A Good Excuse To Be Bad by Miranda Parker

Author:Miranda Parker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kensington Publishing Corp.
Published: 2013-03-21T16:00:00+00:00

17

Friday, Noon

Newsflash. My midday shower didn’t wash the spunk back into my spirit like Mom said. But I knew what would. I pulled my shower blinds up and peered through the window. Sugar Hill Community Church and Justus. That’s how I found Sugar Hill—looking past the Duluth skyline toward the possibility of something greater. Devon deserved a better death than what he got. Hopefully, I could give him a better homegoing, if I got Ava freed in time.

The rain disappeared soft and slippery into periwinkle-perfected sky. A brighter, crisp blue day stood behind the morning’s veil. And I watched the world transform all around me. But as peaceful as it looked, I felt my own peace slipping away.

What happened to Devon? Although I had a hunch that Ava didn’t do it, it was hard for me to see how Ava’s not guilty. Maybe I’m out of focus.

While in the shower, I looked a mile straight down our backyard toward Sugar Hill Community Church. It stood white, compact, traditional; safe and solid; small, but a place of solace. I saw my new friend Justus standing at the top of the church steps, waving at the joggers and looking toward my house. If I looked at him any longer, I would have to take another shower—an iceberg cold one. I couldn’t. I had to get the kids out the house in half an hour.

Yet to say that I had a crush on him would be an understatement. This past Sunday he proposed to the congregation that we have a fast, to put a protective covering over London, as it mourned over those lost in last week’s bombing attack. We could choose anything to fast, but he preferred we fast from something that had some power over us: chocolate, soap operas, cigarettes, etc. My fast was going to be to stay as far away from him as possible.

I’d failed twice so far, and now with this Ava/sidekick thing, I might as well call this fast a bust. I needed some spiritual guidance, and with Ava’s drama stretching into my home, I had no choice but to bop over to the church. At least Bella would get more “soldier-chicken-airplane” swimming lessons in the church pool.

I put the shower back on. Alaska cold this time.

Someone knocked on the door.

Mom. I could feel her spirit sliding inside the room. If I were my great-grandmother, I’d have sworn Mom had about seven other spirits tagging along with her.

“There’s another bathroom in Bella’s room.” I spoke through my shower curtain with my back to her, the shower running, but me not under it. I wanted to look outside at Justus a little while longer.

She said something weird.

Couldn’t make sense of it. I turned the shower spout off. “Huh?”

She mumbled something again.

I slid the shower curtains back and looked at her. “What did you say?”

“Do you think your sister killed my son-in-law?”

Looks like it. “No.”

“Has anyone told the children?” She opened my medicine cabinet, more than likely rummaging around my cosmetics container for makeup to try.

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