Cutting through the graveyard on the way home fro the school dance, my friends Maggie and Leah were talking to me. Maggie, who was boy crazy, was telling us about a boy she was dancing with.

“He wsa tall and cute and a little older than me,” she explained. “He also had brown hair and really cool old-fashioned clothes. He said his name was John Hemmingway. The funny thing was he had very cold hands.”

“Did he ask you out?” asked Leah eagerly.

“Yes,” answered Magie in a small voice. “He said he would meet me by the river on the next full moon.”

“I think you should go!” I said. “That’s what I’m trying to decide,” said Maggie slowly. Just then I tripped over a small gray mossy gravestone. Leah helped me up.

“Maggie, what’s the matter?” she asked, alarmed because Maggie had turned pale. She pointed at the gravestone I had just tripped over. I read it, horrified.

John Hemmingway

1846-1862

Beloved Son

Lost in the Kaw River

Rosie O’Brien is a fourth-grade student at Lawrence Catholic School