The Littlest Prosecutor novel · Chapter 16 of 24

Chapter 16: Dress Rehearsal

At two o'clock the fifth uncle came down the stairs in my Aunt Jo's pink cardigan.

It was three sizes too small, and the buttons were holding on for their lives.

He had a candy dish in one hand.

"Hello, sweeeetie," he said, in a high, syrupy voice. "Have a candy."

I fell off my chair laughing.

"That's not what she sounds like," I said.

"It's exactly what she sounds like," said the second uncle, from the sofa.

"It's what she sounds like at dinner," I said. "In the hall she sounds different."

"Then show me the hall," said the fifth uncle.

He wasn't funny anymore.

The uncles had pushed Grandpa's living room chairs into a half circle, and the long dining table stood in the middle of the room.

It was the dress rehearsal.

The third uncle, who is the prosecutor, had a yellow pad.

The fourth uncle was the pretend judge, and he kept straightening a pretend robe.

Daddy sat on the very end of the sofa, and Aunt Jo had given him a pen.

"You write down every question you want to ask Birdie later," she told him. "And you do not say one word until the end."

"Understood."

"Not one."

"I said understood."

He looked as though he was about to have a tooth pulled, and he didn't mind.

The third uncle cleared his throat.

"Birdie, please tell the court what the defendant said to you in the hallway on Friday."

I stood at the end of the table.

I held my rabbit by his floppy ear.

The fifth uncle, in the pink cardigan, stood across from me with his arms folded.

I opened my mouth.

Nothing came.

"Take your time," said the third uncle.

"I'm taking it."

I looked at the pink cardigan, and the candy dish, and the wide, fake, flat smile.

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