Free Grounded by Kate Klise Page A

car with the money he’d saved from delivering groceries for Mr. Swisher. Then I remembered how Lilac Rose and her best friend, Natalie Jean, were scheming to ask Mr. Swisher if they could be the first delivery girls when they got old enough to work. I wondered how they’d feel about all this.
    I stood in line for my ice-cream cone and watched the Summer Sunset men hobble in the door with Aunt Josie behind them.
    “Daralynn, honey!” she called with a big wave when she saw me. “You haven’t forgotten about Mr. Aubrey Bryant’s living funeral, have you? It starts in an hour, but come on over to the crematorium right after you finish your cone. It’s going to be packed tighter’n a can of sardines.”
    “Mother needs me at home this afternoon,” I fudged.
    “But you’ll miss all the fun,” Aunt Josie said, clearly disappointed. “It’s going to be a terrific party.” She turned to address her housemates. “Aren’t we all going to have a good time this afternoon?”
    The old men mumbled weakly in the affirmative.
    “Let’s get each of you an ice-cream cone, shall we?” she said in her silky voice. “Then we’ll have Mr. Clem drive us over to Mr. Bryant’s party. Won’t that be fun? Did you see Mr. Clem’s yellow Cadillac? It’s fancy dancy. I just know you’re going to love riding in it. It’s not quite big enough to hold us all so we’ll have to go in two shifts. But first, let’s get us some ice cream. Mr. Bryant, you go first because it’s your big day. What kind would you like? Let’s see. They’ve got chocolate ripple, butter pecan, peach…”
    When I left the Dig In Diner with my cone, I could hear Aunt Josie herding her gentlemen to the first living funeral at Clem’s Crematorium.
    “Won’t it be handy when we have a horse and carriage and can travel together?” Aunt Josie was saying. “Mr. Clem says a deluxe carriage can seat six adults comfortably. Won’t that be something ?”
    That night as I watched the fireworks over Doc Lake, I thought about Mr. Clem and his horse and carriage. It would be the biggest thing ever to happen in Digginsville. Parades were all well and good, but every town had a Fourth of July parade. Fireworks, too. What other small town had a horse and carriage you could ride in to go fishing?
    This would be as big as the Traveling Reptile Museum that rolled into town once a year. The TRM, as it was called, was a ghastly snake show that traveled the country in an air-conditioned trailer, pausing for a few hours on town squares. Folks paid fifty cents for the pleasure of climbing inside the trailer and eyeballing the giant snakes that slithered around on sticks stuck in dusty aquariums.
    But we couldn’t claim the TRM as our own. It just passed through Digginsville every summer. A horse and carriage would be one hundred times better. It would change the way people lived and went about their business. And I’d get credit (and maybe even a trophy!) for inspiring Mr. Clem with the idea. Of course, he’d be Uncle Clem by then. And who knows? Maybe he’d teach me how to drive the horses—as long as Mother didn’t find out. She still thought Clem was the devil incarnate for opening his crematorium.
    I decided that night to spend the next afternoon at the public library, researching cremation. I made a list of questions, including: Why do some people bury dead bodies and others burn them? How did cremation get started? Is it illegal? Is it immoral? What happens to people when they die?
    Before I went to bed, I glued the Giddyup and Give a Buck leaflet in my book of Pertinent Facts & ImportantInformation . Then I wrote another letter to Daddy, Wayne Junior, and Lilac Rose. I ended the letter this way:
    Sometimes I wonder if maybe I should call off my investigation of Mr. Clem, especially in light of his big plans for Digginsville, not to mention Aunt Josie’s fond feelings for him. But it’s almost like I can’t help myself. Lilac Rose, remember that time you