Letters to Missy Violet Read Online Free Page B

go inside and see?” Cleveland asked, and silly us went inside. Arma Jean, Cleveland, Jeff Brown, Charles, and me. Ruby Dean was the smart one that day and went on home.
    The church door was locked so we had to climb in through a window. “The Lord gonna punish us for this,” Arma Jean said when our feet hit the floor.
    â€œAw, we ain’t gonna touch nothin’—we jus’ gonna look,” said Charles.
    â€œYeah, yeah, we jus’ gonna look,” squawked Jeff Brown.
    The lights inside the church were off, but we could still see the long, shiny black casket with the silver handles standing before the pulpit. We all stayed close together and walked up to the casket.
    â€œWow!” Cleveland whispered.
    â€œDidn’t I tell ya! Didn’t I tell ya!” Charles hollered.
    â€œShhhhhh! We in church!” I reminded Charles.
    â€œDontcha wanna go up and see who it is?” he whispered, but his voice made an echo in the church.
    â€œNoooo!” Arma Jean and I both said at the same time.
    â€œI wanna see!” squawked Jeff Brown.
    â€œHush! You not suppose to disturb the dead,” Arma Jean said.
    â€œYeah. They might come back and haunt you,” Cleveland said.
    â€œNo they won’t,” said Charles, like he knew all about dead people.
    â€œHow you know?” asked Cleveland.
    â€œâ€™Cause the Good Book say, ‘The dead know not anything.’ So how is he gonna know who lookin’ at him?” Charles answered.
    â€œWhere it say that?” Cleveland wanted to know.
    â€œMissy Violet read it to me from the Bible so I wouldn’t be afraid of the dead,” Charles answered.
    â€œWe still got no business in here disturbin’ this dead man,” Arma Jean said.
    â€œY’all a buncha scaredy-cats!” Charles said, and laid his hand on top of the casket. Then he slid his hand back and forth, back and forth. “Man, this feel smooth and slick like a brand-new Cadillac,” he said, showing off. Then Cleveland went over and touched the casket, then Jeff Brown, then Arma Jean, then me. I don’t know why I touched it. I guess I did it because Arma Jean did.
    â€œI bet you a quarter you won’t lift up the lid,” Cleveland dared Charles.
    â€œIt’s a bet!”
    â€œI hate boys,” Arma Jean said. “Always darin’ each other and showin’ off.”
    Just then, Charles, Mister Biggity Showoff, lifted up the lid. It made a loud CLICK, and a smell like old flowers and turpentine floated up from the casket. And even with the lights off we got a good look at the dead man inside. He was very big and long, and his skin was the color of Brazil nut shells. He had on the nicest suit I’d ever seen on a colored man, and a ring with a large red stone was on his pinkie finger. Charles touched his face. “He feels cold and hard,” he said. Then he laid his hand on the dead man’s chest and frowned. “Feels like tissue paper,” he said. Then all of us were touching the dead man’s chest and face and hands. Arma Jean and I jerked our hands away when we touched his chest because it did feel all crinkly like tissue paper.
    Charles said that he’d heard that sometimes the undertaker scoops out all of the dead person’s insides and stuffs them with tissue paper so they wouldn’t be so heavy. Ugh!
    All at once, Mister Charles Elister Paxton Nehemiah Windbush Biggity Showoff reached in the casket and pulled the dead man’s eyelids up. He must have accidentally twisted the dead man’s head too, because all at once his head wasn’t facing up toward the ceiling anymore but was facing us! Big, mean, scary gray eyes were staring right at us! Somebody slammed the casket lid down, and we scattered all over the church. Arma Jean and I finally got through the window. I got a splinter in my knee going over the sill.
    It turned out the dead man was kin to a lady named Miss