Free Alabama Moon by Watt Key Page B

trailer two with Mrs. Crutcher. Understand?”
    â€œYessir.”
    â€œVery well,” he said. “We’ll see you in the morning.”
    I stood up and grabbed my books.
    â€œYou know how to get to the rec room?”
    I shook my head.
    â€œAfter you put your books in your locker, go back out to the hall and take a left. It’s the last room at the end of the hall. You’ll see everybody in there.”
    â€œYessir,” I said.
    â€œWho taught you to say ‘yessir’?”
    â€œPap did. Taught me everything.”
    â€œThat’s good,” Mr. Gene said. “Keep it up.”
    Mr. Carter was waiting outside the office. He walked back with me far enough to unlock the steel door and let me through. “Don’t you cause any trouble back there,” he said.
    â€œI won’t.”
    On the way to the bunk room I noticed that all of the windows had wire inside the glass. Every door that led out of the building had alarm signs on it. Unless there was some way toget out of the play yard, I understood why no one had ever escaped from Pinson.
    I heard the sound of the other boys down in the rec room, but I felt so bad that I decided to go to my bed and lie down. When I walked into the bunk room, I heard someone tapping on the window. I turned sideways and saw Hal pointing at me. “You’re dead,” I heard him say. I looked away and continued to my bunk. I put my books in locker eighteen and saw a new blue jacket hanging in there. I ran my finger over it and thought about how much I missed the deerskin one that Pap made me. “Gonna get my stuff back, Pap,” I mumbled. I shut the locker and climbed up to my bed and slept.
    My stomach had started to feel a little better by the time the rest of the boys came back. Kit saw me on my bed and came over. “Why didn’t you come to the rec room?”
    â€œStomach hurt,” I said.
    â€œYou ate too much.”
    I didn’t answer.
    â€œHal came and talked to us through the window,” Kit said. “He said he’s gonna tear into you as soon as he gets a chance.”
    â€œI’m not scared of him.”
    â€œYou oughta be. He’s the toughest one in here. He’s almost fourteen. They’re gonna send him to Hellenweiler in a couple of weeks. One time, he hit a guy in the gut so hard he threw up.”
    â€œPap says I can whip anybody three times my size.”
    â€œThat’s a good thing.”
    â€œI know. I’ve been learnin’ that.”
    Some other boys walked over and stood behind Kit. They all watched me. One tall boy with red hair and freckles said my name.
    â€œWhat?” I said.
    â€œWhat’s it like to be famous?”
    â€œI don’t know.”
    â€œThey’ve got you all over the TV. We watched it in the rec room. They said you beat up a constable.”
    â€œI didn’t beat him up good enough. He still got me. Threw my wheelbarrow in the swamp. Threw my hat in the road. Took my rifle and all my livin’ stuff.”
    â€œDo you really live in a cave?” another boy asked me.
    â€œNo, it’s a shelter that’s built low to the ground.”
    â€œWhat did you eat out there?”
    â€œCoons and deer and stuff we grew. Things that came out of the forest.”
    â€œDid you have to go to school?”
    I shook my head. “Pap got me some books. I learned with him.”
    â€œCan you read?”
    â€œYeah.”
    â€œWrite?”
    â€œYeah. Morse code, too.”
    â€œThey gonna take you to jail, or you stayin’ here?”
    â€œI’m gonna bust out as soon as I find a way.”
    â€œYou can’t bust out of here,” Kit said.
    â€œI can get out of most anything. Pap used to trap me like I was a coon and snare me twenty feet up in a magnolia tree. I’d be up the rope and down the tree before he could go touch the shelter and get back.”
    â€œMust have been fun living out