Luckily—or unluckily, as the case may be—someone up there had a strange sense of humor.

She could have landed anywhere in the earthly realm. Pavement, grass, the middle of the ocean . . .

. . . MarineLand in Niagara Falls. Or, more precisely, the killer whale tank at MarineLand.

Plop.

The cold water jarred her from her free-fall daze and she thrashed about, eyes wide. What just happened? She’d been reading a scroll. A golden scroll somebody had thrust into her hands.

Something about the rules of being a fallen angel, and then . . . then what?

She swallowed a large mouthful of water and started to choke before she slipped under.

And then somebody pushed me.

Somebody pushed her out of Heaven.

Son of a b—

She bobbed above the water and gasped for air before going under again. Then suddenly she felt herself forcefully yanked above the waterline. Somebody had hold of her upper arm.

Ouch. An extremely tight hold.

Her first impression of being a human? Pain sucked.

The large black-and-white killer whale—where did it get that name from, anyhow? she thought with growing panic—nudged her leg curiously as she was dragged out of the tank.

She could hear applause and cheers from somewhere, but her vision was too blurry to see more than just shapes and colors.

“Miss? What exactly do you think you’re doing? Is this some sort of joke?”

She opened her mouth to respond with, “Mahhhhh.” This actually meant: “I need to go back to Heaven. There’s been a huge mistake. Somebody, anybody, help me!,” but her first incomprehensible word was followed with a, “Bahhhh.”

The blurry dot of a human peered closer at her. “Are you okay?”

She knew enough to shake her head. No. She wasn’t okay. Not even close to being okay.