The Jack-o-Lantern Box
Page 23
They'd never done such a big paper-mache before, and had no idea how long it would take the balloon to dry, so they were glad that it was already hard to the touch the next day.
First they screwed a couple of little holes in the top, so there'd be something to put a string through, to hang it up later. Then they covered the paper-mache with orange tissue paper. At the ends, they had to fold the paper in weird corners and tape it down extra, to curve it around the roundedness. They carefully cut triangles for the eyes and nose, and a classic pumpkin-smile mouth, with one square-edged tooth poking down, and one poking up. Once she'd finished taping the face onto him, Karma held him up proudly.
“It's Johnny the Hangman,” she announced.
“Perfect! Now we just have to think of where to hang him.”
Today they were raking in Jessy's yard, and once they got started, it was Karma's turn to be Johnny. She mimicked hanging Jessy, and then came up with a scene where Johnny thought he heard someone coming, and decided to hide the body temporarily. So she play-dragged Jessy into the biggest pile of leaves, saying it was a similar heap at the far end of the imaginary cemetery, and covered her up.
Jessy got out of the pile, and while they pretended she was still in it, they raked it back together again. Then they became a group of little kids who came across it, just sitting there, tempting and unattended, the dry leaves catching the sun. So they leaped into the pile, and found the dead body. They screamed and ran, scattering away.
“Do you think the body would be stiff?” Karma asked, while they were raking it all back together.
“I don't know.” They both pondered. “I know they get stiff at some point. Rigor mortis.”
“But then, they also … decompose.” That word made them feel shivery. “And then it's a skeleton in the end.”
Jessy thought it over.
“There’s a lot about dead bodies that I don’t know,” she admitted.
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