Al Capone Does My Shirts (16 page)

The thing to do is come clean. Talk to my mom. Talk to my dad. Tell them. They’ll understand. It was an accident. Three minutes. Five at the most. My mom said to treat Nat like a regular sister. Well, I certainly would leave a regular sister for five minutes. My mom can’t be mad. Together we’ll work out the right thing to do so this will never happen again.

I can hear my mom’s footsteps on the landing. She bursts in the door.

“Look, Moose!” She waves a newspaper in the air. She slaps it on the table. “See! Didn’t I tell you what a wonderful program they have? It’s world famous! Look, it says right here.”

NEW HOPE FOR KIDS WITH MENTAL DEFICIENCIES, the headline reads. There is a picture of Mr. Purdy standing in front of the Esther P. Marinoff and a small close-up of a boy.
Tom, age 10, was mute when he came to the Esther B. Marinoff, but now he speaks in simple sentences and reads at a third-grade level,
the caption reads.

The article is filled with quotes from experts.
The program is quite extraordinary. It’s modeled after a school in Switzerland run by the behaviorist Emil Binder.
I skim down to see what Mr. Purdy has to say.
“Entrance in the school is highly selective. We have
a small number of spaces for kids who are truly ready for the kind of opportunities we offer. Children start at the Esther P. Marinoff when they are 7 to 12 years of age and typically graduate at 18,” Mr. Purdy says.

How old does Mr. Purdy think Natalie is? Does he really believe she’s ten?

My mom has taken off her green hat and her green coat and she has begun to make supper. Every minute or so she comes back to the table to read a part of the article again. It’s as if the newsprint is warm and my mother’s hands are very cold.

Natalie is on the living room floor, reading my math book like it’s the newspaper.

“Mom, I need to talk to you,” I say.

“Okay, honey.” She smiles. “I can’t wait to tell your dad about this! And do you know what else?” My mom claps her hands. “Mrs. Kelly says Natalie is really improving. She’s going to write her a flying-color recommendation. That’s what she said. Flying colors!” My mom hugs me. She’s so happy, she would hug the saltshaker if it were only taller. “Your sister is going to be okay! She’s going to be fine!”

“But, Mom,” I say, “it says no kids are accepted after the age of twelve!”

My mother freezes. She’s so still, it looks like she’s stopped breathing. “Natalie is ten, Moose. You know that.” Her voice has a catch in it.

“You can’t be ten for five years in a row,” I whisper.

“MOOSE!” my mother cries. Her eyes are like teeth tearing into me.

I remember that funny look Mr. Purdy had on his face when he asked if Natalie was ten. All I see in my head is Natalie holding hands with a grown man. “I can’t stand this anymore, Mom,” I say.

“She’s tall for her age. What’s got into you?”

I look down at the article. “I need to talk to you.”

“Fine, we’ll talk tonight, your dad will be home any minute. Didn’t I already say that?” She slams down a square pan. It makes a tinny sound against the counter.

Now I wish I hadn’t said anything at all to my mom. I should have just talked to my dad about this.

When my father walks in the door, my mother rushes to meet him. “Cam, look!” She hands NEW HOPE FOR KIDS WITH MENTAL DEFICIENCIES to my father.

“This is a red-letter day,” my father agrees. He takes my mom in his arms and does a little jig in the kitchen.

I can’t stand to watch this. I head for my room.

 

“Hey, Moose,” my father says later that night when Natalie is in bed. “Mom says you want to talk to us.”

“Yeah,” I say, my heart beating loud and guilty in my chest. I close my book, wishing they had forgotten.

“I don’t think it’s safe for Nat to follow me around,” I say.

My mother stares at me like she can’t believe what I’ve just said. “But, Moose . . . she’s doing so well. Carrie Kelly thinks we shouldn’t change one thing, because being out with you kids and working one-on-one with her is the best possible—”

“Something happened.” I feel nothing when I say this, like my mouth is talking all by itself.

They wait.

“What happened?” my dad asks. He touches my arm, gently.

My mind is scrambling. How can I tell them without really telling them? “I don’t think it’s safe for her on this island. She doesn’t understand stuff. It’s dangerous.”

“What happened?” my father asks again.

“A con noticed her today,” I say. My words feel like they are weighted down with stones.

My father sighs and sticks a toothpick in his mouth. “Well, I can’t say I’m surprised, Moose, but I understand how upsetting that would be.”

My mother glares at him. “A con whistled at her. Is that it? She’s a pretty little girl, your sister. I wish I had a penny for every time some guy whistled at me. Let’s not lose sight of what’s important here.”

“Honey, wait.” My father takes her arm again.

“No,
you
wait. Natalie is getting better. Do you know what she said yesterday? She said, ‘You made me sad.’ Do you think I like making her sad? I don’t. But she’s never said anything like that before. ‘What is 55,031 times 59,032.’ ‘Does May 16 fall on a Wednesday in 1914?’ This she’s said. But never
you—
not
Mommy—you,
a pronoun. I’ve been trying to get Natalie to use pronouns her whole life. And feelings . . . she said something she felt. Natalie is communicating with us . . . this is so important! There’s no way she’ll be turned down at the Esther P. Marinoff now—”

“It’s dangerous, Mom.”

“Dangerous? Nothing on this island is half as dangerous as having her locked in her own world. Not one half, not one fourth, not one tenth as dangerous as that. So, I am not, do you two hear me, NOT GOING TO CHANGE ONE SINGLE THING ABOUT NATALIE’S DAY! Things are going too well. And, Moose, I won’t have you sulking inside with her all afternoon!”

This smarts. I can’t believe she said this. “I’ve been taking her with me
everywhere
! I haven’t been sulking!”

“No, of course not.” My father’s hand cups my neck. “You’ve been a major reason why Natalie is doing so well, and your mother and I understand that.”

My mother glares at my father. She’s really angry now, but I am too. No matter how hard I work, it’s never enough. She walks out of the room, then back in. “The entrance interviews for the Esther P. Marinoff are only four weeks away. We’re so close. I don’t want anything to go wrong.” Her voice cracks.

“Calm down, honey. Nothing’s going to go wrong,” my father says. “It’s not.

“Moose”—he turns to me—“thanks for bringing this to our attention. But I need to talk to your mom for a minute alone.”

 

 

The next week I do my best to stay away from Piper. But the more I steer clear, the more she seems to want to be around me. “She’s planning something. Watch yourself,” Annie tells me on Monday.

On Wednesday I find out Piper has given Scout 105’s baseball, and then she’s stopped talking to Scout. I guess she doesn’t need him anymore. And Scout doesn’t seem to care, which surprises me even more. “You can have her, Moose,” he tells me while we’re warming up for our lunch game. “She’s more trouble than she’s worth.”

“Oh, great,” I say. “Gee, thanks.”

“I think she’s googly-eyed for you, anyway,” he says.

“No, she isn’t,” I tell him.

Scout nods his head. “You like her too, and you know it.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I tell him. It isn’t possible to like someone I dislike as much as Piper. It didn’t used to be possible, anyway.

 

“So, Moose, we’re friends, right?” Piper corners me as I come out of the bathroom right after the last bell at school.

“Whatever you say, Piper.” I pick up my books and head out the door into the bright sunshine.

“And friends help each other, right?”

I don’t like the sound of this.

“I need your help.” She touches my hand.

I close my eyes, blow air out of my mouth and walk faster.

She keeps pace with me. “I want your help with 105. You have an in now. Natalie does, anyway.”

“You are unbelievable.” I spit the words out at her.

“Moose, wait! Come on!”

“I don’t want to talk to you, Piper. I just don’t.” I keep walking fast, my head down.

“This is going to help you too. Because otherwise you’ll always wonder. You’ll never know what happened between Natalie and 105.”

“I know what happened. I was there,” I lie.

“No, you weren’t,” she says.

“Go cram your head in the crapper, Piper,” I yell in her face, and cross the street to get away from her. How does she know everything?

“Look,” she wheedles, keeping pace with me. “You’ve been driving yourself nuts with this, haven’t you, Moose? But we can fix that. We’ll let Natalie go to meet 105 and then we’ll spy on them. Then you’ll know. And if 105 tries anything, you can pound him, right, Moose? Won’t that feel good?”

“As far as I’m concerned, 105 does not exist.”

“We came so close to getting into the cell house with Mrs. Capone,” Piper says.

“No, we didn’t,” I say.

“What if they’d used Jimmy or Theresa to translate instead of Mrs. Mattaman? And then they’d need to take them up to the cell house, because cons can’t talk to visitors in a foreign language.”

“What if, what if, what if. None of that even came close to happening.”

“Didn’t you learn anything? Just be there. Just be close and it will happen. You can’t catch a ball unless you’re in the ballpark! Take 105 for example,” she tries again.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I shout, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk.

“Natalie certainly does. That’s all she talks about is 105.”

I glare at her. “How would you know?”

“I heard her one day when she was with your mom. Your mom had no idea what she was talking about, but I knew,” Piper says.

My neck gets stiff. I can hardly move it. “She loves numbers is all. That’s always what she talks about.” I start walking again.

“Oh, yeah, right. Look, what’s the harm of just talking to the guy, 105?”

“No harm. Go ahead. You don’t need me and you don’t need Natalie.”

“Ahhhh.” She makes a disgusted noise and cuts in front of me.

“Well, you don’t.” I sidestep her.

She cuts me off again. There’s an odd expression on her face, both eyes looking left, not at anything in particular.

“What?” I ask.

She scratches her back. “Well . . .” She sighs.

“Well what?”

“I tried to talk to 105, but he wouldn’t talk to me.”

“No kidding. You know, you really charmed Mrs. Capone too. I mean, dropping your purse on her toe. What a nice touch!”

“Shut up.”

“What did the guy do, anyway? Homicide? Kidnapping?” I can’t stop myself from asking this.

“I dunno, but he’s only got one more year. Not even that, half a year, I think. That’s why he has so much freedom. They figure he wouldn’t run with six months to go. It wouldn’t be worth it to jeopardize that. You think they’d let just any old convict wander around the place
gardening?
Plus, the guy—they call him Onion because the way his hair is greased down makes his head look like an onion—he’s put together a whole slew of good time. He’s like some kind of Boy Scout choir boy.”

“Choir boy?” I ask.

“Kind of like you . . . convict choir boy from the root vegetable family.” She smiles.

“How’d you find out?”

“I looked in my dad’s files. Couldn’t find what he was in for, but I found out he was on gardening detail. I went to the gardens. There he was. Surely, if
Nat
could find him, I could too.”

“Nat’s not stupid!” I shout.

“Did I say she was?”

“Say it! Say she’s not stupid.”

“She’s not stupid.” Piper shrugs and we start walking again.

I know I shouldn’t talk to her anymore, but I can’t help it. I have to know. “That true about him being a good guy . . . ?”

“Yep,” Piper says. She looks me square when she says this.

I think about what a liar Piper is. Even so, what she says makes sense. Why would they let an escape risk have the run of the place? “If he won’t talk to you, what makes you think he’ll talk to Natalie?” I ask.

“Because he did already, idiot!”

“Jeez, Piper, why do you go sticking your nose in this?”

“What are you all bent out of shape about?” Piper asks, shifting her books to the other arm. “She’s not pregnant, right?”

“Piper! For crying out loud!”

“You do know about the birds and the bees, don’t you?”

“Shut up, Piper! Just shut up!”

“Did you ask her at least?”

“Look, this is off limits.” I make a flattening gesture with my hands. “I just have to keep her safe until the Esther P. Marinoff interview.”

“And then what?”

“And then she’ll get in and get better and we’ll all live happily ever after.”

“What if she doesn’t get in, though? I mean, she didn’t before, right? What makes you think she will this time?”

This is the question my whole family has been avoiding. Just hearing Piper ask it out loud makes me feel disloyal.

“She will,” I say. My voice comes out in a funny jerk.

Piper raises her eyebrows and studies me. “There’s a chapel in the basement of the cell house. If she doesn’t get in, then maybe she and 105 can get married. He’s getting out soon.”

“Piper, SHUT UP,” I shout.

“Get mad all you want, but it seems perfectly reasonable to me. They could have babies.”

“SHUT UP!” I feel a blinding urge to grab hold of Piper’s throat.