All the clues added up. The other day, when I’d called Shane “Ghoul,” Trina had looked up. At first I thought my whispering was annoying her, but now I knew the truth. She had followed Remi and me to the hardware store and the graveyard; only a criminal worried about being caught would follow the detectives. Of course she’d want the can of spray paint, because she wanted to destroy the evidence. And if she couldn’t destroy it, then she’d find a fall guy, which explained why she lied to The Rake about never seeing the can before.
But if Trina was the graffiti artist, why did she rip off the “s” from the original message? Was she a living member of the Gangstas? Did she know Dylan Green, the name on the tombstone surrounded by the beer bottles? Most important of all, what did “Ghouls Rule” mean to her?
I needed to learn more about ghouls, and not Monique’s scary version. I needed real answers. That meant a visit to the school library. Between the stacks of non-fiction books and the four Internet stations, I was sure I’d find Trina’s connection to “Ghouls Rule.”
The school librarian, Ms. Tyler, waved as I entered. Unlike the town librarian, Ms. Tyler liked noise. She talked to everyone, recommending books to read, offering help with computers and telling people facts about everything in the world, from why a dog wags its tail to how fish breathe. She talked so much that students had to shush her. Ms. Tyler reminded me of a Labrador puppy: small, black-haired, full of energy, always happy to see people and constantly yipping.
“Marty, you’re just in time,” she called. “The books I ordered came in. You can be the first to pick. I have one that you’ll love. It’s a mystery.”
No time for mystery stories; I was in the middle of a real-life whodunit. “Maybe later, Ms. Tyler. I have to do some work on the computer,” I said.
“Do you need help?” she asked, rolling up the sleeves of her black sweater. “I’ve found a new search engine that I want to test out.”
“Thanks, but I can do it myself.”
“What are you looking up?” Ms. Tyler hopped around the library counter; if she had a tail, it’d be wagging.
“I’m looking up monsters,” I said.
“Halloween’s over.”
“I know, but I wanted to learn more about some of the monsters I saw running around on Halloween night.”
She rushed over. “I have a few books that might help. Tell me what kind of monsters.”
I whispered, “The dead kind.”
“Vampires? Ghosts? Frankenstein’s monster? I have books on all of those.” She couldn’t wait to fetch them for me.
“Sure,” I said, tossing her a bone. “All of them.”
“I won’t be long.” She scampered to the stacks of books at the other end of the library.
I slid quickly in front of an Internet station. The screensaver was a fake aquarium with exotic fish. One swoosh of the mouse and the fish tank disappeared. I double-clicked on the Internet icon, called up a search engine, typed in “ghoul,” and waited.
At one of the library windows, Colette, the French girl with the pigtails, looked out into the schoolyard. I remembered how the other French girls treated her when they thought she lived in Forest Heights Estates, and I wondered if their accusations were even true. That was the problem with gossip. It didn’t have to be true; it just had to be said aloud.
Beep. The search engine had found my answers: 440,000 matches for “ghoul.” The first page alone had four Web sites for an old movie about ghouls, three sites for video games, and two sites about a band named “The Glockenspiel Ghouls.” I clicked on a link for a site that didn’t have anything to do with movies, games or music. The screen went blank for a second, then a cartoon zombie in a tuxedo shambled to the middle of the screen, put on a top hat and tap danced while cheesy organ music played Happy Birthday. At the song’s end, the zombie reached behind his back, pulled out a brightly-wrapped gift box and moaned “Happy Fiftieth Birthday.” It was a site for people to send creepy greeting cards.
I clicked out of the screen and scanned the next listings. They offered the same kinds of sites as the first screen, some even with the same Web addresses. How was I ever going to find the truth?
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!