left after they thought he went to bed, but his folks let us search his car, and we didnât find anything. No paint, nothing. So Trent may be innocent.â
Unless his parents were covering for him, I thought. Why would he be visiting his grandmother in another state the night before school began? I didnât say anything about the article Iâd read, but I didnât have to. Dad had seen it, as well.
âThis same thing happened in Tennessee just a few days ago. We think it was some guy traveling through town, looking to stir up a little trouble.â
Mom reached for her glass of wine. âWell, it certainly is strange.â
Dad shrugged. âItâs probably a one-time thing. This guy tagged the town and moved on. Some other town will get those gorillas next.â
âTagged?â Mom asked.
âItâs what they call it now.â
After dinner I went to my room to work on my history paper. I had looked up some definitions of art and tried to find a clever way to use them. The problem, I discovered, was that no one could come up with one single definition for art. It didnât have to be beautiful if it was considered âsignificant.â But who decided what was significant?
I figured I could spend hours on the question and still not come up with an answer, so I decided to use a quote from Hippocrates because I knew Mr. Gildea liked the Greeks. â Vita brevis, ars longa, â I typed at the top of the page. Then I included the translation: âLife is short, art endures.â I argued that the gorillas on the school wall werenât really art because, in the end, they would not endure. They would be removed within the month, and if they had truly been art, wouldnât someone want to keep them around longer? I knew it wasnât the most solid argument, but I figured the ancient Greek quote would earn me some points and besides, werenât all teachers supposed to be opposed to defacing school property? Mr. Gildea would like it, I was sure.
I put away my schoolwork and got ready for bed. I couldnât stop thinking about the wall. I was sure Trent was behind it, but maybe someone was helping him. Maybe Brady and Reva were working with Trent, not just covering for him, butpainting, as well. I told myself to stop coming up with conspiracy theories and get some sleep, but I couldnât seem to turn off my brain. As I was drifting off, another thought occurred to me: what if Eli was helping Trent?
3
D AD WAS ONLY PARTLY RIGHT about the graffiti leaving town. The gorillas did appear in another state, on the side of an abandoned restaurant in Beulah, Arkansas, a small town east of Little Rock. This time, two gorillas were pictured, and the thought bubble above their heads read âWe love vegetarians.â It appeared three days after our school had been âdecorated.â Suddenly it did not seem possible that Trent had been involved. There was just no way to drive all the way to Arkansas Wednesday after school, paint a building and be back in time for class on Thursday morning, which was exactly where Trent was.
Dad knew about it, and an online search for âgorilla graffitiâ would lead someone to several articles, but most people didnât know or didnât care. Trent seemed happy enough to take credit for the prank at our school, and everyone seemed happy enough to give it to him. His adoring league of freshmen followers quickly squashed any rumors that he wasnât responsible for the popular artwork. Still, something felt off to me, although I wasnât sure what it was. I guess part of me hoped that Cleary did have a resident graffiti artist. The mural hadcaused a commotion and shattered our boring routine, if only for a little while.
On Friday, the gorilla mural at school changed. Someone had added to it. âThis is artâ was stenciled in the right-hand corner of the wall. One of the gorillas was now holding a paintbrush