“How old is she?” the girl whispers.
“Ten,” I answer. Natalie’s age is always ten. Every year my mom has a party for her and she turns ten again. My mom started counting Nat’s age this screwy way a long time ago. It was just easier to have her younger than me. Then my mother could be happy for each new thing I did, without it being another thing Natalie couldn’t do.
“What’s your name, anyway?” I ask.
“Theresa Mattaman. I’m supposed to show you around. You haven’t seen anything yet, have you?”
“We just got here last night.”
“Natalie, come on! We’re going now! Run get her coat!” Theresa orders.
I’m big as a linebacker, and a seven-year-old girl treats me like her errand boy. Does she smell weakness on me?
Still, I want to get a look at this weird little island. And what do I care what a bunch of criminals think, anyway? I scribble a note to my mom to tell her we’ve gone out and prop the paper between the ketchup and the cod-liver oil.
“Come on, Nat. It’s not everybody who gets to live down the street from thieves and murderers, you know.”
3. Trick Monkey
Same day—Saturday, January 5, 1935
The first thing I see when I walk out the door is the guard tower. I wonder what you’re supposed to do here. Should I wave?
Theresa pays no attention. The tower might as well be a tree for all she cares.
She leads us to the stairwell. Natalie’s walking behind us with her head down, dragging her left foot on the edge of every step as if she’s marking it with her toe. I want to take her hand to make sure she keeps up, but nobody touches Natalie.
“First, we’re going to the morgue,” Theresa announces with a little skip.
Sure. I’ve been to hundreds of morgues. Thousands of them, in fact. “Dead criminals . . . don’t I get to meet any live ones?” I ask.
“We’re not really supposed to talk to the alive ones, but looking for dead guys is my job. Piper said.”
“Dead-criminal checker. Sounds like an important position to me. And who is Piper, anyway?” I ask.
“Piper? She’s Warden Williams’s daughter. She’s bossy.”
Just what I need, another bossy girl.
“Oh, no, I almost forgot.” Theresa claps her hands, then digs in her pocket for a card folded in fours. “I made this for you. Annie did the words. I made the map all by myself !”
“And who is Annie?”
“Annie’s Annie. She’s twelve. She helps me with stuff.”
“Are there any boys on this island?”
“Jimmy and”—she counts on her fingers—“eleven little boys who are five, four, three, one and zero.”
“Zero?”
“Not one year yet. Do you want to know their names?”
I shake my head, but too late. Theresa is already rattling off the name of every little boy here.
“Thanks, Theresa.” I cram the card in my pocket.
“Hey,” she hollers in my face, “you didn’t read it!” She holds out her hand and wiggles her fingers. “Give.”
I hand the card back and Theresa reads it to me.
Alphonse Capone AKA: Scarface,
Big Al, Snorkey.
Born in: New York, January 17, 1899.
Family: Wife named Mae. Son named Sonny.
Theresa reads really well for a little kid, except it doesn’t seem like she can walk and read at the same time. Now we’re at a complete standstill on the steep road that leads to the top of the island. “Couldn’t we do this after the morgue?” I ask.
She ignores me. Clearly there’s no stopping her until she’s read every last word.
Business: Bootlegging gangster mob boss.
Favorite Colors: Canary yellow and Pea green.
Favorite jewelry: $50,000 diamond pinkie ring.
Favorite weapon: Thompson machine gun.
Favorite Crime: Dinner Party of death! Invites lieutenants in his organization Known to have double-Crossed him to a Party. After dessert, Al’s men lock the doors and Capone beats the traitors to death with a baseball bat.
A baseball bat?
Favorite word for murder: “Rub-out”—often in
front of many witnesses who then develop
“gangster amnesia.”
Sent to jail for: Tax evasion.
Other stuff: Rigged elections. Opened first soup
Kitchen in Chicago. Likes silk underwear.
What is this guy . . . nuts?
Current home: Alcatraz Island.
“And that’s not all we have here either,” Theresa says when I look up. “There’s Machine Gun Kelly, who happens to be a world-famous kidnapper, and Roy Gardner, who has escaped 110 times, but not from Alcatraz—not yet, anyway. Oh, we have everyone who is bad. Except Bonnie and Clyde on account of their being dead,” she says.
A truck horn beeps and we move off the road. A guard in a dark gray uniform like my dad’s is behind the wheel. He brings the truck to a squeaky halt and cranks down the window.
I glance back at Natalie, who has been so quiet, I almost forgot she was there. She’s looking at the ground as if she lost something. Her arms are down at her sides, not up high like a chipmunk’s the way they usually are.
“They Cam Flanagan’s kids?” the guard asks Theresa.
Theresa nods. “Yes, sir, Mr. Trixle,” she says.
“Where you headed?”
“Piper’s house, sir.”
Mr. Trixle nods. “Make a beeline there, Theresa. You know the rules.”
“Yes, sir.”
The guard’s eyes scan me and Nat. If he gets there’s anything different about her, he doesn’t let on. The brakes squeal as the truck inches down the steep road.
Now, the cell house is looming over us like the world’s biggest school for bad boys—the kind of place where guys go in and never come out. I wish Pete were here. Pete would love this.
Theresa chatters on about why she thinks Capone will really like her when she meets him, which clearly she hasn’t done, yet. The road cuts back away from the water tower. We follow it a short way up to a little cottage. It looks cute, almost like a playhouse. The sign above the glass door reads MORGUE.
Inside, there’s a bucket on the floor and a metal box. What do they do in morgues, anyway? Are they like bread boxes for dead bodies? Or do they label stuff in special compartments . . . baskets for fingers? Drawers for toes?
“So, this is it,”Theresa says. “Only they keep it locked.” She pulls on the door handle to show me.
“Yeah, I see. Maybe we should, uh, move on. Didn’t you tell the guard guy we were going to Piper’s house?” I don’t like getting in trouble. I was born responsible. It’s a curse.
Then another girl’s crusty voice comes out from the shadows behind the morgue. “What’s the matter with your sister?”
My chest gets tight. The blood rushes to my head.
The girl comes around the side of the building, flipping a flat yellow hat on her finger like a pizza. My face turns red just seeing her. She’s a looker. If Pete were here, he’d whistle.
“She retarded?” the girl asks.
“None of your business,” I tell her.
The girl has freckles and full lips like a movie star. She winds her long dark hair around her finger and looks at me through half-shut eyelids. Something about the way she does this makes me glance down to make sure my fly is buttoned. When I look up again, she’s staring at Natalie.
“Stop looking at her like that!” I say.
“That’s Piper. Remember? I told you about her!” Theresa says.
“So, not retarded. Stupid, then?” Piper asks.
“Look, could we drop this already?”
“I’m just asking a simple question,” Piper says.
“Not in front of Natalie,” I whisper.
She shrugs and walks behind the morgue. Theresa and I follow. Nat stays put.
“How would you like it if I asked, are
you stupid?”
“I would just say no.” Piper flips her hair behind her shoulder.
“No, she’s not stupid,” I say.
“Prove it.”
“Uhhh.” I clench my fists. I’d really like to give this Piper girl a pounding.
“See, I knew she was retarded,” Piper tells Theresa.
“Will you kindly just shut up!” I roar louder than I intend.
They both stare at me.
“Follow me.” I walk back around to the front of the morgue.
“When’s your birthday, Piper?” I ask.
“November sixteenth.”
“1922?”
“Yep.”
“Natalie, what day of the week was Piper born?”
“Thursday,” Nat says without looking up.
“That right?” I ask Piper.
Piper doesn’t answer, but her eyes open wider. She chews at her bottom lip. “What else can she do?” she asks.
“She’s not a trick monkey.”
“She’d never make it as a trick monkey. She only has one trick,” Piper says.
“487 times 6,421 is 3,127,027,” Nat says.
Everything is quiet except the sound of gulls squawking overhead and wind rattling a window somewhere. Natalie inspects the ground. It’s almost as if she hasn’t said anything.
“How much is 28 times 478?” Piper asks.
“13,384,” Nat answers.
“Okay, so she’s good in math. But something is wrong with her,” Piper says.
“WHAT IS YOUR PROBLEM?” I shout.
Theresa motions for us to step away from Natalie.
“Natalie lives in her own world. That’s what Mr. Flanagan said,” Theresa whispers. She takes a jar of jam from her pocket, unscrews the lid and offers us some. We shake our heads no and she dips an already purple-stained finger inside. “Sometimes it’s a good world and sometimes it’s a bad world. And sometimes she can get out and sometimes she can’t.”
Piper snorts. “Sounds to me like she’s just plain crazy,” she says in a low voice. “My dad isn’t going to like this. He’s not going to like it one bit. He always says the cons in the bug cage are the scariest ones, because you never know what they’ll do.”
I get a sinking feeling in my gut. There were 237 electricians who applied for the job my dad got. If it were me, I’d have kept my mouth shut about having a daughter like Natalie. What if the warden doesn’t know about her?
“She’s leaving in a week or two. Going to boarding school.
She won’t be around here at all. You probably won’t ever see her again,” I say quickly.
Piper raises her eyebrows. “I’m expected to tell him stuff like this. He depends on me to find out things.” She places her flat hat on her head and begins hiking up the steep road toward the cell house.
“Wait! Can we come? Can we?” Theresa calls after her.
“Good idea,” Piper calls over her shoulder. “Then my father can meet Natalie himself. ”
My stomach sinks. How am I supposed to know if Nat’s a big secret or not? Nobody tells me anything.
“Natalie,” Piper calls out sweetly, “would you like to meet the warden?”
Nat says nothing.
“Hey! Come on!” Theresa motions with her whole arm. “Piper said it was okay!”
“I’m going back, Theresa. My mom will be home soon.”
“Oh, no!” Theresa cries. “You haven’t seen anything yet!”
I shake my head. “Maybe tomorrow.”
Theresa stamps her foot.
I can’t help smiling at this. “I’m sorry, Theresa.”
“Ohhhhkay. We’ll finish tomorrow,” Theresa says in a small voice.
“We gotta go back,” I tell Natalie. She doesn’t look up, doesn’t seem to hear.
“This way.” I motion for her to follow. She ignores me.
Oh, swell. Now Nat’s acting up.
“Come on, Nat.” I try walking down the hill, hoping she’ll follow.
She doesn’t.
I walk back up to the morgue and sit down on the cement slab by a little dab of something red. Blood? Or is it Theresa’s jam?
I figure I’ll just wait Nat out when I hear footsteps on the road. “Natalie, come on,” I plead.
“Moose!” My mom’s voice. She’s half running in her high heels. “What in heaven’s name are you doing out here?” My mom stops, her chest heaving from the climb. She looks at me, then Nat, then me again. “What happened?” she asks.
“It’s okay, Mom. Nat’s fine.”
“I didn’t know where you were.” Her voice goes up and down like hiccups. She grips her arms like if she doesn’t they won’t stay on. “It scared me when you were gone like that.”
“I left a note.”
She nods. I don’t know if this is because she saw my note or because she didn’t.
I touch her elbow and try to sound like Dad. “Everything is going to be all right.”
My mother nods short and fast. She pushes at the corner of first one eye, then the other, and keeps nodding. Nodding and nodding and nodding.
4. American Laugh-Nosed Beet
Sunday, January 6, 1935
The next morning when I get up, I’m happy to find my father at the table, reading the paper.
I can feel how pleased he is to see me. This isn’t something you can fake. “Hey,” he says.
My mother is checking my sister’s suitcase. I can’t believe she’s going today. I thought it was a week away at least.
Nat has the kitchen chair pulled into the living room, wedged between three crates. “Hey, Natalie, the sun get up okay this morning?” I ask like I do every morning.
She never answers, which used to really bug me. I hate being the brother of a stone. One day last year, I got so mad, I just walked right by her, didn’t say anything. Not one word.
That day, after I left for school, my mom said Natalie sat outside my room and cried for two straight hours. Natalie isn’t a crier, she’s a screamer. You never see her cry for plain old hurt. I’d say my mom made it all up, but she didn’t know I’d snubbed Natalie. My mom had no idea why Natalie had cried.
Now I ask Natalie about the sun every morning and it only bothers me a little when she doesn’t answer.
“So, what would you like for breakfast on this very special day?” my mother asks her.
“Lemon cake,” Natalie says. She says this every day too. And every day, my mom says, “Silly sweet pea, you can’t have lemon cake for breakfast.”
“Why not? On a special day like today, lemon cake sounds like a fine idea. What d’ya think, Moose?” my mom asks.
“Sure,” I say. My voice comes out high like a girl’s. I never know whether I’m going to sound like Mickey Mouse or the giant on top of the beanstalk.
Natalie turns all the way around and looks me straight in the eye in that weird way she has of suddenly being present after weeks of being somewhere else.
“Don’t look at me, this wasn’t my idea. If it were up to me, we’d be in Santa Monica right this very minute,” I say under my breath.
My father reads Natalie headlines from the newspaper, adding numbers to every one. “Work resumes on the Golden Gate Bridge. 103 men are put back to work, two quit, seven scratch their heads, five have their feet up, two eat sausages for supper, three do not . . .”
“Breakfast!” my mother calls.
Natalie holds her face two inches from the plate. She eats so fast, it gives me a stomachache. When my dad’s not around, I don’t eat with her.
“Natalie Flanagan’s whole family,” Nat says when I sit down.
I wonder if she knows what’s happening. We’ve built the Esther P. Marinoff up like it’s quite the place, like maybe the king and queen of England are sending their kids there too. But somehow in all this talking, we ignored the major thing.
You don’t come home from the Esther P. Marinoff. Every morning when the sun comes up, that’s where Natalie will be.
&
nbsp; My father wipes his wide mouth with his napkin. “What fun you’re going to have, Natalie, with kids your own age.”
What age is that, I wonder. But I know what he means. Maybe she’ll meet other kids like her. Maybe they’ll recognize each other and communicate in their own peculiar way.
When my mom has Nat ready to go, my father picks up her suitcase, hands Natalie her button box and opens the door.
“Moose,” my mom says as if she’s just now noticed I’m here. “I don’t think you need to come along.”
“Fine with me. I don’t want to go, anyway.” I don’t look at her, or my dad or Natalie.
“Helen!” My father’s voice has a sting to it.
“I just didn’t think he’d want to, Cam,” my mother says.
“Of course Moose is coming.” He hands Nat’s suitcase to me and pats me on the back. “We can’t do this without him.”
This reminds me of the time when I was six and my mom shipped me off to live at Gram’s. She packed every pair of underwear I owned and she made it all seem like a big treat. When we got there, my gram had an awful scowl on her face. She gave me a big hug and glared at my mother like I’d never seen her do. When my mom left, I heard Gram and Ed talking. “Some cockamamie psychiatrist decides the problem is Natalie doesn’t get enough attention, and Helen ships him off! Our Matthew! I’m happy as a pig in mud to have him here, but it’s a darn fool thing. What child doesn’t have a brother or sister? Half the world has seven or eight. Having a brother didn’t make Natalie the way she is. One look at the two of them together and that big-shot psychiatrist would have known that. He’s the one ought to have his head examined. It’s going to make Nat sicker just having Moose gone.”
Early the next morning my father woke me. “Get your pillow, Moose,” he said, snapping the buckles on my suitcase. “We’re going home.”
We’re walking down to the dock now. Natalie is going extra slow. I worry we’ll miss the boat, but maybe that’s her plan.