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.
“I’m getting sick of slushies anyway,” Trina said.
She gave in almost too easily. I didn’t buy her story. One time my mom begged Dad to stop drinking, and he promised he’d give it up. Instead, he hid his booze from Mom. I suspected Trina would go underground with her slushies, slipping the icy drinks into juice boxes and handing them out at recess to unsuspecting victims.
“That’s not good enough,” I said. “You have to tell Principal Henday the truth. That you’re Graffiti Ghoul.”
“Excu-u-s-e me?” she said. “What makes you think I’m responsible for the graffiti?”
“You lied to Principal Henday yesterday,” I said. “You wanted Remi to take the blame for the graffiti, because then you could get away with your crime. Admit it, Trina Brewster. You lied.”
I puffed my tape recording belly toward her to capture the confession.
“Alright, I admit it,” Trina said. “The Rake looked mad, and I didn’t want to get in trouble.”
“Gotcha!” I lifted my dad’s sweater and flashed her.
Her mouth dropped open. “Is that a tape recorder?”
“Yup. And I have your confession on tape, Trina Brewster,” I spoke toward the tape recorder’s built-in microphone, “or should I call you the leader of the Graffiti Ghouls?”
“I’m the Litter Patrol leader, for Pete’s sake. I’m trying to catch the Ghouls, not lead them. I’m the one who found the ‘s’ by the shed.”
“Pretending to be a detective is a great cover for a criminal. No one would ever suspect you,” I said. “But now I have your confession on tape.”
“I might have lied to The Rake, but that doesn’t mean I painted the graffiti.”
“I have more proof,” I said, jamming my hand into my pocket. “Does this look familiar?” I produced the earring I’d found at the store and shoved it toward her face.
Trina squinted. “What is it?”
“Your earring. It fell off when you were drawing the graffiti at my parents’ store.”
She pulled her blonde hair back, revealing both her ears. “Hel-lo, my ears aren’t pierced.”
She leaned forward. Her earlobes had no holes.
“But if this isn’t your earring, then that means you didn’t paint the . . . ” The words died in my throat.
Because I found the earring by the second graffitied message, I assumed it belonged to the vandal. Because Trina encouraged kids to buy slushies, I assumed she was making zombies. Because Trina lied to Principal Henday, I assumed she had to be Graffiti Ghoul. But Trina didn’t have pierced ears. She might have been pushing slushies on everyone, but the kids didn’t act like zombies. Even though she lied to The Rake, it didn’t mean she was guilty of the graffiti crime. Just as everyone had assumed that Remi drew the graffiti because he lived in a trailer park, I had assumed the wrong thing about Trina. Was she telling the truth now?
She snatched the earring out of my hand. “Besides, even if my mom did let me wear earrings, I’d never pick something this ugly. Only a freak-a-zoid would be into snake earrings.”
I took back the earring. It wasn’t in the shape of an “s”. It was in the shape of a snake. Snakes. Who was into — ? The truth curled around my chest and squeezed until I blurted, “I know who the Graffiti Ghouls are!”