Excerpt from My Name is Not Friday by Jon Walter, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

I try to wriggle a bit, try to slide down one side of the mule to getmyself more comfortable, and I hope God's not watching me 'causeI must look like a worm that's just been unearthed, what with mybackside in the air and wriggling for all I'm worth. He sees me,though. Comes and stands nearby. And I stop wriggling.

God sucks His teeth. He slaps the saddlebag over the back of themule, close enough that the thick leather edge pushes up intothe top of my arm, and then He leads the mule on, and the bones inits back begin to shift as it walks and that makes me even moreuncomfortable. In fact, it's just about the most uncomfortablething I can remember—that mule's bones on my bones, the both ofus grinding each other up the wrong way and getting on each other'snerves. If the mules here in heaven are as stubborn as the mulesback at home, then this one'll spit in my eye if he ever gets a chance.My Lord, he will. He'll try and kick me to kingdom come.

We walk like that for a long time. I don't know where we'regoing.

I'd always assumed that when you got to heaven, you'd turn upright where you're supposed to be. I hadn't figured on having totravel nowhere and I'm wondering how long it'll be before we stop.But we don't ever stop. We just keep on walking till I'm hurting somuch that I lift myself up to ease the aching in my bones.

And that's when I fall off the back of the mule.

I hit the ground hard and that mule sees his chance and he kicksout, catching me in the stomach so that all the air rushes out of me.

"Damn you, mule," I curse him. "Damn you to kingdom come."

Straight away, I hear them boots. They walk right up to me andI sit up quickly, turning my head first one way, then the other, tryingto get a sense of where God is, 'cause I'm afraid of Him more thanever on account of me just cussing His mule.

God sucks at His teeth again. I can sense He's real close, probablycrouching right down beside me with His face up close to mine.And He lays His hands upon my head and takes hold of the sack,intending to lift it up, I'm sure, and I quickly shut my eyes becauseI'm afraid to look upon the face of God, and we're about to be rightup close, my eyes looking into His eyes, and that don't seem right tome. That don't seem right at all.

I hold my breath. I squeeze my face so tight it's as small as I canget it.

Two pink discs appear on the lids of my eyes. I feel the warmthof the sun on my face and I have the breath of the Lord in my nostrils,all smelling of bacon like he's just had breakfast.

"Open your eyes," He tells me.

He ain't got the kind of voice you might imagine. He's all highpitchedand squeaky. A bit like a girl, only not a girl.

I shake my head.

I know it doesn't do to disagree with the Lord, but I'm full of thefear of Him, full of the fear it's not Him, and I try to look away.He don't sound pleased. "I said, open your eyes."

My eyelids are like two heavy doors that I pull up on a chain, allcreaking and stubborn. I lift my head to look at Him.

God is smiling at me.

Only not in a loving way.

He has a tooth missing. A half-chewed stick of licorice sits in thegap between His teeth, and His mouth has got a wicked smile, kindalopsided, like He's gonna laugh in my face at any moment.

Truth be told, He looks more like the Devil himself.

And I'm asking myself, how could this be? How could it havecome to this?

But I know it only too well.

And it wasn't my fault. Not none of it.

Excerpted from My Name is Not Friday by Jon Walter. Copyright © 2016 by Jon Walter. Excerpted by permission of David Fickling Books. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.