The Dead Kid Detective Agency

321 Pages·2011·1.19 MB·English

by  Evan Munday

E V A N M U N D A Y
The Dead Kid Detective Agency
Evan Munday
ECW
Copyright © Evan Munday, 2011
Published by ECW Press
2120 Queen Street East, Suite 200, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4E 1E2
416-694-3348 / [email protected]
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a
retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any process — electronic, mechanical,
photocopying, recording, or otherwise — without the prior written permission of the
copyright owners and ECW Press. The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this
book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher
is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions,
and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials.
Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the
product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to
actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely
coincidental.
Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Munday, Evan
Dead Kid Detective Agency / Evan Munday.
ISBN: 978-1-55022-971-4
Also issued as:
978-1-77090-083-7 (PDF); 978-1-77090-082-0 (EPUB)
I. Title.
PS8626.U54D42 2011 jC813’.6 C2011-902864-6
Editors: Michael Holmes and Erin Creasey
Cover and Text Design: David Gee
Typesetting and Production: Rachel Ironstone
Printing: Webcom 5 4 3 2 1
This book was printed in July 2011, at Webcom in Toronto, ON, Canada.
The publication of The Dead Kid Detective Agency has been generously supported by
the Canada Council for the Arts, which last year invested $20.1 million in writing
and publishing throughout Canada, by the Ontario Arts Council, by the Govern-
ment of Ontario through Ontario Book Publishing Tax Credit, by the OMDC Book
Fund, an initiative of the Ontario Media Development Corporation, and by the
Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund.
Printed and bound in Canada
Only The Good Die Young
– Billy Joel

O
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October Schwartz is not dead. Z
Now, there are plenty of o
m
dead folks in this book (you
b
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read the title before starting e

T
the book, right?), it’s just that October Schwartz does not happen
to be one of them. That said, it was her first day at Sticksville ra
m
Central High School, and she sort of wished she were dead.
p
October had moved to Sticksville only a month earlier, and she
didn’t know anyone yet, unless you counted her dad and maybe
the Korean lady who sold her gum at the convenience store. She’d
spent the month of August reading in the cemetery behind their
house and working on writing her own book. So her first day of
high school was even more nerve-wracking than it was for most
of the students at Sticksville Central. The way she figured it,
everybody was going to hate her. They certainly had in her old
town. Why should this one be any different?
There were plenty of reasons for the average high school student
to hate her: she wasn’t chubby, but she wasn’t not chubby, which,
to those naturally inclined to be unpleasant people, meant she was
fat. Also, she wore more black eyeliner than most — barring only
silent film actresses, really. Add to that the natural black hair she’d
inherited from her mom and her affinity for black clothing, and she
was like a walking teen vampire joke waiting to happen.
Plus, she was a little kid. Due to the advanced state of middle
school in her former town, a futuristic utopia of almost 40,000
citizens — most of them employed by the town’s snowmobile
factory — she’d been allowed to skip grade eight altogether in
Sticksville (only three hours away geographically), straight into the
5
teenage Thunderdome of high school before she even reached her
teens. She was twelve and headed into grade nine, where most of
her classmates were well on their way to fourteen if they weren’t
there already. This part was to remain a secret from everyone, if
she had her way. But even if her classmates didn’t know, October
was sure they could smell the tween on her — the stench of Sour
Keys and Saturday morning cartoons.
As October pulled on a black T-shirt, she began to imagine
burgeoning extracurricular clubs founded on the members’
communal hatred of October Schwartz, its members wearing
T-shirts emblazoned with hilarious anti-October slogans.
October’s dad — Mr. Schwartz to you — taught grade eleven
and grade twelve biology, as well as auto repair at Sticksville
Central, so it was sort of his first day, too. But somehow, October
doubted her dad was anxious about what people would think of
his clothes and hair.
She left for school early that morning, because she was
cautious about that sort of thing. About other sorts of things, she
wasn’t very cautious at all, as you’ll see. She shouted goodbye to
her dad, who was still busy shaving in the washroom. He didn’t
respond, but he was kind of concentrating, blaring music by
Fleetwood Mac or some other band from the 1970s.
She walked into the backyard and out to Riverside Drive
using the cemetery that bordered their backyard as a shortcut. Mr.
Schwartz had been uncertain at first about purchasing a house so
close to the town’s lowly cemetery. Not that he believed in ghosts,
but there was something unseemly about it to him. However, the
price was good and he wanted to find a home before the school
year started, so he dismissed his uncertainties. October liked it.
She smiled crookedly as she passed through the wide expanse of
decaying stone and forgotten names on her way to the first day of
the rest of her life.
The air was crisp and a bit cold for early September, like a
Granny Smith apple left in the freezer by accident. October lived
only about twenty minutes from Sticksville Central, so it wasn’t
long before she pushed her way through the double doors of the
school’s entrance. She opened her bag and unfolded her schedule.
6
Evidently, October wasn’t the only student concerned with
arriving early. A veritable gaggle of other kids could already be seen
congregating, conversing, and giggling inside the main corridor of
the school.
One of these students — a tall one with auburn hair and a
belt the width of a small diving board, who was standing with
some friends beside the vending machines outside the cafeteria
(spoiler alert: she’s a witch) — caught sight of October Schwartz
and pursued her like a fashionable, but very silent homing missile.
October, who was attempting to avoid contact with anyone and
everyone, hurried past her. But she wasn’t quick enough to avoid
the belt enthusiast’s loud slur:
“Zombie Tramp!”
Mortified, October made a sensible, strategic retreat to the
girls’ washroom, which was thankfully empty. She gripped a
porcelain sink and stared dolefully at herself in the mirror. Two
minutes into high school and things were off to a horrible start.
But, above all else, October was determined not to cry at high
school. Ever. She was still twelve, but she wasn’t a baby.
She tried to fill her mind with thoughts different from her
new “Zombie Tramp” status: her birthday, her dad, and her new
classes. What did Zombie Tramp even mean? Why Tramp? Why
not Zombie Floozy? Yet, because she was staring into a mirror, her
mind kept drifting back to her big, stupid face.
Her dad often told her she was “darn cute,” because he was
related to her, but October never believed him. Her dad was no
prize himself; how would he know what cute was? October did a
quick self-analysis in the mirror. She might have overdone it with
the eyeliner today, and maybe she should have taken more effort
with her hair. Around her neck, she wore a gift left behind by her
mom, a silver ankh necklace. It was probably the eyeliner and all
the black that was encouraging the Zombie Tramp comparison.
A short girl with a ponytail entered the washroom and October
turned on the taps, pretending she was washing her hands, then
hastily exited, wiping her hands on her black jeans. French class
would start soon, and October wasn’t sure where her classroom
was yet. Or her locker.
7
When October found her locker, at the top of the arts corridor,
she also found another bit of unpleasantness. That very same tall,
trendily dressed girl, the one who played so fast and loose with the
term Zombie Tramp, was standing right beside her locker. The girl
faced the other direction, chatting with a group of similarly attired
compatriots who had formed a semicircle that blocked most of the
hallway.
“Did you see what she was wearing?” the pointy-faced
ringleader asked. Rhetorically, it would appear. “Uh, hello, Janet.
Last year called. They want their boots back.”
“And their hair! Haw!” added a little wisp of a girl with a very
large laugh. Other girls chimed in; a girl with a goose neck and
blonde hair, and a shorter girl with a shirt that read, “So many
boys, so little time!”
As the symposium continued, October quietly opened her
locker, slid her knapsack inside, and extracted her binder and
pencil case, hoping none of the girls would notice her. She felt a
little like she was playing Operation, trying to remove the patient’s
bread basket without touching the metal edges. Tragically, she was
never any good at that game.
“Hey! Zombie Tramp is back!”
Oh, piss right off, October thought.
“You’re new in town, right?” her tormentor with the prodigious
belt asked, whipping around to face her. October stood, silent as
a tomb — well, not some of the tombs encountered later in this
book, but as silent as tombs usually are.
“Well, you can go back to wherever you came from. We’ve
already got a couple of goth skeezebags here. Don’t require any
more . . . ’specially not the extra-large variety.”
Her minions stared at October, waiting for her to spontaneously
combust from the insult.
“That means you’re fat,” whispered the girl who apparently
fretted about the ratio of time to boys.
“Ashlie Salmons,” said an authoritative voice behind October.
“Don’t you have some class to be at?”
When October turned to identify the speaker, she saw an older
man with glasses and thinning white hair standing in the hallway.
8
His arms were folded across his pudgy torso, strangulating his tie.
October guessed he was a teacher at the school; otherwise, he
was, like, the worst student ever. He frowned at Ashlie Salmons
(who, dear readers, is that auburn-haired super-creep we all hate
now). The older man arched a bushy, white eyebrow.
“Ms. Salmons, class is about to start. Wouldn’t it be great to
begin the school year by arriving on time?” A smirk split the older
man’s face.
Ashlie and her friends scattered like cockroaches in a lit room.
Well, perhaps not that quickly. They scattered like cockroaches
with some sense of decorum.
“Thank you . . . uh, sir,” October stammered.
The older man’s smirk made a subtle transition into a smile.
“Not a problem, young lady,” he said. “You look new. Ashlie
Salmons began attending Sticksville Central last year, and certainly
made an impression on her classmates. But I’ve figured out how
she operates. She can smell fear.” He chuckled a bit as he sniffed
the air like a dog, then turned on this heel. He continued to speak
to October as he walked away. “Don’t worry too much. Their bark
is worse than their bite . . . Actually, I think their bark is their bite.
Either way, have a good first day.”
He left October stunned outside her open locker. It certainly
didn’t seem like a teacher should talk that way about other students.
But maybe she was naive about what high school teachers were
like. She had French class in two minutes, so she’d soon find out.
(cid:49)
The remainder of October’s morning wasn’t nearly as eventful
as her pre-class locker encounter. French class wasn’t particularly
scary or dread-inducing. It was, to the contrary, October’s best
subject. She was, how you say, un connoisseur de la français.
I said it was her best subject, not mine.
She was surprised to see the same older man who saved her
from certain doom at the hands of Ashlie Salmons sitting at the
front of the class. He was her French teacher, and his name was Mr.
O’Shea. He seemed pretty nice, not at all the sort of person who
9