Tommy Nightmare (Jenny Pox #2) Read Free Page A

was already lit
by a few candles. The rough, handmade benches faced towards the
front of the church, where a big cross of nailed-together willow
limbs hung on the wall.
    Under the cross was the wooden platform Mr.
Tanner had built from two-by-fours. Beside that was another
platform, which held the baptismal pool, which was really just a
dirty old bathtub.
    Like each of Mr. Tanner’s foster children,
Tommy had to be baptized within a day or two after he arrived. This
involved the whole family coming out to the church, and some
prayers by Mr. Tanner. Then you had to take off all your clothes
and get in that cold water while Mr. Tanner dunked you again and
again, saying he was casting out your devils and putting God inside
you.
    Tonight, Luke, Jeb and Isaiah were already
here, dirty from working in the pasture. Luke held a length of rope
and smiled at Tommy, while the two other boys glared. Tommy
wondered if he had to be baptized over again. But Mrs. Tanner
wasn’t here, and she never missed anything at church.
    “Luke, the rope,” Mr. Tanner said.
    Luke nodded. He threaded the rope through an
iron eyehole mounted in the wall above the willow cross. Then he
grimaced as he bound Tommy’s hands together.
    “What’s going on?” Tommy whispered, but
nobody answered him.
    Luke pulled the rope taut, raising Tommy’s
hands in front of him.
    “Jeb,” Mr. Tanner said.
    Jeb stepped up to Tommy and unbuckled his
belt. He pushed Tommy’s pants down, leaving Tommy shaking in his
underwear in front of everybody, embarrassed and terrified.
    “Kneel,” Mr. Tanner said. “Kneel before God.
And beg for His mercy.”
    Tommy knelt on the dirt floor of the church.
It was hard because his bound hands were stretched in front of him.
Luke pulled on the rope, raising Tommy’s hands even higher above
his head, and then he tied the rope to one of the wooden posts
holding up the barn roof.
    Behind him, he heard Mr. Tanner unbuckle his
belt.
    “Say you’re sorry,” Mr. Tanner said.
    “I’m sorry,” Tommy whispered. The leather
belt cracked across his backside, and Tommy yelped in pain. “I’m
sorry! I’m sorry!”
    Mr. Tanner kept whipping him. Tommy cried and
repeated how sorry he was.
    “Now stay there and pray,” Mr. Tanner said.
“Pray for the Devil to get out of you. Or I’ll have to exorcise him
myself.”
    Mr. Tanner and the boys left.
    Tommy knelt in the dirt and cried, his arms
stretched taut above his head. They were already starting to
ache.
    They left Tommy alone in the church all
night, shivering with cold and pain.

Chapter Three
    Pap-pap’s body came back the next day. Tommy,
who had been untied so he could attempt to do his morning chores
with his weak and aching arms, watched Mr. Tanner, Luke, and Jeb
unload the cheap pine casket from the back of Mr. Tanner’s truck.
They carried it into the gray barn-church. Mr. Tanner was going to
conduct the funeral the next day, and then they would bury Pap-pap
in the yard next to the church.
    Tommy went to bed before supper. He hadn’t
gotten much work done, either, but nobody harassed him about it.
They all acted like Tommy didn’t exist.
    After going to bed so early, Tommy woke just
after midnight, when he heard a floorboard squeak in the hall. Then
another one. Someone was trying to sneak down the hall. Tommy could
tell because he’d done it so many times, trying to go to the
bathroom without waking anyone. Tommy loved the deep hours of the
night, when he was the only one awake.
    He looked at the other bed. In the moonlight,
he could see all three boys were there. And Mr. Tanner wouldn’t be
tiptoeing around, he’d be clomping and banging as always. So it had
to be Mrs. Tanner. Or a burglar. Or a monster.
    Tommy lay very still and listened. He heard
the squeak on the third stair, then the seventh stair. It was
someone leaving, not someone coming. It had to be Mrs. Tanner.
    He slipped out of bed and walked to the
room’s one small window, which looked out on the