THREE

“Does one of you want to explain this?” Mr. Henday asked.

“It wasn’t us,” Remi said.

“We found it like this,” I added.

Our principal ran his hand over his bald head and sighed deeply. “I thought you boys knew better.”

“It’s the truth. We didn’t do it,” I exclaimed. “You have to believe me, Principal Henday.”

To his face we called him by his real name, but behind his back all the kids called Mr. Henday “The Rake,” because he was tall and skinny and had big feet, which made him look like a human rake. I wondered if he’d find his nickname funny; I didn’t want to be the one to ask. The Rake folded his arms and tapped his index finger against his elbow.

If Principal Henday wanted someone to confess, all he had to do was keep quiet and tap that finger of interrogation. One time David Field accidentally kicked a soccer ball through a school window. The Rake lined up all the boys in the gym and told us that someone was going to confess to the crime. Then he stood back and tapped his finger against his elbow. By tap two hundred and eighteen, David broke down and confessed to breaking the window, cheating off my math test and wetting his bed. The Rake’s finger had awesome power against the guilty. So even though Remi and I were innocent, my stomach fluttered and my knees shook. I felt the sudden urge to confess to a crime that I didn’t commit. Remi broke into a sweat. The Rake noticed and tapped faster.

“Mr. Boudreau, how many strikes do you have against you?” Mr. Henday asked.

“One,” mumbled Remi.

The Rake handed out strikes to kids who misbehaved. One strike meant one day’s detention. Two strikes meant a week’s worth of detention. Three strikes and The Rake called the student’s parents. The strike Remi already had wasn’t even his fault. Eric Johnson had dumped a glass of water down my back and Remi had come to my rescue. He soaked Eric with a jug of water just as Mrs. Riopel walked into the lunchroom. When she saw the empty water jug in Remi’s hands and the water dripping off Eric’s blond hair, she freaked out. I told her Remi was standing up for me, but she still gave him a strike. Eric received a strike as well, which brought his total to two. Eric stopped dumping water on me after that.

“The graffiti will be strike two, Mr. Boudreau.”

“I didn’t do it,” Remi said.

“Once a troublemaker, always a troublemaker,” Mr. Henday said.

It wasn’t fair for him to assume that Remi was a troublemaker because of one strike. That was like kids assuming that I knew kung fu because I looked Chinese.

“I can only wait so long, Mr. Boudreau.”

Like a nearsighted umpire, The Rake was about to make a bad call. I had to stop him.

“Mr. Henday, you’re wrong about Remi,” I said.

“How would you know, Mr. Chan? Did you have a hand in the crime?”

If I did do it, my hands would be covered with paint, but the graffiti was dry, and my hands were clean. “Remi couldn’t have painted the graffiti,” I said. “If he did, the paint would still be wet.”

The Rake walked to the graffitied doors. He dragged his finger across the message. It came away dry.

“Mr. Boudreau could have painted this over the weekend.”

“I was visiting my grandma in St. Paul this weekend,” Remi said. “You can check with my parents if you don’t believe me.”

“You were there the whole weekend?” Principal Henday folded his arms and tapped his elbow.

Remi nodded. “We got back late last night.”

“Mr. Boudreau, would you like me to check that story with your parents?”

“They’ll tell you the same thing.”

The Rake tapped his finger another seventeen times, but Remi stared at him, not blinking or sweating. Finally, The Rake gave up.

“Okay, I believe you, but from now on, you should report this kind of thing to a teacher or to me right away.”

He glared at both of us.

“Yes, Mr. Henday,” we said.

“You’d better get to class. The bell is going to ring in . . . ” He checked his watch. “Three . . . two . . . one.”

The bell rang. At our school, everything ran on The Rake’s time. We walked away from the shed.

Out of Mr. Henday’s earshot, Remi leaned over and whispered, “That was pretty smart to notice the paint was dry.”

“You were the one who found the graffiti in the first place,” I said.

“I guess we make a good team.”

“You bet, Remi. I’m the brains. You’re the brawn.”

“Yeah . . . what’s brawn?”

“It’s why I’m the brains,” I said. “It means you’re the muscle.”

Remi flexed his arm and kissed his bicep.

“Don’t let it go to your head,” I said.

“So who do you think painted the graffiti?” Remi asked.

“Someone named Ghoul.”

“Duh! I knew that. I meant who is this guy?”

I shrugged. “Someone who doesn’t write very well. He should have written an ‘S’ at the end of ‘Rule’.”

“Maybe he ran out of paint,” Remi suggested.

I nodded. “Ghoul’s a pretty weird name. Who would name their kid that?”

“It’s a nickname,” Remi suggested. “But who looks like a ghoul?”

I shrugged. “Maybe he acts like a ghoul.”

“Or he sounds like a ghoul,” Remi guessed.

“What does a ghoul sound like?”

Remi thought for a second. “My dad has a CD by Leonard Cohen. That guy definitely sounds like a ghoul.”

“What’s he sound like?”

Remi growled very slowly and with no emotion in his voice: “He so-o-ounds like a ro-o-obot with a baa-a-d co-o-o-old.”

“Creepy,” I said. “Does anyone at school sound like that?”

Remi cleared his throat and talked normally. “We’ll have to check.”

“Okay,” I said.

“Do you think The Rake will wipe out the strike against me if we find Ghoul?”

“You didn’t deserve the strike in the first place.”

“It’d be great to wipe it out,” Remi said. “All we have to do is catch this Ghoul guy.”

“He’s not just a Ghoul. He’s a Graffiti Ghoul.”

He nodded. “That should be our code name for him.”

“Sure,” I said.

“There’s no way Graffiti Ghoul can hide from us for long. You’re the brains. I’m the prawn.”

I laughed. “I think you want to be the brawn, not the prawn.”

“Why?”

“A prawn is a shrimp,” I replied.

“Good to know.” Remi blushed. “I’ll check out the French kids. We’ll report back at recess.”

“Keep a low profile,” I said. “We don’t want to bring too much attention to ourselves.”

When I walked into my homeroom all the kids started to sing: “Marty and Trina sitting in a tree, K.I.S.S.I.N.G. First comes love, then comes marriage. Then comes Marty with a baby carriage!”

My face turned orange like a cooked crab shell and I scuttled into my seat. A tidal wave of laughter washed around me, but I clung to the sides of my desk, bracing against the storm. What could be worse than being married to my worst enemy? I thought about living in the same house with her insulting me morning, noon and night. I imagined her chewing strawberry bubble gum and sticking the used pieces on my pillow. Did the gum make her lips taste like strawberries? The only way to know for sure was to kiss her. Ew. To drown out the image of us kissing, I tried to think other thoughts: a cat coughing up a hairball, my mom cleaning up the hairball, a garbage can full of hairballs with pieces of gum stuck in them . . . the gum was strawberry, the same strawberry bubble gum that Trina chewed just before she kissed me. Double ew!

The real Trina walked into the classroom. She wasn’t chewing strawberry gum and it didn’t look like she wanted to kiss me.

Eric Johnson started to sing, “Trina and Marty sitting in a tree, K.I.S.Sssssssss . . . ”

Trina shot a glare at him, sucking air through her flared nostrils like a vacuum cleaner set on high. Eric ducked down in his desk and shut up. She scanned the classroom, waiting for someone else to sing. No one did.

Ms. Hawkins stepped into the room behind Trina. “Take your seat. Class is about to start.”

“The other kids are making fun of me,” Trina said.

“Which kids?” Ms. Hawkins asked.

“Everyone,” Trina whined. “They’re being really mean. I think you should make them all buy me a slushie to apologise.”

“Sit down, Trina. I’ll deal with this.”

Trina headed to her desk while Ms. Hawkins tied her long blonde hair into a ponytail and plucked a pencil from her desk top.

Ms. Hawkins slowly twirled her pencil in the air. “I’m very disappointed.”

Our teacher never got mad. She just got “disappointed,” which made me feel worse than if she yelled.

“I think you all need to write an essay about how wrong it is to pick on someone,” she said.

“Except me, right?” Trina asked.

“Even you, Trina.”

“But they were making fun of me. Why do I have to write an essay?”

“For spreading rumours about Marty in the schoolyard this morning.” Like Santa Claus, Ms. Hawkins knew who was naughty and who was nice.

“I don’t have anything to write with,” Trina said.

Ms. Hawkins gave her number two pencil to Trina, who frowned as if she had just found a lump of coal in her stocking.

“Everyone get started,” said Ms. Hawkins.

Usually other people teased me, so I didn’t know how it felt to be the bully. I could write about how I felt when kids laughed at me: I wanted to throw up. I wanted to cry. I wanted to yell. I wanted to crawl inside my chest and never come out. Would telling the kids how I felt make them stop, or would it make them want to pick on me more?

I put my pen down and looked around the class. Ms. Hawkins was typing at her computer while the students were writing their essays. Who could be Graffiti Ghoul? Shane Baxter might have the nickname “Ghoul.” He was a walking brick wall with a buzz cut. He picked on everyone, especially grade two kids. Every lunch hour he’d take their lunches, pick the best sandwiches for himself and stomp on the rest. Even though he looked like a normal kid, he acted like a monster.

I whispered in Shane’s direction, “Ghoul.”

If Shane went by that nickname, he’d look up.

“Hey, Ghoul,” I repeated.

He stared at his paper while he chewed his pencil stub.

“Ghoul,” I said a little louder.

One desk past Shane, Trina looked up at the sound of my voice. She looked annoyed. I pretended to work on my essay, watching out of the corner of my eye until Trina went back to work.

“Ghoul,” I coughed.

Shane didn’t move. He was either deaf or he wasn’t Ghoul. I was about to try one more time when Ms. Hawkins softly touched my shoulder.

“You should cover your mouth when you cough,” she whispered.

I liked the fact that, even though she’d caught me talking in class, she made me stop without making me feel bad. I finished my essay, hoping that Remi would have better luck in finding Ghoul.

The news of the graffiti had spread quickly. Everyone wanted to see the message, but Mr. Henday had roped off the equipment shed. Kids crowded around the rope and craned their necks, but they couldn’t see the shed doors or the graffiti.

Trina ordered, “Get back. Nothing to see here.”

“Who died and made you queen?” Jacques Boissonault sneered.

Trina pointed to the orange sash that hung off her shoulder. It read: “Litter Patrol.”

“Hel-lo,” she said. “Talk to the sash.”

At the start of the school year, Principal Henday asked for volunteers to work as Litter Patrol Officers to make sure the schoolyard stayed clean. The only person who volunteered was Trina. She got the job and the orange sash and the power went to her head.

“Now move along,” she ordered everyone. “If you want something fun to do, you should go to the gas station and buy some slushies.”

No one moved. I wandered behind kids, coughing, “Ghoul.”

Jacques shot me a dirty look. “Cover your mouth when you cough. Were you raised in a barn?”

No one else reacted to my coughing.

Remi breezed past me and hissed, “Smelly feet.”

“Smelly feet” was code for “Meet me at the Jesus statue.” The stone figure stood on a tall pedestal, which put Jesus’ feet at nose level and gave Remi the idea for the code phrase. He stayed on the French side of the statue while I leaned against the English side. No one could accuse either of us of Crossing The Line.

“There’s no ‘Ghoul’ here,” Remi said.

“Maybe he’s ashamed of his nickname,” I suggested.

“He could be a she. Girls can draw better than guys.”

“Eric Johnson draws doodles better than anyone in my class,” I pointed out.

“Either way, no one’s answering to the nickname.”

“I guess that means Graffiti Ghoul doesn’t go to our school.”

“Then why would he draw graffiti here?” Remi asked.

“Maybe he used to go here, and a teacher gave him bad marks,” I guessed.

“Or he had three strikes.”

“No one’s ever had three strikes.”

“So we’re at a dead end,” Remi said.

I shook my head. “No. We can find out how Graffiti Ghoul painted the message.”

“There was a can of spray paint by the door. Right beside the broken beer bottle.”

“I remember seeing that. Ghoul had to get the paint from somewhere. Where do you get spray paint?”

Remi’s face screwed up like he was about to squeeze off a fart; this was his thinking look. I thought I’d better help him come up with the answer. I swung my arm up and down, pretending to hammer nails into a wall.

“What am I doing?” I asked.

“You’re fishing? You’re ringing a bell. No, you’re the Pope and you’re blessing a sheep.”

“I’m using a hammer.”

“Who cares about a hammer? We’re trying to find a place to buy spray paint.”

“It’s a hint, Remi. The same place you’d get a hammer.”

“Under my dad’s pillow?”

“No. You get — wait a minute. Why does your dad keep a hammer under his pillow?”

“In case of burglars.”

“Never mind,” I said. “Listen. You get spray paint at a hardware store. That’s where we have to start looking.”