Excerpt from The Wrong Heaven by Amy Bonnaffons, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

"It's OK," I said. "I was a bit rattled, though."

"You poor thing," she said.

"Can you answer some questions for me?"

"Maybe later," she said. "Right now, I'd rather sing." She took a breath and began: "There's a bright golden haze on the meadow…"

It was "Oh, What a Beautiful Mornin'" from Oklahoma!, which is one of my favorite songs, which she probably knew. But her voice was wispy and wavering, and she was a little flat on the high notes. Plus, it sounded odd and wrong with her British accent. Still, I thought it would be rude to interrupt her. So I stood and listened until she finished.

"Thank you," I said. "That was lovely."

She smiled and gave a slight nod and curtsy. I unplugged her and went inside to get ready for school.


In case you're wondering, I wasn't that surprised that they could talk. My view of the universe is Christian but not narrow. On TV once, I saw an elephant and a dog who were best friends; the elephant rubbed the dog's belly with its foot. A woman in my church had a horseback-riding accident and saw the white light at the end of the tunnel, and after they brought her back she was able to accurately predict the results of every midterm Senate election. My brother James had a spiritual conversion in his twenties and is now a Yoruba priest. Anything can happen.

This is why my students like me, why I've received the highest ratings of any second-grade teacher at Two Trees Elementary for eighteen years straight: I believe the world is malleable, that our understanding of it is provisional, improvised, subject to a change of rules at any time; that sometimes the magician pulls out the tablecloth and the dishes all stay in place, and sometimes the magician pulls out the tablecloth and everything is gone, including the table. I don't tell the children how things are. I don't condescend.

But lately, it's all too much. I'm starting to believe that maybe, like other adults, I should start pretending to know more than I do. I don't know a single other adult who recently woke up in gin-stiffened clothes clutching a rubber martini-shaped dog toy. I would not wish this on anyone.


That day, one of my students turned eight. Her mother brought in cupcakes for everyone. There were so many allergies in the room that parents weren't allowed to bring in anything with peanuts, wheat, sugar, milk, pineapple, shellfish, strawberries, soy, or Red Dye No. 9. Among other things. What remained was basically spelt flour and water. The cupcakes were made with spelt flour and water and they tasted like spelt flour and water. The children and I played a game while eating them where we imagined a world without allergies. We discussed what we would eat for people's birthdays in this allergy-free world.

"Chicken nuggets," said one.

"Soy sauce," said another.

"Red eggs and ham," said the child allergic to red dye.

"What if there was this magic dinosaur," said Maddox, my favorite, "that ate everything in the world and vomited it back up, but its vomit was actually really delicious food with no allergies?"

Caroline N. raised her hand. "What would the dinosaur keep in its stomach?"

"Excuse me?" I said.

"If it vomits everything up, it doesn't get to keep anything in its own stomach."

"I guess it dies," said Maddox. He looked stricken. He clearly had not considered this question.

"Like my caterpillar," said Josephine. "My caterpillar died."

"My baby brother died," said David G., "before he was born."

I looked out at the sea of faces grown round with fear, spelt crumbs strewing them like dark freckles.

"Nobody dies for real, ever," I pronounced. "There's just a different place where dead people go. Like how we can't see Ms. McClosky's class right now, but we know they're next door."

Excerpted from The Wrong Heaven by Amy Bonnafons. Copyright © 2018 by Amy Bonnafons. Excerpted by permission of Little Brown & Company. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.