Billy Bones: Beyond the Grave

Chapter 4

I had a difficult time focusing on Dead Lessons with a hand sitting in my pocket. It wasn’t like it was moving around or anything — it actually sat quite still. But the fact that it was there, balled up in a fist, was unnerving, to say the least.

A fairly large group of us sat in an old classroom with slate boards along the walls. There, I met a brother and sister pair — Cam arrived here after staying up all night reading. His eyes had crossed on him, and he died of exhaustion. Sonya followed him a few hours later from sucking her thumb clean off and choking on it. She carried it in her pocket.

Apparently, Stella hadn’t sent them to the Unbelievably Stupid Deaths line.

A wisp of a woman stood up at the front of the room — Mrs. Shivers was her name. She was older than Stella and moved like a slug. I sat at the back, by myself. And when no one was looking I kept trying to fish the hand out of my pocket. With the hand balled up in a fist, it didn’t have enough room to come out. I kept bending and twisting, this way and that, in an effort to get the blasted thing out of there. In fact, I was so focused on it, I failed to notice Mrs. Shivers staring at me. I think she’d just asked me a question, but darned if I knew what it was. There was a hand in my pocket!

The rest of the class all turned around in their seats, staring at me. I straightened up in the chair and shrugged.

“Sorry,” I said. “I have an itch.”

“Glad it’s not in your nose!” Liz said.

The rest of them laughed.

That was fine. I didn’t mind if they had a chuckle at my expense. I had more important things to concern myself with.

Mrs. Shivers moved on from there.

I tried to pay attention. I really did, but it just wasn’t working. It’s not like she was teaching us how to do something interesting. It was all about what not to do. Don’t scare the living. Don’t stay in cemeteries. Don’t haunt old mansions. Don’t, don’t, don’t ...

She kept yammering for hours, and my mind drifted off. I couldn’t help but wonder about the strange man with the decayed face. What was so important about his hand? Unless he had something in it, which just made me want to get it out all the more.

I sighed, looking up. The rest of the group was either staring at me, or leaving the room. Mrs. Shivers was now asleep at her desk.

Liz shook her head. “What’s wrong with you? Did you not get any sleep?” she asked.

I shrugged. “I opened the curtains once.”

The others groaned.

“What’d you do that for?” Miesha said. “You must not be very smart.”

“I dunno,” I responded. “I wanted to see what it looked like outside.”

Liz didn’t look impressed, and Kenji held his head like he knew exactly what I was talking about.

We left the building, and I was relieved to learn that Dead Lessons were over. It was only one day of blah blah blah.

What a relief that was.

Liz went on to explain that we all had jobs in the Afterlife. It all depended on what we used to do before.

“Before?” I asked.

She gave me that look that said were-you-not-listening-to-anything-Mrs.-Shivers-said?

I shrugged.

“It’s in the Lexicon,” she said. “You know, the book you didn’t read.”

I had to shrug again. “So, what’s in it?”