Excerpt of The Sweetest Hallelujah by Elaine Hussey

The day Billie's life changed, she was already knee deep in touble.

She'd been playing with Lucy after her mama had said not to. Lucy's little brother brother, Peanut, had something that was catching, but Billie wasn't the kind of scaredy cat who would stop seeing her best friend just because grown-ups said so.

To make sure her mama didn't know, Billie told Peanut if he opened his trap about her being over there, she'd make him sorry he was ever born. He believed her, too. Around Shakerag, the other kids knew that if they messed with Billie she'd beat thie snot out of them.

Calling out, ""Bye, Lucy,"" she set out for home. But the only way there was past dead Alice's tree.

Billie hadn't even been born when they found the body of eleven-year-old Alice Watkins up in the woods behind Gum Pond cut into six pieces. Still, she knew the stories. Everybody in Shakerag did. Somebody with a heart black as sin had snatched Alice from Tiny Jim's juke joint right out from under her daddy's nose. Then he'd done his dirty deeds and got clean away.

Alice was still hanging around like some avenging angel, She'd warn you if something bad was about to happen. You'd hear the harmonica in Tiny Jim's Blues and Barbecue all over town, the sound so mournful you'd feed defeated. The smell coming from his barbecue pits got so strong you'd close your curtains and stuff towerls under the door to keep the scent from driving you crazy. And if you were caught out in the street like Billie, at the mercy of winds that suddenly shook the trees and rattled the trash cans in the alley, you'd feel as if you were made of glass. One look from a stranger could crack you in two.

Billie started running. Everybody knew the boogie man got bad little girls first.