Beatrice, who only moments before was the eldest member and leader of the Barka gang, wakes up dead. She was almost, probably, twelve. Either the slap rash got her, as it gets everyone over the age of twelve, or the Flabberghast got tired of waiting for her to drop dead and took her skin for a door and her bones for his stew. Who can say? What she can say is that she didn’t get to wake up in heaven. Instead, she’s in the Big Bah-Ha, a place that’s supposed to be a comfort to children after they pass on. Only something’s very, very wrong here and, despite all her bravery and cunning, she’s not quite sure how to fix it or if she’ll survive the afterlife long enough to try.
