Chapter One

Me-me says that Heaven is full of fluffy white clouds and angels.

That sounds pretty swell, but how can you sit on a cloud? Wouldn’t you fall right through and smack onto the ground? Like Frankie always says, angels have wings, so what do they have to worry about?

My idea of Heaven has nothing to do with clouds or angels. In my Heaven there’s butter pecan ice cream and swimming pools and baseball games. The Brooklyn Dodgers always win, and I have the best seat in the house, right behind the Dodgers’ dugout. That’s the only advantage that I can see to being dead: You get the best seat in the house.

I think about Heaven a lot. Not because of the usual reasons, though. I’m only eleven, and I don’t plan on dying until I’m at least a hundred. It’s just that I’m named after that Bing Crosby song “Pennies from Heaven,” and when you’re named after something, you can’t help but think about it.

See, my father was crazy about Bing Crosby, and that’s why everyone calls me Penny instead of Barbara Ann Falucci, which is what’s on my birth certificate. No one ever calls me Barbara, except teachers, and sometimes even I forget that it’s my real name.

I guess it could be worse. I could be called Clementine, which was the name of another Bing Crosby song that my father really liked. I don’t think I’d make a very good Clementine.

Then again, who would?

CHAPTER TWO

Uncle Dominic is sitting in his car. It’s a 1940 Plymouth Roadking. It’s black with chrome trim, and the hubcaps are so shiny, you could use them as a mirror. Uncle