Al Capone Does My Homework

by Gennifer Choldenko

“No, but Natalie is.”

  I can almost see the news travel through the presses in Mrs. Mattaman’s brain.

  “Moose, honey—” She’s going to tell me no. Her mouth opens, then closes again. She works through Natalie’s tangles as Nat stands patiently.

  Section by section, she brushes her hair until every bit of it hangs straight. Then she takes a rubber band and puts Nat’s hair in a ponytail and ties it with a ribbon.

  “Now let’s have a look.” Mrs. Mattaman turns Natalie around.

  “You need a clean blouse. Let me see what I have.” She comes back with a white button-down shirt and a blue sweater that matches Nat’s skirt. My mother would never suggest this. It’s not the kind of thing Natalie wears. The stiff fabric will drive her crazy, but Natalie takes it and right there in the middle of the Mattamans’ living room, begins to undress.

  “Not here, Nat.” Mrs. Mattaman gently pushes her into the bathroom and shuts the door.

  Nat’s in there a long time, but just as I get ready to knock, she opens the door.

  When she walks out, she looks as grown-up as a teacher in Mrs. Mattaman’s sweater, with the ribbon and too-high ponytail.

  I worry she’ll throw a fit in these unfamiliar clothes, but something about the still shaky way she’s walking tells me how hard she’s trying.

  Mrs. Mattaman sees my concern. She bites her lip and crosses her arms in front of herself, but she does not tell me we can’t go.

  Nat’s all ready now. Mrs. Mattaman hands us umbrellas and gives us detailed instructions on how to get to the hospital. Nat takes her umbrella into the bathroom and begins flushing the toilet over and over.

  “Nat,” I call through the door. “We have to go.”

  She can’t manage this. It’s too hard, I think, but a minute later she’s out of the bathroom, walking through the Mattamans’ front door.

  “Good luck,” Mrs. Mattaman whispers as I scoot after Natalie.

  But Nat doesn’t walk down to the ferry. She heads for #2E.

  “You need something, Nat?”

  She doesn’t answer but goes straight to her room, then comes out again. I’m expecting her to be carrying her button box, but she doesn’t have it.

  “What did you get?” I ask as she brushes past me, headed down to the dock.

  She doesn’t answer.

  The ferry trip across the water to San Francisco goes smoothly. Nat doesn’t feed the birds like she usually does. She doesn’t count the boats on the bay either. She just sits quietly, her eyes on her lap. Even finding the address is no problem with Mrs. Mattaman’s careful instructions. But when I see the hospital ahead, my feet slow down.

  The place is an enormous building with fancy brickwork and a grand entrance. How can I send Nat in there all by herself? What was I thinking?

  “You know, it’s probably better if I go with you, Nat,” I say.

  “Moose is thirteen,” Nat mutters.

  “Yeah, I know, but . . .”

  “I am sixteen.” She points to her chest.

  But what if this doesn’t work? What if she pitches a fit? My mom doesn’t need this on top of what’s happening with my dad.

  “I’m big for my age. I can pass for sixteen,” I tell her.

  “Moose is thirteen,” Nat says. “Thirteen, thirteen.”

  I have to let her do this. I have to let her try. This is her fight, not mine. “Okay,” I tell Natalie. “Go up to the lady in the front reception desk and ask for Dad’s room number. You’ll have to look in her eye and ask. Say: ‘I am Cam Flanagan’s daughter. I’m here to visit him. May I have his room number, please?’”

  “I am Cam Flanagan’s daughter. I’m here to visit him. May I have his room number, please?” Nat echoes.

  Nat will have no trouble finding the room number. The hard part is looking normal to the lady.

  “Remember, Nat, look the lady in the eyes. No funny business.”

  “Look the lady in the eyes. No funny business,” Nat repeats. “Three.”

  The game isn’t working very well. I wonder if she has even made eye contact twice.

  “She’s not going to know our game, Nat. You’ll have to count to yourself.”

  “Count to yourself.” She rocks wildly from side to side.

  Natalie digs a quick jab of her chin on her shoulder. She shakes her head like she’s getting snow out of her hair. “No funny business. Count to yourself,” she mutters.

  “Go on. You can do it.”

  Nat’s chin starts to dip down again, but she stops herself midway. She walks forward flat-footed, as if every part of her foot must make contact with the ground. I’m holding my breath watching her push through the door and walk up to the reception desk.

  Will she stop at the counter? Did I tell her not to repeat what the lady says? I never realized how many millions of things you have to do to look normal. How confusing it must be to figure it out.

  A man is in line ahead of her. She waits her turn. I see the angle of Nat’s face. Her head is up. It’s Nat’s turn now. She walks forward and begins talking to the gray-haired lady behind the desk.

  The gray-haired lady nods. She checks her clipboard, then points Natalie down the corridor.

  Natalie hesitates a moment, not sure if she’s missed something. The gray-haired lady squints at her.

  Does she suspect something isn’t right with Natalie?

  Maybe. But then Nat moves on and the next person in line goes up to the counter. Nat keeps walking down the hall. She turns a corner and disappears.

  27. Eyes

  Saturday, February 8, 1936

  Standing outside the hospital is torture. Anything could be happening in there. I realize too late that I should have had Natalie come back and tell me the room number. Then I could walk on by when the gray-haired lady wasn’t looking. If I go and ask now, I’m afraid she’ll stop me. I’m tall, but I can’t pass for sixteen. If I were to get by the reception lady, I might be able to slip inside. I’m just thinking about this, when I see my mom walking through the lobby and out the front door, her eyes bleary, her face puffy and red.

  “Mom!” I pounce on her. “How is he?”

  “Moose?” She wraps her arms around me. “He’s better, honey,” she whispers in my ear. “The doctor said he was too tough to die.”

  The news hits me hard. It takes me a full minute before I can even take in what she said. And then slowly the relief seeps in. My legs wobble from the sheer force of it. My mom is still holding on to me as if she can’t let go.

  “Mom,” I whisper, “Natalie’s up there.”

  My mom blinks. “Up where?” she asks.

  “Don’t get mad. She went in by herself.”

  “No.” She shakes her head hard as if it hasn’t happened yet, and she’s telling me no.

  “It’s already done. She’s in there,” I whisper. “She asked for help at the counter and then she went up.”

  “You sent her in there alone.”

  “Yeah,” I say, “I did.”

  “I didn’t have enough problems?” she asks as she whirls me by the information desk. The gray-haired lady stands up. She opens her mouth to object. She can tell I’m not sixteen. But my mom yanks me up the stairs.

  The gray-haired woman follows us, waving her cane. “Stop! No children in the hospital,” she commands.

  A wizened old man in a doctor’s tunic with a stethoscope around his neck sees us coming up.

  “Doctor! Stop them,” the gray-haired lady shouts.

  The doctor gives us an elfin smile. “Stupid rule,” he mutters.

  “What? Mrs. Dubussy? What? You know I’m hard of hearing. What do you need?” He winks at us.

  My mom and I keep going. When we get to my dad’s room, there is Natalie sitting by his
bed. She has his toothpick box out and she’s counting all the toothpicks, placing them carefully around one familiar four-hole button.

  “You brought it for Dad,” I say.

  “Brought it for Dad,” she whispers. “It’s special.”

  “Natalie,” my mom sighs.

  “I am sixteen now,” Natalie says, her words like a wall keeping my mom at bay.

  “Yes,” my mom tells her, a sob hiccupping out of her throat. She dabs at her eyes, trying to recover. “You are.”

  Nat nods, but keeps counting toothpicks.

  “Good job, Nat,” I tell her.

  “Good job, Nat,” she says.

  My father is asleep and my mother won’t let us wake him. He looks like crap, his cheeks sunken in, his skin the color of fog. But I have never been so happy to see anyone. I don’t want to leave here ever. I flat out refuse when my mother tries to hustle us from the room.

  “Your dad needs his rest,” she says.

  “We’re just sitting here,” I plead, but she’ll have none of it.

  She lets us each kiss him and then she bustles us out the door.

  The pounding inside my head is easing. I didn’t even realize my head hurt so much, until now when it’s going away. My father is going to be fine.

  I don’t know if Natalie feels better or not, but I sure do. “Four, four, four,” she mutters under her breath.

  “Four,” I tell her proudly.

  Each time we pass someone, she fixes her green eyes on them and calls out a new number. We’re getting some strange looks, but for once I don’t care.

  28. The Pixies’ Secret

  Wednesday, February 19, and Saturday, February 22, 1936

  Dad comes home from the hospital after eleven days. His pants and shirt hang on him like he’s wearing another man’s clothing and he walks as if he has to think about each step. I wonder how long it will be until he is completely well.

  I’m hoping we don’t leave Alcatraz. Strange as this may seem, it’s my home now. Still, I know my dad’s days as a warden are over. I’m not sure I’ll be able to stand it if the warden promotes Trixle, though. I’d rather clean all seven hundred toilets on this island than have Trixle be the warden.

  A few days later, I see my father with his officer’s cap. He’s flicking the blood off the badge and scrubbing the bloodstain from the fabric with a soapy rag. “What’re you doing?” I ask.

  “Got to get my uniform shipshape,” he tells me.

  “Why?”

  “I’m back part-time starting next week.”

  “Doing what?” I ask.

  “My job.”

  “Associate warden?”

  “Course.” He looks up at me. “What did you think?”

  “I thought you might go back to being the electrician.”

  He snorts. “Do I look like a quitter?”

  “No. But, Dad . . .”

  He scrubs harder. “If Trixle had been the associate warden, he’d have been worth five thousand points dead too, you know. It wasn’t personal.”

  I don’t want to come out and say I don’t think Indiana would have tried to hurt Darby Trixle, so I keep my trap closed.

  “Dad?” I ask.

  He sticks a toothpick in his mouth and chomps down hard. “I’m listening.”

  “The night of the fire . . .”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I did something I wasn’t supposed to do.”

  “Which was?”

  “I fell asleep.”

  His hand stops moving. He looks up at me. I hold my breath. “What the devil, Moose?” He takes the toothpick out of his mouth. “It never occurred to me you’d wait up.”

  “It didn’t?”

  “Course not.” He dips his rag into a jar of polish. “We weren’t staying up with her before the fire either. The whole world doesn’t rest on your shoulders, buddy.”

  I close my eyes and let my head fall back. When I open them again, my father is watching me. “You know, I was glad to hear you let Natalie go into the hospital on her own. That was a big step for you.”

  “For me?”

  He nods. “It’s not easy being in charge, Moose . . . you think I don’t know that? Harder to be Natalie’s brother than it is to be a warden. And being a warden is no picnic.

  “People are responsible for themselves. All you can do is try to inspire each person to be his best self. You did that with Natalie. You let her do what she needed to do. Your mom could never have done that. You know that, don’t you?”

  I look into my dad’s deep brown eyes. It never occurred to me he understood what I was going through. I wish I’d talked to him about falling asleep the night of the fire a long time ago.

  That’s what I’m thinking when I hear a kid-size knock on the door. I know it’s not Theresa, because she would have already come inside.

  “Door’s open,” I shout, heading out of my parents’ room.

  “Hi.” Janet waves with one hand up high near her face. She carries her new pixie house—a shoe box decorated with cut-out paper—into the kitchen and sets it on the table.

  “Hi,” I say.

  Janet stares at me like she’s expecting me to do the talking.

  “Did you want something?” I ask.

  She nods. “The pixies know something they aren’t supposed to know,” she announces.

  “That’s nice,” I say.

  She crosses her thin arms. “They want to tell you what it is.”

  “Uh-huh.” I flip open the bread box door to see if there is anything decent to eat.

  “But the pixies will never say this again.”

  “Umm,” I mumble. I’ve found a piece of Natalie’s lemon cake and I’m dividing it into three tiny slivers. One for me, one for Janet, and one for Natalie.

  “The pixies know who set the fire.”

  I look over at Janet. “Donny Caconi set the fire,” I say.

  Janet nods.

  “The pixies said you have to promise never to tell.”

  I put the lemon cake slices each on a plate. “Everybody knows it was Donny.”

  “That’s not what you have to promise,” Janet tells me.

  “I promise,” I mumble, handing her a piece of cake. I have no idea what she’s talking about.

  Janet takes the top off the shoe box and begins unloading her pixie stuff. She pulls out felt horses, pixie officer uniforms, pixie convict handcuffs, pixie circus elephants.

  “Did the pixies see Donny set the fire?” I ask.

  “No.” She scowls like I’ve suggested beheading Santa Claus.

  My stomach growls. The lemon cake is good. I wonder if Janet is going to eat her slice.

  “Donny got paid,” Janet whispers.

  My mouth freezes, mid-bite. “What do you mean he got paid?” I ask. “For setting the fire?”

  “The pixies say yes.”

  I snap my jaw shut. “Who paid Donny for setting the fire?”

  Janet gallops her horses around the new pixie house.

  Suddenly, the missing fifty dollars that Bea accused Jimmy of stealing floats through my head. My eyes are riveted to Janet.

  “Do the pixies know who paid Donny?” I ask.

  Janet nods ever so slightly.

  My mouth is so dry, I can hardly speak. “Was it your dad?” my voice croaks. “Did he steal the fifty dollars from the store to pay Donny?”

  “He didn’t steal! It’s our money. He just forgot to tell my mom.” Janet’s pixie horses stop galloping. She shoves them helter-skelter back in the pixie house shoe box.

  “The pixies said that, not me,” she informs the floor. Her shoulders are low like the pixie house weighs a ton as she carries it out the door.


  I can hardly breathe. I couldn’t have heard what I thought I heard. I head straight for my parents’ room. “Dad, I have to talk to you now.”

  My father’s eyes are closed, his head sunk into the pillow. “What?” He blinks his hazy eyes.

  “You got to hear this.”

  He pulls himself up to a sitting position.

  His frown deepens as I tell him what Janet said. He tips his head to the side and pulls his lips in away from my words. “I can’t believe that,” he says.

  “It makes sense, though.”

  “A lot of things make sense that aren’t true,” he says. “Let’s not jump to conclusions. All we know for sure is a seven-year-old child’s imaginary friends have come up with a theory.”

  “Come on, Dad, Janet must have heard her parents talking about this.”

  My father’s eyes are focused out the door. “She’s a fanciful child. That may be all there is to this.”

  “Dad, I think it’s true.”

  “Then Donny’s lawyer will bring it up. He’ll use it to plea- bargain a shorter sentence.”

  “But what about Darby?”

  “If it comes out in court, then Darby will be charged.” My father is reaching for his jacket. He runs a comb through his hair.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I’m gonna talk to Warden Williams about this right now.”

  “You do think it’s true.”

  “I think it warrants further examination.”

  “But Dad, why would Darby pay Donny to set fire to our apartment?”

  My father takes in a sharp breath. “In Darby’s mind, I’m the threat. He feels the cons are here to be punished and my plans to rehabilitate them are crazy at best, dangerous at worst. I would never compromise when it comes to safety, but he doesn’t see it that way.”

  “He figured Natalie would be charged with the fire and we’d be asked to leave?”

  “Maybe he believed he was doing the world a favor. He’s never thought Natalie belonged on the island. Look, let’s take this one step at a time, Moose. We don’t know if any of this is true. Right now, you need to honor your commitment to Janet and keep quiet.”

  “Okay,” I say as I watch him leave.