Free Al Capone Shines My Shoes by Gennifer Choldenko Page B

whole universe to meet Capone and you hog it!” She shoves me again.
    “Okay, okay, I’m sorry, jeez,” I say, but Piper already has her back turned to me. She’s stomping up the hill toward her house.
    I turn to Jimmy for support, but his lips are twisted like he’s trying hard to keep his feelings in. “You’re sorry ?” he asks. “You save my brother and you get to meet Capone and you’re sorry?”
    “I just don’t want Piper mad. When she gets mad, she makes trouble. You know she does.”
    Jimmy snorts. “That’s right. Got to keep everybody happy, right, Moose?”
    “C’mon, Jim.” I search his face trying to figure out why he’s so burned up at me. “You’re still sore about Scout?”
    “I was never sore about Scout,” Jimmy says. “He’s not my friend. Why would I care what he does?”
    “What do you want me to say here, Jimmy?”
    “You just saved my baby brother, you don’t have to say anything,” he sputters, but his eyes won’t engage with mine.
    “Then why are you all steamed up?”
    He looks up at me like he’s searching for something he lost a long time ago. “The guys at my school are just like Scout. You can’t play ball, you’re no one,” he whispers, his voice strained. “You’re the only guy who likes what I like. It’s kind of important, you know?”
    “Okay,” I tell him, “I know.”

11.
    A ROOMFUL OF WIND-UP TOYS
    Friday, August 16, 1935
     
     
     
     
    The next day when I come in from the parade grounds, my mom pounces on me. “Hi, sweetheart,” she says. I take a step back.
    She waits for me to look inside the icebox, check the breadbox, open the cake plate, and mop up the stray crumbs.
    “Last piece is yours,” she offers.
    I’m wolfing it down on the way to my room when she starts in. “You know I’ve been meaning to talk to you about something. Natalie would really appreciate a visit. She’s been asking about you.”
    “She’s coming home next month, right?”
    “Look.” She puts her hands up, her nostrils flare. “I know you have a lot going on, what with your baseball and your friends here on the island.”
    “And she doesn’t have anything,” I mumble.
    “I didn’t say that, Moose.”
    “You don’t have to,” I tell her.
    My dad comes out of his room. He takes one look at us and seems to recognize trouble is brewing. “Did I miss something here?”
    My mom and I look at him.
    “When are you going to visit your sister?” he asks, guessing what we are discussing and automatically taking my mom’s side. He pours himself a glass of lemonade. “She misses you, Moose.”
    “It hasn’t been that long.” I already feel cornered.
    “No, it hasn’t,” my father agrees. “But we would like you to visit.”
    How do I tell my parents I don’t like to go to Nat’s schools? The teachers talk to guys my age like they’re toddlers. And the kids never stop moving and swaying like a room full of wind-up toys each with its own weird rotation.
    It could be me in there. Locked up that way.
    I got lucky. Natalie didn’t.
    But it’s more than that. I risked everything for the Esther P. Marinoff School. It has to be perfect. I can’t stand it if it’s not.
    If only I could tell them what I’ve done for Natalie. If only they knew. Then they’d be sorry for making me feel like a heel just because I don’t want to visit this one stupid time.
    Since Nat’s been gone, my mom goes up to the Officers’ Club and plays the piano every night. She spends the time she isn’t teaching playing music or cards with Mrs. Mattaman and Bea Trixle and Mrs. Caconi. My mom never even knew how to play bridge, and now she talks my father’s ear off about it. And me? I come and go as I please. I never have to think about anyone but myself.
    “I’ll go, Mom, okay? You know I will.”
    “I appreciate that. Your dad and I both do. More than you know. And Natalie . . . ”
    “Cut it out, Mom,” I say more firmly than I planned. “I said I’d go,