After I finish my homework on Monday night, I tiptoe up to the ballroom. The house is unusually quiet tonight—no show tunes from Lou’s room, just my mom crocheting in the living room. My guess is Macbeth strikes again, and Dad and Lou are at school rehearsing their scene.

The stairs up to the ballroom creak a lot, and every time I step, I hear a syllable: Sto. Len. Bo. Dy. Parts. Sto. Len. Bo. Dy. Parts. There is no way in hell I should make another ghoulie, just because I can’t afford to pay Uncle Epic for the mannequins—a good one is about $200, with shipping, and I don’t make much at Pizza Vendetta. But there is nothing in the world I want more than to make ghoulies.

When I open the door and see Donna Russell, my heart does a flip-flop of happiness. She’s so beautiful. And Ghoulie Carter was awesome, too. If the job of art is to say the things we can’t say with our mouths, then Donna Russell and Ghoulie Carter are some version of the statement “Humans and monsters aren’t far apart.” Or something like that. I don’t know. I’m not sure what my paintings say—landscapes are boring without monsters? That must be what I wanted to say with the Abominable Water-Skier—this boring and silly Minnesota mural needs a monster. Maybe I should have added a Nessie instead, but I like my water-skier. He’s got a great smile.

Way back in middle school, I made two hundred stickers with an online printing service that said HIPPOS: ADORABLE DEATH MACHINES, complete with a line drawing of two cute hippos standing around with peaceful smiles. I was fascinated with the statistic that hippos kill about three thousand people in Africa every year. It’s hard to tell which one’s the monster: the hippo, or the human who destroys the hippo’s habitat. I plastered them on Dumpsters and utility poles and corners of buildings, then I ditched the rest at Drastic Plastic, this hole-in-the-wall music store in Minneapolis, on the shelf where all the zines and free stuff got left. As a project, it didn’t mean much, but it was goofy and kind of funny. And it got me interested in street art. And now I’m in Uncle Epic’s crew. And this is still not my life.

What I really want to say with my mouth is FUCK YOU, TALLULAH BRIDGET NEUMANN. But I’ll say it with ghoulie skirts instead.

Tonight is all about Ghoulie #2, also known as Monster Matt. Matt Havelock is a drama guy more than Carter is, so it makes sense that he was part of the flash rob. But Matt Havelock is also Mr. Science Guy—like a National Science Foundation Scholarship kind of Science Guy. The National Science Foundation came to our school to give him the award, and we had a huge all-school assembly. Matt says he wants to invent another kind of plastic. Robbing a convenience store doesn’t sound like the most useful way to celebrate your scholarship, but what do I know?

I dig through the photocopies of faces until I find Matt’s largest photo, and I cut it out. Then Sarah Taylor’s eyes get stuck on his face, and Brandon Smith’s nose goes on top of his. I leave Matt his mouth.

I cut out his mannequin top (blue zigzag fabric from the cushions of our deck chairs), then cut out green test tubes to sew onto his zigzags. With a purple marker, I draw liquid and bubbles in all of them. Maybe one of the test tubes has his new plastic formula in it. The skirt fabric is polka dots, which actually kind of goes well with the zigzags, since the fabrics have similar colors. They might let me on Project Runway after all.

When I dig around in the closet for more tulle, I notice there’s a huge pile of canvas at the back of the closet, some of it in a camouflage print. It looks like enough to sew three sails for a ship, the pile is so huge. When I move it to check for more tulle, I find—miracle of all miracles—a sewing machine. It’s just a tabletop one, not a big one like Epic’s, but it could still work.

There’s a dining room table up here, our old one, so I clear a space on it for the sewing machine and plug it in. When I press on the foot pedal, the needle whirs into life, and—second miracle of the night—the machine’s already threaded. I practice for a little bit on a couple scraps, then I stitch the test tubes onto the shirt pieces and sew up the sides of the shirt when that’s done. My seams are a tiny bit less awful than they were on Epic’s machine.

The skirt is easy to do: fabric stitched together to make a circle, then gathered onto an elastic band. Ugly as hell, but all done soon enough.

Then I’ve got another Big Zombie Ghoulie Man on Campus, and it’s one forty-five.

When I open the door at the bottom of the stairs, the house is still really quiet. I’m not going to tempt fate by going to see where people are. Monster Matt and I slowly, quietly make our way down out the door and to my truck.

Then I realize I forgot to grab a mannequin stand, so I situate Monster Matt in the passenger seat and race back inside to the ballroom. I must have thumped too hard on the stairs, because when I come back down and out into the hallway, Lou is there.

“What were you doing in the ballroom?” She’s rubbing her eyes, like she’s been asleep.

“Nothing . . . just . . . thought I heard a noise upstairs. Went up there to smack the raccoon on the head.” I wave the mannequin stand around like it was a sword, hoping she won’t ask what it is.

“Oh.” She yawns. “Don’t wake Mom up. She’s got a migraine.”

“Where’s Dad?”

“Sleeping, too. He went to bed when Mom did, like at nine.” She walks back to her room. “Shut up and go to bed.”

“Yes, boss.” I salute her and put the mannequin stand behind my back while I do.

“Not kidding, ignoramus. I need my sleep.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

She shuts her door just a little harder than she needs to, not a slam since everyone’s sleeping, but definitely not just a close.

I think of one other thing for Monster Matt, and I find what I’m looking for in our junk drawer. Now he’s complete.

• • •

It takes me a few minutes to get him arranged right, but then Monster Matt is settled in, and Miss Vixen goes to work, tweeting pictures of her new creation. Monster Matt looks fantastic, sort of like he’s having a conversation with a ghost, since Ghoulie Carter’s face is floating. I love their faces. Their visages. They’re sort of Picasso meets Miró meets Warhol. Monster Matt doesn’t have yarn hair like Ghoulie Carter does, just newspaper strips that kind of look like dreads. The combination of their two faces and one body makes it look like Dr. Frankenstein had a really, really hard night and forgot something at home.

A Kwiky Pik guy comes out to smoke. He’s surprised to see me. I wish I had a mask.

“Are you the guy who left the first one?” He lights a smoke, looking like he’s not sure if he should run or clobber me on the head with the butt-holder thing.

“Maybe.” I straighten Monster Matt’s safety glasses, trying to be cool about being caught.

“Are you Uncle Epic?” The guy takes a deep drag.

“Nope.” It’s an excellent time to lie. “I work for a guy named Mixt UP, from Chicago. He’s the one doing these monsters.”

“So . . .” He ashes on the parking lot. “Then who’s Miss Vixen?” He definitely doesn’t believe me.

“Miss Vixen is just a way to throw people off the trail of Mixt UP.” I am the crappiest liar ever. “You guys didn’t take the body parts from the other monster, did you?”

“Nope. Haven’t seen anything lying around the back room, anyway.” He takes another deep drag. “Want a job at the shittiest place ever? You can have mine.” He stabs out his butt on the wall and throws it into the butt-holder. “Knock yourself out, Mixt UP. Your secret’s safe with me.” And he goes around the corner again, back to his shitty job.

When I tweet one last pic, I make sure the Miss Vixen signs are right in front, and I add this note: Truth-telling never looked so ghoulish. I <3 the Kwiky Pik.

It makes me happy to imagine them standing out here, talking in their monsterish way about what’s going to happen in the morning when people see Monster Matt. I hope Epic visits them.

I am crazy tired. It’s 2:35.

I want Lou to know what it’s like to feel bad. Sad. Misunderstood—Frankie, this poster can’t be yours! Look, Lou signed it and she says it’s hers, so it must be hers. Don’t be so jealous. It’s her time for unhappiness.

Yes, I really am the world’s worst brother. But you do the crime, you do the time. Did they really think the world would ignore a bunch of people dressed like the court of Louis XIV who robbed a store with a gun? I’m just coming after them with art instead of cops.

Four hours of sleep won’t be nearly enough. But Monster Matt is pretty incredible, and being tired is worth it when you’ve finally said what you want to say.