Some told stories of wolves and mountainous bears, but the teachers made efforts to shut that down immediately. "The forests have been cleared!" Our principal announced via loudspeaker one bright morning. "If I hear another story about so-and-so being eaten on the way to class I will personally visit your homes to see that your parents know you're spreading lies!" The school building trembled with the following giggles.
While the announcement was going on, one of the mountain students named Zhao Liangliang stood up on his chair and began waving his finger at everyone in class, mouthing along with the principal. At the end of the message he shouted out, "So let that be a lesson to you! If I hear one more rumor, I'll turn into a wolf and gobble you up!" He snarled at the girl sitting next to him who shrieked laughter.
"Get down Ku Tou!" Called Shang Haoming, grinning like a mad man. "Nobody wants your scary wolf teeth on them!" The class laughed and Zhao Liangling plopped down on his seat. He turned around and looked at me. "It's true ya' know," He said, lowering his voice. "I've heard things up there." He pushed his hand forward to shake, "Call me Ku Tou, wolf-whisperer!" I shook it with a smile.
"I like you Ku Tou," I said leaning forward, "And I believe every word!"
Zhao Liangliang, known to most as Ku Tou and to few as wolf-whisperer, quickly became a part of our group. We spent the days of recess chasing the girls and pretending to be ghosts or monsters.
Apparently he kept the game up on his walks to and from school.
"All you gotta' do is hide in the thistles," He told us, grinning like a mad man. "You jump out right after they pass you and ooh boy they scream and scream!" He slapped his knee and laughed. "It's so good!"
A couple weeks into this ghostly routine however, Zu Tou came into class with a large welt on the side of his face and a very sinister black eye.
"Oh god! What happened?" Zhou Jie asked.
"The girls saw me coming." He smiled, winced, and then smiled anyway. "Musta' gotten wave of my hiding spot. They had rocks." When he grinned there was a gap in his smile where a tooth had once been.
When autumn came around and the sun began to set earlier, Zu Tou's sneak attacks waned. He told the rest of us that moving through the mountains had gotten to be a bit creepier, despite his best efforts to entertain the girls with his antics.
"It was the weirdest thing. We got up there, I think there was four of us, and we just got to the top of the first ridge where the Locust Tree Mountains start, and the three girls I was walking with- you don't know them Jie-Jie baby, don't look too excited," He flicked Zhou Jie's nose and squawked laughter, "They just started yelling at me! I didn't even do anything!"
"Why?" I asked, ignoring Zhou Jie's hurt expression.
He raised his voice to a falsetto and mimicked the girl, "You know why! You keep scaring people and screaming like a banshee!" He looked at us each in turn, making sure we were paying attention and lowered his voice. "But the thing is boyos, I haven't been doin' that. It's been months at least, years maybe! So I told them! I said, dolls I'm not the one who's screaming!"
Again he looked at all of us to make sure we were as shocked as he wanted. Shang Haoming's mouth dropped slightly open in mock surprise, and then Ku Tou went on.
"So I made up my mind. If they think it's me, then it might as well be me!" He patted his chest emphatically. "So I decided to sneak up on them again. I made up my plan and thought it best to do it immediately."
"So I jogged ahead, right around the bend and hid behind a tree. I was waiting for them to pass me so I could jump out at them, ya' know?" He held up his hands as if this would be anyone's first reaction. "But, that's when I heard it."
We all leaned in closer. "Heard what?" I insisted.
"One of them screamed. She freaked, tweaked, about went bonkers!" He slapped his head like there was something crawling on it. "The three of them come running around the corner and when I stepped out- not jumped out, but stepped out, they started pelting me with rocks!" Zhou Jie had raised his hand and was about to poke one of Zu Tou's bruises when it was slapped away.
"Let him finish!" Shang Haoming said.
"Why are you screaming like a hurt baby? One of them asked me. Don't you know it'll bring back the wolves?" He raised his falsetto again and the words lisped through the missing tooth. "I said, baby? Who's crying like a baby? Stop it with the rocks! When they finally did, they said somebody was weeping like a lost little babe in the woods. Needless to say we got the heck outta there!"
"Did you hear anything?" I asked.
"Not a thing," Ku Tou shook his head. His eyes were wide and very bright against the bruises on his face. "But, if they did then I think something must be up there. It ain't me scaring folks, but something sure is."
Ku Tou went on to tell us that he'd even walked with the girls again the next day. When the scream came out from the woods behind them, he'd pointed to his mouth and said, "See? My lips didn't even move! There's no way it could have been me!"
"It never happens when you're not around!" One of them retorted and stuck her tongue out at him. The other girls joined in with the fourth grade salute and then marched away from the dumbfounded Ku Tou.
Rumors of something wailing in the woods swirled through more groups of children than just Ku Tou's troublesome troupe. After enough families complained to the school, the principal ordered the mountain roads searched. Hoards of adults and horror-hungry teenagers flocked through the trees alongside the mountain path, but nothing was ever found.
When the rumors, ghost stories, and accusations continued to pester the mountain path families, the children were routed to the school down a different path that shied away from the Locust Tree Mountains.
A few days passed with no great travel stories from Ku Tou. He told us how boring the walk was now and made plans to spice it up. The next day however, a gaggle of pale faced fifth grade girls stormed into the new school's main hall shouting, "There's a baby lost in the woods! We've all heard the cries! We have to save it!"
The art teacher and the principal came out of the teacher's lounge and quickly pulled the girls aside.
Two weeks passed. Time and time again groups of students, never more than three or four, came to the school spouting news about the infant in the woods.
You Xiaoqing came to our table during lunch and asked Ku Tou, "Did you see it, the ghost baby?"
He shook his head and looked at her seriously, "No, but something is in the Locust Tree Mountains. It's something horrible."
"I dunno man," Shang Haoming said, "It sounds kinda cheesy, an undead baby? Why would a baby be hanging out in the woods?"
"Then come with me." Ku Tou said. He looked from Shang Haoming to Zhao Jie, to me. Come with me to the Locust Tree Mountains and I swear you'll hear the screams."
"And when you're wrong? What do I get then?" Shang Haoming grinned down at the smaller boy.
"I'll do your homework for a week!" Ku Tou told him, smiling back.
"I don't want to fail! How 'bout you lend me that joke book you're always talkin' about?"
"Deal!" Ku Tou told him. The two shook hands. Next to them, Zhao Jie's face was a white that could have started new ghost rumors by itself. I wasn't eager about this either. We'd seen our share of ghosts.
Shang Haoming clapped Zhao Jie on the shoulder and chuckled at the boy's expression. "We're not scared, are we boys? How bout this weekend?"
Four heads nodded, two very hesitant, the others very sure.
The next day during lunch we spun a web of lies that we could tell our parents. There's no way they'd let us go hunting after a supposed ghost, especially after everything I'd already been through. Zhao Jie and I would tell our families we were playing with Shang Haoming. Shang Haoming would use one of us as an alibi. And we'd all make vague mentions of exploring the forest on the opposite side of the village. Ku Tou had it the easiest. "My parents don't care where I go on the weekend. They usually sleep in until after two anyway."
Ku Tou drew us a very crude map on a page torn out of his math book. Zhao Jie gasped when he did it and cited something about school property. That weekend, with the map in my back pocket, I met Zhao Jie and we walked to the meeting point north of the school. After picking up Shang Haoming, we set off towards Ku Tou's village and the Locust Tree Mountains.
We followed the detour that the mountain kids had been taking and met Ku Tou outside his village after about two hours walk. My feet were sore and Shang Haoming was complaining that we didn't think to bring snacks.
"There they are!" Ku Tou said. He jogged over to us and pointed to our left where the trees gradually sloped upwards. "Those are the Locust Tree Mountains!" He ticked off eight obscure peaks in the misty heights. "Only two of them have roads though, and I think only one is haunted." He was grinning like a fool.
"Is that them?" Came a voice from behind him.
Ku Tou turned around and waved yelling, "Yeah! Come on!"
A boy that I'd never seen before walked slowly over to us. He was way smaller than us.
"This is Bing. He's a second grader." Ku Tou said.
"Don't call me that, it's not my name!" Bing said, punching Ku Tou lightly in the side.
Ku Tou ignored him. "What took you guys so long? We've been waiting here for at least an hour."
I pulled the map from my pocket and Shang Haoming grabbed it from my hands. "You're stupid map is why! Do you have anything to eat? I'm starving!"
Ku Tou raised an eyebrow. "There's no time to eat! We've got ghosts to hunt!" His gleaming eyes darted around the group. "Hope you guys aren't scared!" He teased.
I laughed and said, "I'm not. I've got my treasures to protect me."
I took out my little compass and copper piece that Master Ge and Zhou Tong once gave me.
"What are those?" Ku Tou asked.
"Mystical treasures that expel ghosts." I told him, trying to sound as wise as Master Liu. "Zhao Jie and Shang Haoming, you guys can use the compass. Ku Tou, you and Bing can use the copper." I straightened up and tried to look very mature. "Don't lose them! They're priceless."
They took their respective protection and Ku Tou asked, "What about you?" He spoke so quickly that it sounded like "Whaddaboutchoo."
Zhao Jie answered for me, " Xiao Yong wears another treasure around his neck."
I took out the jade amulet and touched it with a smile.
Once everyone was ready I turned to Ku Tou, "Lead the way captain. Let's find us a spirit!"