All We Know of Heaven Read Online Free Page A

If the road hadn’t been blocked at both ends, she’d have been a target for oncoming traffic. She was glad she didn’t care about that. It would have been too, too selfish.
    “I’m going to put up a cross right here,” she said.
    “Lee-Lee, they aren’t even dead!” Eric whispered, loud and shocked.

    “No one could survive that!” Leland shrieked, pointing to Maureen’s Toyota, which looked as if it had been wrung out like a wet towel. The hood was smashed sideways, the wheels up off the ground. Leland knelt down again and picked up the shoe. She thought maybe she would keep it, like, for years and show her daughters someday.
    Then she thought she really better put it up with the cross.
    She stared at the tennis shoe, still as polished and pris tine as Coach Eddington—Eddy—insisted their tennies be. Every inch of their uniforms had to be like an ad for deter gent. You are a representative of Bigelow right down to the tips of your toes, she said more times than Lee-Lee or the others could count. You’re all Eddy’s Angels, better than Charlie’s.
    They rolled their eyes when she said it, but it was true.
    Unlike other schools that had dance teams of twenty girls in kick lines, Bigelow was so small they had only the cheer leaders. The girls saw the way people gawked at the pom pom girls from other schools who came for away games. They acted like they were the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. But Coach Eddington had been part of a national prize winning team at Oklahoma State. So Eddy’s Angels won prizes. Bigelow was first or second in state every year. And so Leland and Sabrina Holtzer, sisters Caitlin and Quinn Smith, Britney Broussard and Brittany Wolner and Britta ny Scott, Molly Schottman, Taylor Cuddahy, and, of course, Bridget and Maureen never understood why no one re
    spected them.

    Why?
    They worked hard. They were so much stronger even than the jock girls, never mind the wasties who stayed thin by gobbling handfuls of Dexi-Slim. And even though cheerleading was fairly yesterday in high school, it was coming on in college and on the tube. Didn’t anyone know that? But after this, even the big, ugly, fifth-year seniors who liked to get drunk and boo them from the stands would have to be respectful, Leland thought, and she immediately felt guilty. Maybe people would see them as sort of heroes now. This tragedy might make all that went with being one of them halfway worth it.
    “Lee-Lee, should we try to get the coat down?” Caitlin Smith asked.
    It was Brandon Hillier who climbed the tree— that tree, with the stuff on the trunk—to shake the jacket loose. No one could tell if it was Bridget’s or Maureen’s because they both wore an XS. The pockets were empty except for a stick of Juicy Fruit. Leland searched for a laundry mark, or any thing. But there was nothing. Just a white wool jacket with black sleeves and gold lettering. Caitlin held it close, after first checking for blood.
    Caitlin Smith wondered how Danny would go on living. Bridget and Danny had been together since seventh grade. Bridget was like his world. And Maureen was like Bridget’s sister, so they were almost like three people in a family—if you didn’t count your real family, and nobody did. Caitlin knew she would never see her own sister, Quinn, if Quinn

    wasn’t a cheerleader, too, because Quinn was so annoying with her French camp and her guitar, like some weird hip pie. Caitlin could not believe it when Sabrina texted them from the hospital: M IS DOA. It was impossible. They were totally messed up, but doctors could put you back together now. They had machines that worked for your heart if they had to fix your heart, even.
    It was midnight, and they had a competition in the morning at seven AM in Ludding. Caitlin had no idea how they were going to do it with only one flyer.
    “We’ll probably drop out,” she said.
    “But Eddy will want us to do it for them—Maury and Bridget,” Leland answered.
    “Call