Doris Ray, Roxanne and I slept right through the sunrise the next morning. We might’ve slept until noon, but it was Sunday and Mama sent Daddy to wake us up for church.

“Jesse! Jesse!” My name sounded far away. I opened one eye and saw Daddy standing several feet from us, next to Roxanne’s crape myrtle. He wore his gray sweatpants and Leonard’s Feed Store T-shirt and was waving at me with a red baseball cap.

I was lying on the mattress, and Roxanne and Doris Ray were in a big furry lump curled up on the beanbag chair.

“Get up, Jesse,” Daddy whispered in a gravelly voice. “Get Doris Ray and y’all get on home.”

I stood up and looked around. Our confetti had turned to smelly clumps, and some dried-up leaves had blown into Doris Ray’s star cup.

I nudged Doris Ray’s shoulder and she opened her eyes, squinting up at the sky. “Are the stars all gone?” she asked.

“Yep,” I whispered. “Daddy said we have to get up. Gotta get ready for church. Don’t wake up Roxanne.”

Doris Ray uncurled herself from the chair and stretched while Roxanne slept on as peaceful as ever. We tiptoed across the yard toward our trailer. I looked over at Doris Ray. Her face was dirty and the electricity from sleeping on a plastic chair made her hair stand out from her head like a halo.

“You’re a mess,” I said. She scrunched her nose and grinned.

“We had fun, didn’t we, Jesse?”

“Yeah,” I said. “We sure did.”

We got to church late and it was a disaster, mostly because I had to sit next to Frankenstein. His real name is Franklin Harris, and he’s the biggest jerk in the eighth grade. He’s taller than most of the guys and kind of skinny. But it’s not the way he looks, which is pretty normal for a guy, I guess. The problem is the way he acts.

For example at church: The first song we sang was “He Leadeth Me.” Frankenstein poked me in the ribs with his elbow, then pointed to something he’d scribbled on his bulletin. I looked real close and he’d written, “Under the Sheets.” I didn’t know what he was talking about and I shook my head. Pretty soon he poked me again. “He Leadeth Me … Under the Sheets.”

I looked over at his parents, Dr. Harris and Mrs. Harris. Their eyes were glued to the front. Frankenstein’s parents are too nice for their son. Dr. Harris runs the clinic downtown. Mrs. Harris is an artist and also raises exotic flowers. She has a greenhouse in her very own backyard where she grows all kinds of plants, some of them from as far away as Japan. One day Frankenstein bragged in the school cafeteria that he’d sneaked in there at night and pulled out every bird-of-paradise by the roots. He said he’d made little nooses out of pipe cleaners and had hung the flowers in the doorway.

I believed him because, like I said, he’s a real jerk. During Pastor Cordell’s announcements, Frankenstein flipped through the hymnal pointing to song titles: “Softly and Tenderly … Under the Sheets,” “Holy, Holy, Holy … Under the Sheets” and “Great Is Thy Faithfulness … Under the Sheets.”

I scooted away from him as far as I could until we had to stand for the prayer. My eyes were closed and I was thinking about the meteor shower, feeling real calm and peaceful like you’re supposed to feel at church. The prayer finally ended and I sat down—or tried to anyway.

During the prayer, Frankenstein had piled a stack of hymnbooks underneath me. When I tried to sit down I smacked right into them. The books went flying out and I slid down and hit my tailbone on the edge of the pew. Mama said I could have fallen without the scream. But I said it wasn’t a scream, just a little yelp, and it could have been a whole lot more. I told Roxanne all about it after lunch.

“Look, Jesse,” she said, “forget it. He’s probably battling testosterone.”

“I can’t believe you’re defending him!” I said. “I don’t think he’s battling tes … whatever you call it or anything else. I hate him!”

“Tell you what,” Roxanne answered. “Let’s do something fun.”

“You’re in Ida, remember?” I said with as much sarcasm as I could.

“I want to go to the wax museum. Go ask your mother and I’ll meet you outside after I get my eyelashes on.”

It’s beyond me why you have to wear false eyelashes to go to downtown Ida, but I didn’t say anything. Pretty soon we were on our way to Mr. Alexander Arthur’s Famous Wax Museum.