said.
“Just in case.”
“Ooooooohhhhhhhhhmmmmmmmm,” a low voice moaned from outside the window.
My hands shook. “It’s the undead.”
He took aim at the window. “No it’s not.”
“The ghouls are coming to feed on us,” I said.
“Chill!”
“We’re going to be zombie dessert!” I cried.
Remi elbowed me, then yelled at the window, “Monique! I know it’s you.”
Of course! The moaning creature outside had to be his sister.
“Yeah,” I added. “Stop joking around. It’s not funny.”
“I smeeeeellllll feeeeeeeeet.” The voice didn’t sound much like Monique at all.
“Are you sure it’s her?” I asked.
Remi nodded, then stared at the window. He didn’t look very sure of himself.
“Feeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet toooooooo eeaaaaaatttt,” moaned the voice.
It had to be his sister, and if it was, then she needed a little dose of Newton’s Law. Nudging my friend, I whispered, “Let’s lock her out of the house.”
He grinned. “That’s why you’re the brains and I’m the brawn.”
I threw down the hockey stick, scrambled to the door and pulled it open. Monique jumped around the corner of the hallway and screamed, “Gotcha!”
I let out a high-pitched scream and hopped back. Remi fired his jockstrap, which smacked Monique in the face.
“You morons,” she growled as she peeled the jockstrap off her head.
“There’s a zombie outside,” I said.
“And it’s going to eat us,” Remi said.
Monique smiled. “I thought you didn’t believe in zombies, Remi.”
“I’m telling the truth,” he said.
“Yeah, right,” she said.
“He is,” I said, backing Remi up. “It’s outside the window.”
She cackled. “Maybe we should let it in.” She walked to the window.
“What are you doing?” I cried. “Get away from there!”
“Don’t open the window!” he yelled.
Too late. She slid the window open and looked out.
“There’s no one out here,” she said.
“Really?” I asked.
“See for yourself,” she said.
Remi crept to the window. I stayed back. Monique stepped away from the window so her brother could peek out. Suddenly, a hand shot into the room, reaching for Remi. He screamed, but Monique held him by the arms.
“Feeding time,” she yelled.
“No!” I screamed.
“Let go of me!” he screeched.
A burly blond guy in a Bouvier Bobcats hockey jacket appeared in the window.
“Gotcha again!” Monique let go of her brother.
Remi blushed. “I knew it was you, Brian.”
“Is that why you were screaming like a girl?” Brian laughed. “I wish I coulda seen the look on your face when I was banging on the window.”
“There’s a zombie outside my window!” Monique mocked us. “Call mommy and daddy. I think I wet my pants!”
Brian pretended to be a hysterical Remi by running back and forth past the window, his blond hair flapping up and down like a dolphin’s tail.
“Dad said you’re not allowed to have friends over tonight,” Remi said to Monique. “Especially not Brian.”
Brian stopped and popped his head through the opened window. “Relax, runt. Monique asked me to drive your friend home.”
“I don’t need a ride,” I said. I didn’t want to go anywhere with this jerk.
“Do you want to walk instead?” Monique taunted.
“Past the cemetery?”
Remi said, “I’ll walk with him.”
“Past the ghouls?” Brian asked. “Oohhhhhmm.”
Between zombies and jerks, I didn’t have much of a choice. “It’s getting cold out there,” I said. “Let’s all go for a ride.”
Monique shook her head. “Remi’s gotta go to bed. School tomorrow.”
“You can’t leave me alone,” he argued.
“We’ll be back in twenty minutes,” Brian promised.
“It doesn’t take that long to get to Marty’s place.”
Monique smiled. “Are you scared?”
If Remi rode with us, he’d be admitting that he was too scared to stay at home alone, and Monique would tease him for the rest of his life. But if he stayed at home, Monique and Brian would probably try to frighten him when they got back, and the only thing worse than being scared was waiting to be scared. My friend’s problem was like a Jenga game; any block he pulled out would bring down the tower.
I had to save him. “I’ll be okay. When your parents come back from bingo, you can tell them what Monique did.”
Remi grinned. “Yeah, I’ll tell them everything you did, Monique.”
“Go ahead,” she dared.
“And what you’re going to do with Brian,” he added.
She glared at him. “Marty, get your stuff. Brian will take you home now.”
“I have to wash my face first,” I said. “Or my mom will kill me.”
Brian smiled. “Take your time. Monique, you want to keep me company until the kid’s ready to go?”
She beamed. “Why don’t we warm up the truck?”
Brian left the window and Monique hurried out of the bedroom. Remi ran to the window and slammed it shut.
“Do you believe the zombie story now?” I asked.
“I still need proof,” he said.
“What kind of proof?” I wasn’t sure I wanted to hear the answer.
“We have to check out the graveyard.”
I shivered, and it wasn’t from the cold.