Rules for Being Dead by Kim Powers

Author:Kim Powers [Powers, Kim]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781949467352
Publisher: Blair
Published: 2020-08-14T23:00:00+00:00

— CLARKE —

SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 1966

I have something new to add to the evidence collection under my bed: the true crime books that I took from the library, to prove that a real true crime took place in our house. I can’t go back to the library now or they’ll arrest me for stealing, but I don’t care. I have the books as evidence I can give to the police when they get ready to arrest Daddy. I guess if they take him away, we’ll have to go live with Aunt Altha, but living with somebody who scrunches up her face all the time will be better than living with a killer.

But I’ve got to trap him first. Since my “tape record while Daddy was sleeping” plan didn’t work out, I needed something new, and Mr. Sardonicus gave it to me. He digs up a grave to see what’s inside, so that’s what I’m going to do: dig up Mother’s grave to prove how she was killed. If I can’t trap Daddy with my spy pictures or James Bond tricks or tape recordings or Mother’s portrait, I’ll go in the other way, through her body.

Mr. Sardonicus was the movie we saw at the Ritz today, about this man who’s so ugly he has to wear a mask whenever he goes out in public. His mouth is frozen in this scary grin they call a “sardonic sneer” that shows his gums and teeth and cheekbones without any skin covering them. Early on in the movie you see how his face got that way, when he dug up a man’s grave because he thought a lottery ticket worth a lot of money was buried with him. He sneaks into the cemetery late at night with a lantern and shovel, and when he pries open the coffin lid you see that the dead man’s face is screaming and his eyeballs are popping out. That lets you know he was buried alive and screaming for help inside his coffin before he ran out of air and finally died. The face of the man who’s digging him up freezes the same way and stays stuck like that. Forever.

When that part came on, Corey screamed like the man in the coffin and ran out and wouldn’t come back in. He said that’s what it’s going to be like when he’s dead, and he doesn’t want to see a preview of it. But by then I’d seen enough too, enough to make my new plan, so I didn’t have to see how the movie ended.

Somehow, I’ll open up Mother’s coffin and see if there are little blue pills stuck inside her body, which should be all skeleton by now since it’s been there almost six months. I’ll be able to look through her bones and see if the pills are still there, if they haven’t turned to dust like her body’s supposed to.

At supper tonight, I started asking Daddy questions to figure out how hard my plan will be.

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