youngest daughter, Katie. She looked pretty. She always did in Timmy's eyes. Her flowing brown hair was hanging down over the back of her long black dress, not what she normally wore to school, or even to church. Katie was one year younger than the boys, and though she didn 't hang out with them, Timmy had started to notice her more and more often, and found himself thinking about her when she wasn' t around. Surprisingly, he also found himself attending more and more youth group functions lately, just so he could spend time with her. Timmy didn ' t see Karen, the Moore 's older daughter (whom he, Doug, and Barry had spied on from the bushes with Doug' s binoculars last summer while she was sunbathing topless). The Moores seemed sad not just solemn, but genuinely depressed, as if affected by something more than just one of their parishioner's death. Katie caught his stare, smiled, and quickly looked away. Her cheeks turned red. Timmy blushed and felt his ears begin to burn.
Spotting Timmy when he entered with his parents, Barry and Doug walked over to him, and the three boys moved to the rear corner of the church. They made small talk, each uncomfortable with mentioning why they were there.
Curious, Timmy asked them about Karen Moore 's whereabouts.
'You didn't hear?' Barry sounded surprised.
'No. What?'
'She skipped town with Pat Kemp. Nobody's seen them since Friday night. Took off together in his Nova. People are saying maybe they eloped.'
'No way. Seriously?'
Doug nodded. 'Reverend Moore called the cops and everything.' Timmy was mildly surprised, but not shocked. Pat Kemp was about the coolest older kid they knew, and Karen had a wild reputation as the stereotypical preacher's daughter. He could easily see the two of them running off together.
'Where did they go?' he asked.
'Nobody knows for sure,' Doug whispered. 'California, maybe?' Timmy wondered if his friend was basing that on something he'd heard, or on his own wish fulfillment regarding his father.
Somebody sobbed loudly near the front of the church. The boys fell quiet.
'Sorry about your grandpa, man,' Barry finally said, staring at the floor. Doug nodded. 'Me, too. He was cool.'
Timmy mumbled his thanks, and then glanced around the church for his parents. They were near the front, shaking hands with mourners. His father was dabbing his eyes with a handkerchief. As he watched, the crowd parted, and Timmy got his first real glimpse of his grandfather's casket. He bit his lip, drawing blood, and his hands clenched into fists. The thing inside the coffin didn't look like the man he remembered. That man had been full of life, even in old age. He' d been funny, always smiling or telling jokes. The pale, waxy figure lying in the coffin wasn't smiling. It looked like a department store mannequin. Even his grandfather's hair was combed differently. His Freemason' s ring adorned his hand, the stone glinting under the lights. He was dressed in a suit. When had his grandfather ever worn a suit? Never, at least as far as Timmy could remember. He wore slacks and buttoned shirts with the sleeves rolled up. Even when he went to church, his grandfather had preferred sweaters to suits.
Doug sensed his friend's discomfort. 'You gonna go up there? Your dad looks really upset.'
'I don't want to. Guess I should, though.'
His mother caught his eye and smiled sadly. Her expression alone beckoned him, a unique form of telepathy shared only by parents and their children. Reluctantly obeying the command, Timmy stood up.
'I'll see you guys later.'
He shuffled forward, weaving his way through the adults. They offered condolences as he passed by them, along with condescending pats on the head, as if he were six years old rather than twelve. Timmy did his best to be polite to them, but inside, he barely acknowledged their presence. His attention was fixed on the figure in the coffin, the thing that was supposed to be his grandfather.
Barry and Doug watched him go. Barry tugged at his tie. His collar felt like it was choking him, and even with the air conditioning turned on, the church was still hot inside. Doug leaned over and whispered in Barry's ear.
'This sucks. I feel bad for him, but I don't know what to say.'
'Me neither. I've helped my old man with dozens of these. It's always weird, and you feel bad for the people, but there's not really anything to say. 'Sorry' just doesn 't seem to cover it. Especially this time.'
'Why now more than the others?'
'Because Timmy's our friend. And because his grandpa was pretty cool.'
'Yeah,' Doug agreed. 'He was. I liked him.'
'Sometimes,' Barry said, 'I think he was the only cool grownup I knew.' When they looked up again, the crowd of adults had swallowed Timmy whole. Timmy had walked the redcarpeted church aisle hundreds of times. He' d walked it for communion and on Youth Sunday when it was his turn to take the offering and when the youth group put on the annual Christmas pageant. Last year, he ' d been Joseph and Katie had played the part of Mary and all of the adults had remarked how cute they looked together. Timmy had thought he might die of embarrassment, and die all over again when Katie squeezed his hand while they took their bow as the parishioners applauded. He knew the aisle like he knew the cemetery outside, but the aisle had never seemed longer or more crowded than it did at that moment. The heat was cloying, made worse by the crowd, and his suit felt like it was stuck to his skin. The air was a mixture of cologne and perfume and candle smoke. He pushed his way through and emerged at the front. He stood in front of the coffin, looked down at his grandfather's corpse, and did his best not to cry. It was even worse up close.
Timmy closed his eyes, trying in vain to get rid of the image. The thing in the casket even smelled different. His grandfather had always smelled like Old Spice aftershave. This still figure had no smell. He opened his eyes again and glanced at the corpse 's hands, folded neatly across its chest. His grandfather' s skin had always felt rough and warm his hands deeply callused from years of hard labor. He wondered how they ' d feel now. Shuddering, Timmy took a deep breath and held it. His ears rang, a highpitched, constant tone, and his mouth felt dry. His heart thudded in his chest. He let the air out of his lungs with a sigh.
His mother put her arm around him and kissed his head. She smelled of lilac soap and hairspray.
'You okay, sweetie?'
He nodded.
'They did a real good job. It looks like Grandpa's just sleeping, doesn't it?' Timmy wanted to scream at her. No, it did not look like Grandpa was sleeping. It looked nothing like that at all. In fact, it didn't even look like Grandpa. At twelve, Timmy was well aware of the fallacies adults sometimes used. 'Do as I say, not as I do' was a big one. Many times, he' d overheard Mr. Smeltzer promising Barry that he ' d tan his hide should he ever catch Barry and his friends drinking or smoking cigarettes, yet Clark Smeltzer started and ended each day drunk as a skunk and smoked two and a half packs before nightfall.
'It's for your own good' was another. When he was younger, Timmy used to believe that he had an invisible accomplice named U' rown Goode who only his parents could see. Timmy had once shot a dove with his BB gun, and his father had grounded him and confiscated the weapon as a result (shooting doves without a license was illegal in the state of Pennsylvania).
Two days later, his father had left to go deer hunting in Potter County. He'd returned home bragging about how he' d shot three deer, one over the legal limit, and had given the third to a friend.
Why was Timmy grounded for shooting the dove without a license while his father had basically done the same thing? It was for U 'rown Goode. Had his invisible friend actually fired the fatal shot?
Santa Claus and the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny were adult fallacies, as well. Grownups encouraged their kids to believe in them, only to yank the wool from their eyes and chuckle over the joke when they got older, killing whatever belief in magic the child still clung to. Killing their innocence. Sometimes, Timmy wondered if maybe God was just another fallacy, too. After all, his parents insisted that He was real, just like Santa Claus. Both of them lived at the top of the world and kept track of everybody, judging the populace on whether or not they ' d been good or bad. The only Santa Timmy had ever seen was at the North Hanover Mall, and that guy was a phony. The only God he 'd ever seen was the one that hung from the cross at the front of the church. He' d never seen God, but was expected to believe in Him just the same. As he got older, would they tell him that God didn 't really exist either, and that it really didn' t matter if he wrote scary stories during church service? Part of him expected just this. Of course, he never said it out loud, not even to Doug or Barry, because if God was real, then thinking something like that was a sure way to get on His bad side. Timmy was more afraid of God than anything else in life, with the
