1 : THE REASON

Do you remember the first time you touched a dead body? I do. But you have to know more before I can tell you about it. Don’t worry. I’ll tell you in a minute.

Oh yeah—my name’s Christopher Grace, and I’m ten years old. I live in Lake Bobola, Florida, with my mom and dad and my little brother, Michael. He’s only five, but I taught him to ride his bike. That tricycle thing had to go.

I’m not the biggest kid in my class, but I am the fastest. Every time we run sprints at school, I finish first. And I am the best shortstop in Florida. I like to think so anyway. Because I made the all-star team and didn’t make an error all year.

Plus, I’m smart. Especially in math. It’s just so easy. Mom and Dad say I’m precocious, but I don’t know what that means.

By the way, Lake Bobola isn’t on the beach. Most folks think every place in Florida is on the beach. Lake Bobola is in the middle of the state. We have lots of orange groves and pastures and stuff like that. It’s Florida, but it’s not the beach.

Anyway, my grandmother was Mrs. Lavish Grace. I called her Grandma Lavish. She was kinda short with red hair. Dad said she dyed it to keep the gray out. Maybe you knew her. If you didn’t, I know you would have liked her. Everybody did.

Her life was special. I knew that way back when she told me the story about the first time she ever touched a dead body. I know that sounds weird, but it isn’t.

“Christopher,” Grandma Lavish said, “you know I have a sister. Your great-aunt, Jessica. We were just two years apart, so we were stuck together like Siamese twins growing up. We were never apart. She was the older sister, and I was the baby, the apple of her eye. Just like your little brother will be for you one day. And Jessica loved to teach me new stuff. Something inside her just liked to watch me learn how to do new things.”

Grandma Lavish paused and smiled when she told me that. I think she had a special picture in her mind of when she and Aunt Jessica were little. Old people love that stuff. They like to remember and tell you all about when they were little. Not me. I’d much rather be grown-up. And I will be, someday. And soon, I hope.

Then Grandma Lavish started again with her story. “But touching the dead body—that story involves me and your Aunt Jessica. And it happened at the lake.”

Of course, I knew all about the lake. We loved to go there. Transylvania Lake is not a huge lake like the ones tourists come to Florida to enjoy; Transylvania is just a small lake that folks in Lake Bobola like to play in on a steamy summer afternoon. Groups of cabins line the shore along with a few large homes that some lawyers in town had built to show off all their success, or at least that’s what my dad says.

But most of the activity is at the beach. Dad said a long time ago the town created a big sandy spot along a stretch of shore on the lake about as long as our football field, just a place for all of us to go and have fun. On weekdays, not many folks go there. But the beach is total insanity on a Saturday or a Sunday in