Al Capone Does My Shirts Read online

  Table of Contents

  Title Page

  Acknowledgements

  Copyright Page

  Dedication

  Part One

  1. Devil’s Island

  2. Errand Boy

  3. Trick Monkey

  4. American Laugh-Nosed Beet

  5. Murderers Darn My Socks

  6. Sucker

  7. Big for Seventh Grade

  8. Prison Guy Plays Ball

  9. Nice Little Church Boy

  10. Not Ready

  11. The Best in the Country

  12. What about the Electric Chair?

  13. One-woman Commando Unit

  14. Al Capone’s Baseball

  15. Looking for Scarface

  16. Capone Washed Your Shirts

  17. Baseball on Tuesday

  18. Not on My Team

  19. Daddy’s Little Miss

  20. Warning

  Part Two

  21. It Never Rains on Monday

  22. Al Capone’s Mama

  23. She’s Not Cute

  24. Like a Regular Sister

  25. My Gap

  26. Convict Baseball

  27. Idiot

  28. Tall for Her Age

  29. Convict Choir Boy

  30. Eye

  31. My Dad

  32. The Button Box

  Part Three

  33. The Sun and the Moon

  34. Happy Birthday

  35. The Truth

  36. Waiting

  37. Carrie Kelly

  38. What Happened?

  39. The Warden

  40. Al Capone Does My Shirts

  Author’s Note

  Notes

  Welcome to The Rock

  Today I moved to a twelve-acre rock covered with cement, topped with bird turd and surrounded by water.

  I’m not the only kid who lives here. There’s my sister, Natalie, except she doesn’t count. And there are twenty-three other kids who live on the island because their dads work as guards or cooks or doctors or electricians for the prison, like my dad does. Plus, there are a ton of murderers, rapists, hit men, con men, stickup men, embezzlers, connivers, burglars, kidnappers and maybe even an innocent man or two, though I doubt it.

  The convicts we have are the kind other prisons don’t want. I never knew prisons could be picky, but I guess they can. You get to Alcatraz by being the worst of the worst. Unless you’re me. I came here because my mother said I had to.

  OTHER BOOKS YOU MAY ENJOY

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  All errors are mine and mine alone, but I would like to thank the

  many people who helped me with this book.

  Lori Brosnan and the GGNRA Rangers on Alcatraz Island,

  Eugene Grant and Myra and George Brown, Nicole Kasprzak,

  Charles Kasprzak, the Autism Research Institute, Elizabeth Harding,

  Jacob Brown and Barb Kerley, the Mill Valley and San Francisco crit groups

  and the books by Jolene Babyak and Roy F. Chandler.

  And most especially thanks to the truly amazing Kathy Dawson.

  If I were Charlotte, I would weave “Some editor” in the corner of her office.

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland

  (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110 017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), Cnr Airborne and Rosedale Roads, Albany, Auckland 1310, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank,

  Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in the United States of America by G. P. Putnam’s Sons,

  a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2004

  Published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2006

  Copyright © Gennifer Choldenko, 2004

  All rights reserved

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Choldenko, Gennifer, 1957-

  Al Capone does my shirts / Gennifer Choldenko. p. cm.

  Summary: A twelve-year-old boy named Moose moves to Alcatraz Island in 1935

  when guards’ families were housed there, and has to contend with his

  extraordinary new environment in addition to life with his autistic sister.

  [1. United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz Island, California—Fiction.

  2. Alcatraz Island (Calif.)—History—Fiction. 3. Autism—Fiction.

  4. Family problems—Fiction. 5. Brothers and sisters—Fiction.]

  I. Title. PZ7.C446265 Al 2004 [Fic]—dc21 2002031766

  eISBN : 978-0-142-40370-9

  http://us.penguingroup.com

  To my sister,

  Gina Johnson,

  and to all of us who loved her—

  however imperfectly.

  Part One

  1. Devil’s Island

  Friday, January 4, 1935

  Today I moved to a twelve-acre rock covered with cement, topped with bird turd and surrounded by water. Alcatraz sits smack in the middle of the bay—so close to the city of San Francisco, I can hear them call the score on a baseball game on Marina Green. Okay, not that close. But still.

  I’m not the only kid who lives here. There’s my sister, Natalie, except she doesn’t count. And there are twenty-three other kids who live on the island because their dads work as guards or cooks or doctors or electricians for the prison like my dad does. Plus there are a ton of murderers, rapists, hit men, con men, stickup men, embezzlers, connivers, burglars, kidnappers and maybe even an innocent man or two, though I doubt it.

  The convicts we have are the kind other prisons don’t want. I never knew prisons could be picky, but I guess they can. You get to Alcatraz by being the worst of the worst. Unless you’re me. I came here because my mother said I had to.

  I want to be here like I want poison oak on my private parts. But apparently nobody cares, because now I’m Moose Flanagan, Alcatraz Island Boy—all so my sister can go to the Esther P. Marinoff School, where kids have macaroni salad in their hair and wear their clothes inside out and there isn’t a chalkboard or a book in sight. Not that I’ve ever been to the Esther P. Marinoff. But all of Natalie’s schools are like this.

  I peek out the front window of our new apartment and look up to see a little glass room lit bright in the dark night. This is the dock guard tower, a popcorn stand on stilts where somebody’s dad sits with enough firepower to blow us all to smithereens. The only guns on the island are up high in the towers or the catwalks, because one flick of the wrist and a gun carried by a guard is a gun carried by a criminal. The keys to all the boats are kept up there for the same reason. They even have a crapper in each tower so the guards don’t have to come down to take a leak.

  Besides the guard tower, there’s water all around, black and shiny like tar. A full moon cuts a white path across the bay while the wind blows, making something creak and a buoy clang in the distance.

>   My dad is out there too. He has guard duty in another tower somewhere on the island. My dad’s an electrician, for Pete’s sake. What’s he doing playing prison guard?

  My mom is in her room unpacking and Natalie’s sitting on the kitchen floor, running her hands through her button box. She knows more about those buttons than it seems possible to know. If I hide one behind my back, she can take one look at her box and name the exact button I have.

  “Nat, you okay?” I sit down on the floor next to her.

  “Moose and Natalie go on a train. Moose and Natalie eat meat loaf sandwich. Moose and Natalie look out the window.”

  “Yeah, we did all that. And now we’re here with some swell fellows like Al Capone and Machine Gun Kelly.”

  “Natalie Flanagan’s whole family.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t exactly say they’re family. More like next-door neighbors, I guess.”

  “Moose and Natalie go to school,” she says.

  “Yep, but not the same school, remember? You’re going to this nice place called the Esther P. Marinoff.” I try to sound sincere.

  “Nice place,” she repeats, stacking one button on top of another.

  I’ve never been good at fooling Natalie. She knows me too well. When I was five, I was kind of a runt. Smallest kid of all my cousins, shortest kid in my kindergarten class and on my block too. Back then people called me by my real name, Matthew. Natalie was the first person to call me “Moose.” I swear I started growing to fit the name that very day. Now I’m five foot eleven and a half inches—as tall as my mom and a good two inches taller than my dad. My father tells people I’ve grown so much, he’s going to put my supper into pickle jars and sell it under the name Incredible Growth Formula.

  I think about going in my room now, but it smells like the inside of an old lunch bag in there. My bed’s a squeaky old army cot. When I sit down, it sounds like dozens of mice are dying an ugly death. There’s no phonograph in this apartment. No washing machine. No phone. There’s a radio cabinet, but someone yanked the workings out. Who gutted the radio, anyway? They don’t let the criminals in here . . . do they?

  So, I’m a little jumpy. But anybody would be. Even the silence here is strange. It’s quiet like something you can’t hear is happening.

  I think about telling my best friend, Pete, about this place. “It’s the Devil’s Island . . . doo, doo, doo.” Pete would say in a deep spooky voice like they do on the radio. “Devil’s Island . . . doo, doo, doo,” I whisper just like Pete. But without him it doesn’t seem funny. Not funny at all.

  Okay, that’s it. I’m sleeping with my clothes on. Who wants to face a convicted felon in your pajamas?

  2. Errand Boy

  Saturday, January 5, 1935

  When I wake up, I feel kinda foolish, having slept with my shoes on and my baseball bat under the covers with me. My mom’s banging around in the tiny hall outside my room. I stick the bat under my bed.

  “Where’s Dad?” I ask.

  “Right here,” my dad answers from the living room. He’s sitting on the floor with Natalie, holding a pile of buttons in each hand.

  “Dad! Could you show me the cell house, and then maybe could we play ball?” I sound like I’m six and a half now, but I can’t help it. He’s been gone forever and I hardly got to see him at all yesterday. It’s lonely in my family when he’s not around.

  His smile seems to lose its pink. He puts Natalie’s buttons down in two careful piles, gets up and brushes his uniform off.

  I follow him into the kitchen. “You’re not working today, are you?”

  “I’m having a devil of a time setting up extra circuits in the laundry.”

  “Yeah, but you worked last night.”

  My mom squeezes by to run her hands under the tap. “Your father has two jobs here, Moose. Electrician and guard.”

  “Two,” Natalie calls from the living room. “Two jobs. Two.”

  Doesn’t anyone in this family believe in private conversations?

  “I could help you . . . ,” I offer.

  He shakes his head. “You’re not allowed in there. Convict areas are off limits to you kids,” he says.

  “I’m not a kid. I’m taller than you are.”

  “Go ahead, rub it in.” He laughs. “But at least I don’t have those big feet either. They’re an affliction, those feet.” He grabs my head and knocks on it.

  “I haven’t seen you for three whole months,” I say.

  “Two months, twenty-two days, twenty-two days,” Natalie calls out.

  “That’s right, sweet pea. You tell him!” my father calls back.

  “I’ll bet you took Natalie out this morning, didn’t you?” The question comes shooting out before I can stop it.

  “Oh, for goodness’ sake, Moose.” My mother looks up from where she’s jammed in the corner, scrubbing the icebox. “You weren’t even up.”

  “That isn’t fair,” I say, though I know better.

  “Don’t talk to me about fair, young man. Don’t get me started on that one.” My mother glares at me.

  “I’m sorry, Moose,” my father says. He reaches for his officer’s hat and settles it on his head. “There’s nothing I’d like better than to spend the day with you. You know that.” His eyes look at me, then quick away.

  “Wait, wait, wait . . . you’re leaving now?” I ask.

  He groans. “Afraid so. But there will be plenty of time to spend together. I promise, buddy, okay?” He smiles, kisses my mom and Nat good-bye and heads for the door.

  I watch him walk by the front window, his head bobbing like his foot hurts.

  My mom glances at her watch. “My goodness, is it that time already? Moose, I need you to watch Natalie while I take the boat to the city. I have to get groceries and arrange an ice delivery,” my mother says.

  “Ice?” I ask.

  “We can’t afford an electric refrigerator. We got to keep this one.” She taps the old icebox.

  “They have a grocery downstairs, though, right?”

  “Doesn’t have much. Try to do some unpacking while I’m gone. Eleven, twelve and thirteen are all your stuff.” My mother points to the crates, each numbered by Natalie. She takes off her apron and puts on her coat, her gloves and her hat.

  “You’re leaving now too?” I ask.

  “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Take good care of her, okay?” My mom grabs my arm and squeezes it.

  I know she’s thinking about what happened on the train yesterday. I had gone to take a leak, and when I came back, Nat was kicking and screaming. She pulled a curtain off the rod and sent her button box flying down the aisle. My mom had her arms around Nat, trying to keep her from hurting anyone. The conductor and the motorman were yelling. People were staring. One lady was taking pictures.

  My mom finally got her calmed down by sitting on her right in the middle of the train aisle. I don’t know which was more embarrassing, Natalie’s behavior or my mother’s.

  Sometimes Nat’s tantrums go on and on for days and nothing makes them stop. It’s impossible to know what will set her off. She looks pretty peaceful now, though.

  “Sure, Mom.” I follow her to the door. “I didn’t really mean what I said about it not being fair that Natalie got to go out with Dad this morning. I didn’t. You know I didn’t. . . . Mom?”

  She sighs. “All right, Moose. Just keep your eye on Natalie, okay?”

  I watch her leave. A haze rises from the bay like a wall of gray closing me off from everything.

  In the kitchen, I find a casserole dish I don’t recognize. Thought you might enjoy some manicotti. Looking forward to meeting you.—Bea Trixle, the card says.

  The manicotti tastes like big fat spaghetti with pizza inside. I’m going for fourths or maybe it’s fifths when I hear the knock.

  “Don’t answer it,” I yell to Natalie as I wade through the boxes to the front door. The last thing I want is to meet new kids when Natalie’s around. New people don’t understand about her. They just d
on’t.

  “Open up!” a girl cries. It’s a little kid—a short person, anyway. That’s all I can make out through the window.

  “No!” I call back. But too late. Natalie is already there. She has both hands on the knob and all her weight rocked back on her heels, trying to get the door open.

  “Don’t open it!” I shove my weight against the door.

  “Come on, you know you’re gonna!” the girl outside says.

  Oh, great. I have little Eleanor Roosevelt on one side of the door and Natalie-the-screamer on the other. What they say about females being the weaker sex is the biggest lie in the world.

  It doesn’t matter that I weigh more than both of them put together. I know when I’m beat. I let Natalie open the door.

  The girl outside has black curly hair that’s flat on one side, as if she slept on it. She’s missing half of her teeth. The ones she has seem either too large or too small for her mouth.

  “How old are you?” she demands.

  “Twelve.”

  “No, you’re not!” she says, walking right in without bothering to ask.

  “Why would I lie about how old I am?”

  She bites her lip, like she’s thinking about this. “You got a big neck.”

  “You’re supposed to get a long nose if you lie, not a big neck.”

  “No.” She shakes her head as if she’s absolutely certain I’m wrong.

  “And you’re what . . . seven?”

  “Seven and one quarter. Hello, Natalie.” The girl smiles her big tooth, little tooth, gap tooth smile. “Your dad told me all about her,” she whispers.

  We both look at Natalie. Her hair is like mine—brown and blonde all mixed up like birdseed. Different eyes, though. Mine are brown. Hers are green like the marbles nobody likes to trade away. But the way she holds her mouth too open and her shoulders uneven and one hand clamps down the other . . . people know. They always know.