"You do?" I asked, surprised.
"My grandma told me."
"She speaks to you?" I said, feeling a sudden chill.
"No, she's dead, silly! I saw the flowers."
He reached his hand for mine. "There's something I want to show you," he said mysteriously.
"Your room?" I asked, grabbing his hand. "Yes, and something in my room. It's finally ready."
"It?" My imagination ran wild. What did Alexander do up in his room? Was "it" alive or dead?
He led me up the grand staircase and the creaky attic stairs. His stairs.
"It's time you knew my secrets," he said, opening the door. "Or at least most of them."
It was dark except for the moonlight that shone through the tiny attic window. A beat-up, comfy chair and a twin-sized mattress rested on the floor. A strewn black comforter exposed maroon sheets. A bed like any other teenager's. Not a coffin. And then I noticed the paintings. Big Ben with bats flying over the clock face, a castle on a hill, the Eiffel Tower upside down. There was a dark painting of an older couple in gothic outfits with a huge red heart around them. There was Dullsville's cemetery, his grandma smiling above her gravestone. A picture drawn from his attic window with trick-or- treaters everywhere. "Those are from my dark period," he joked.
"They're spectacular," I said, stepping closer.
Paint was everywhere, even splattered on the floor.
"You're totally awesome!"
"I wasn't sure you'd like them."
"They're unbelievable!"
I noticed a canvas covered with a sheet on an easel in the corner.
"Don't worry, it won't bite."
I paused before it, wondering what lay beneath the sheet. And for once my imagination failed me. I took a corner of the sheet and slowly peeled it back, just like when I had uncovered the mirror in Alexander's basement. I was stunned. I was staring at myself, dressed for the Snow Ball, a red rose corsage pinned to my dress. But I carried a pumpkin basket over my arm and held a Snickers in one hand while on the other I wore a spider ring. Stars twinkled overhead and snow fell lightly around me. I grinned wonderfully through glistening fake vampire teeth.
"It looks just like me! I never imagined you were an artist! I mean I knew you did those drawings in the basement and then the paint on the side of the road...I had no idea."
"That was you?" he asked, reflecting.
"Why were you standing in the middle of the road?"
"I was going to the cemetery to paint this picture of my grandmother's monument."
"Don't most painters use little tubes?"
"I mix my own."
"I had no idea. You're an artist. Now it all makes sense. "
"I'm glad you like it," he said with relief. "We better get back to the party before we give them something to really gossip about."
"I guess you're right. You know how rumors spread in this town."
"Isn't it weird?" he asked, handing me a soda, back on the lawn after we'd mingled among the darkened Dullsvillians. "We're not the outcasts tonight."
"Let's enjoy it now. It'll all be back to normal tomorrow."
The party goers were smiling and having fun. But then I noticed a figure in the distance slowly running up the driveway.