Here we go again. This is the third funeral this week. I don't know why we have to go through all this ceremony stuff. I mean it's not like we're saying out last goodbyes. Come this time next month, old Mrs. Crabtree will be right back in her kitchen baking. They all come back.

Oh, you're probably wondering who I am. I'm Scott Landon. I'm eleven years old and I live in Tucker, Ohio. I have a father, a mother, and a little sister. My Dad's died twice already. Both times at the lumber mill where he works. And both times, one month later he comes walking in the door and asks what's for supper. The first time he died he lost his left hand, but he went back to work there using his stump as a hand. Then the second time he cut his left arm clean off. That's when they put him in the office rather than out with the saws.

Now old Mrs. Crabtree, she died from a stroke. So when she comes back she'll still have all her arms and legs. And Mr. McMurtry, he's died of three heart attacks already. Comes back each time looking good as new. But then some are like Claude Matthis who died in a car crash. Steering wheel crushed his chest. So to see him now at the corner store, you'd think someone had carved out half his chest.

You may wonder why the dead returning to life doesn't seem unusual or frightening to me. Well, it's been this way for longer than I've been alive. My mom says it started shortly after they built that new highway about 20 miles south of here. And when people started coming back up out of their graves, they had to do something. So now they just put them on bunk beds in this old storage building. But we still have funeral services, though you couldn't tell what with no one bawling, like at funerals on tv. That's where I am now, standing with my family and my aunt who's going to have a baby next month. That's what put her on the mayor's bad side. With no one staying dead, this town has got pretty crowded. So Mayor Smith is "strongly recommending" people don't have more than one kid. Aunt Sue has two girls already. She's hoping for a boy this time.

You know, there was one guy who didn't come back. Marty Bristle. He moved to Texas right after high school. Got a job in the oil fields but then there was an explosion and he died. He never came back. Maybe if you die outside of here you don't come back to life. Interesting. I'll have to ask my mom about it. But not now, she's busy trying to get gum outta my baby sister's hair.