Tom and Huck Finn go to a graveyard at midnight with a dead cat, hoping to work a magic spell to get rid of warts, and witness a murder instead.
Tom confesses to something his sweetheart, Becky, actually did (partly by accident) and takes a beating to protect her.
Tom, Huck, and Tom's friend Joe Harper run away to an island in the Mississippi to play pirates, are thought to have been drowned, and "miraculously" turn up at their own funeral.
Now put all this together with the incidents other answerers have mentioned, and how could you NOT want to read the book?
