Al Capone Does My Homework by Gennifer Choldenko Read Free Book Online Page B

house doing up here?” I ask.
    “Do you know anything about this, Theresa?” Piper wants to know.
    Theresa and Janet are on-again, off-again friends. Theresa shakes her head. “Nope.”
    “Maybe Janet was having a pixie campout with pixie marshmallows cooked over the Flanagans’
     stove,” Piper says.
    “Did she visit yesterday?” Annie asks me.
    “Nope,” I say.
    “She could have left the stove on.” Jimmy clicks his tongue the way he does when he’s
     thinking hard about something. But then I hear footsteps.
    Annie’s head turns. So does mine.
    Piper puts her finger over her mouth as the big-booted footsteps come closer.
    “Who’s in there?” Darby bellows through his bullhorn.
    “Uh-oh,” Theresa whispers as Trixle pounds into the living room.
    “Who gave you permission to go poking around?”
    “I did,” I say.
    “And who gave
you
permission?” Trixle booms.
    “Nobody. It’s my place,” I tell him.
    “Not now it isn’t. It ain’t safe and I want all of you out. The warden’s got a task
     force assigned. They’re the only ones should be in here.”
    “But . . .” Theresa nods toward the pixie house.
    Annie shushes Theresa behind Trixle’s back. Darby catches this from the corner of
     his eye. He turns around. “What’s the matter, Theresa?” he asks.
    Theresa seals her lips and shakes her head.
    “Spit it out,” he barks.
    “Theresa gets upset when grown-ups yell,” Piper covers for her, smooth as butter.
    “Mind your own business, Piper. I’m asking Theresa,” Darby says.
    “What’s a task force?” Theresa wants to know.
    “It’s a team of people assigned to find out something,” Annie whispers.
    “Like us,” Theresa says.
    “Not like you,” Darby growls. “You are making a nuisance of yourselves. That’s all
     you’re doing.”
    Theresa opens her mouth to tell him off, but Annie puts her hand on Theresa’s arm,
     and Theresa snaps her mouth shut with the words safely inside.
    “We’ll be done end of day tomorrow. Then Moose can come get what he needs. But all
     of the rest of you”—he points in an arc over our heads—“have no business in here,
     period.”
    Darby tramps through the ash to the bashed-in front door and waits for us to come
     out.
    Theresa moves her hand in a rapid rotation like Annie should come close. Annie scrunches
     down so her ear is the same height as Theresa’s mouth.
    I don’t hear all of what Theresa says, but it’s something about the pixie house. I
     think she’s asking if she should tell about that. Annie shakes her head.
    I get my pillow and leave my history book—I’ve come to my senses about that. And the
     homework? Forget about it.
    The baseball glove has never left my hand.
    Piper takes the half-burned pixie house and drops it inside my pillowcase with my
     pillow.
Gee, thanks,
I think.
    Annie and Jimmy are already outside. Natalie is agitated. She’s in her room rocking
     from one foot to the other.
    “Nat,” I say, “come on.”
    “No ‘come on,’” she says.
    “Trixle doesn’t like you. We have to get out of here,” I whine.
    Why am I telling her this? She won’t get it, but to my surprise she moves forward,
     out of her room and past Trixle, still guarding the door
    “Trixle doesn’t like you,” she says when she walks by him.
    Trixle stamps his cigarette out with his foot. He acts like he didn’t hear, but I’m
     pretty sure he did.

9. Annie and Me at the Swings
    Monday, January 20, 1936
    “Where should we go? Back down to the secret passageway?” Theresa whispers.
    “Not with Trixle watching. How about our house?” Jimmy suggests. “Mom’s in the city
     getting groceries.”
    “C’mon, Nat. We’re going to my house,” Theresa says.
    “Moose,” Piper calls.
    But I’m already headed the other direction. I don’t feel so great. “I’ll be there
     in a few minutes,” I tell her.
    “Moose, we’re meeting
now,
” Piper commands.
    But I keep walking along the balcony away from