Free The Boy in the Black Suit by Jason Reynolds

expensive casket. I imagined some old woman telling my mother on me up in heaven, shaking her head and wagging her finger.
    Up the steps. One step at a time. Mr. Ray called out each move like a captain in the army. The other four guys grunted with every step, which made me think I wasn’t really carrying much weight. But I wasn’t about to let go and find out.
    Once we got inside the church it was easy. We hauled the casket down the aisle toward the altar. A big wooden cross hung high up on the back wall, surrounded by the usual, big stained-glass windows.
    â€œOkay, gents. Lift on three,” Mr. Ray ordered. “One, two, up.”
    We hoisted the casket onto what looked like a big table.
    â€œJesus, this thing is heavy,” Mr. Ray moaned, using his handkerchief to wipe smudges off the pearl box.
    â€œYeah, it’s got copper and eighteen gauge,” Robbie said, stepping back into the aisle to make sure it was centered on the big table. “Expensive.”
    Mr. Ray shot him a look. “Don’t start.” He turned to me and spoke softly. “These fools always trying to guess what kind of money folks got based on their caskets.”
    I wanted to ask if my mother’s casket was heavy. But it probably wasn’t.
    â€œMainly, ’cause they ignorant,” he added while unlocking the first half of the casket.
    I took a step back, realizing that he was going to open it up. I wasn’t really afraid of seeing anything, mainly because I had seen my mother in one, but I wasn’t sure who this old lady, Ms. Knight, was, or what she was going to look like. I imagined she would be wrinkly, but pretty in a rich old-lady kind of way. Pearls or diamond earrings. A ring. A fancy dress. Like she was taking a nap before dinner at an expensive restaurant in Manhattan. Something like that.
    Mr. Ray clicked the last lock, and lifted the lid of the casket. I took a peek and was so surprised by what she looked like. Ms. Knight wasn’t old at all. As a matter of fact, she was young.
    â€œSad,” Mr. Ray said to me. “Gone too soon.”
    I stared at her face, smooth and round. No wrinkles. Small diamond studs in her ears. A silver necklace around her neck with a little heart charm on it.
    â€œHow old was she?” I asked.
    â€œNineteen.”
    Nineteen! Two years older than me. I gulped.
    â€œWhat happened to her?”
    â€œHer mother said it was an asthma attack.”
    â€œAsthma? How could she die of an asthma attack? I mean, I just never heard of nobody actually dying from that. Like, you just do a few squeezes of your inhaler and you’re fine,” I said. Asthma? Nobody dies from asthma!
    â€œYeah, I know. The thing is, no one knew she had asthma. Not even her. So,” Mr. Ray said and shrugged, “no inhaler.” Mr. Ray stared down at the teenager. Then he patted me on the shoulder. “Help me bring in the flowers.”

    The funeral was way different than Mr. Jameson’s. It was packed with tons of teenagers. Some I recognized from the neighborhood, but most I had never seen before. I sat in the back as they came rolling in in jeans and sneakers. Some wore T-shirts with Nancy’s face printed on the front. A lot of the girls came in with their hands covering their mouths, and a lot of the guys would take off their hats, but wouldn’t take off their sunglasses. And even though I thought that was a little rude, I got it.
    I stood in the back with Mr. Ray, Robbie, and Benny and watched as everyone did the funeral march, the same kind they did at my mom’s funeral, when they would look at the body and say some crap about how she looked like herself. But the way the teenagers looked at Nancy was different from the way the old ladies looked at my mother. The young people just lookedsurprised. Surprised that their homegirl was gone. That all of a sudden they would never talk to Nancy on the phone again. Or in class. Just like that, it