Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko Read Free Book Online Page A

your dad up at six o’clock. We’re going to the Officers’ Club for a party at 6:30.
    “There’s a beauty parlor here ?” I ask Theresa.
    “Nah, Bea does perms in her kitchen. But there’s a barbershop for the cons in the cell house. Come on!”
    I dump my stuff inside. “What are we late for?” I ask.
    “We’re going to the parade grounds to meet my brother, Jimmy, Annie and Piper.”
    “Wait, wait, wait! This Jimmy guy’s your brother? How come you didn’t tell me you had a brother?”
    Theresa cocks her head and looks at me cross-eyed. “Because.”
    “Because why?”
    “Then you’d play with him instead of me.”
    “He’s my age?”
    She nods.
    “So why are you telling me now?”
    “Now I know you like me.”
    “I do not.”
    “Yes, you do.” She nods, her whole face earnest.
    I can’t help smiling at this. “If we’re meeting your brother, I need my glove.” I race to my room to get my old glove for him, my new glove for me and my baseball.
    “Hah!” Theresa says when I come back. “Jimmy can’t throw worth beans.”
    “We’ll see about that,” I say as we head back around 64 building, then follow the curve of the hill to an open cement area big enough to park thirty cars. There are lots of gulls here. Cranky ones too. Gulls are not happy birds.
    A big girl with yellow hair sits on the wood side of the sand-box and a boy huddles over something. The boy looks like Theresa. Same curly black hair. Same slight build.
    “Hi!” I say. I ignore the girl—Annie, I guess—she has her nose sideways to her homework like she sees better out of one eye than the other.
    “Hey, Moose? I’m Jimmy,” Jimmy says. He smiles quick up at me, then hunches back over an elaborate machine made of rocks, marbles, sticks and rubber bands.
    “What is that?” I ask.
    “It’s a marble-shooting machine. Want to see?”
    “Sure,” I say.
    He fires a marble with a rubber band. It rolls under a plank and onto a miniature diving board that plunks down and hits another marble that is supposed to jump a stick, only it doesn’t.
    “Shucks,” Jimmy says, his head low over his contraption again. He fiddles some more and then fires the marble again. This time it makes the jump. He grins big.
    “Nice. You want to throw some balls?” I offer him my glove.
    “Sure.” He puts the glove on and runs back, his eyes still on his marble machine. He throws the ball the complete wrong direction. I chase it down and toss it back. It hits his glove and plops out. He runs after it and throws again. This time down the side of the hill.
    “I’ll get it.” I cut down the path to the terrace below, where the ball is caught in the prickly thistle of a blackberry bush.
    When I get back up to the parade grounds, Jimmy is at work on his machine and Theresa has my extra glove. “My turn,” she says.
    I throw the ball easy to Theresa. She wraps her arms around it like she’s hugging herself. The ball falls through her arms. She chases it down, then throws with both hands from ground level, sending the ball willy-nilly skyward.
    “I guess baseball isn’t the Mattaman family sport,” I say under my breath.
    Theresa hands me back my glove. “There’s something else I haven’t told you.”
    “Oh, really? And what is that?” I edge away from her so I can play catch with myself.
    “My mom has to keep her feet up. She’s due to have my baby soon.”
    “It isn’t your baby!” Jimmy calls, balancing a stick on two rocks.
    “She has to keep her feet up, otherwise the baby might slip out all of a sudden and bump his head,” Theresa says.
    “Theresa . . .” Jimmy looks up from his project. He groans and rolls his eyes.
    “It depends on how long the American cord is....”Theresa’s little gnome face scrunches up like she’s thinking hard about this. “And how tall the mom is. . . .”
    “Umbilical cord. And shut up about Mom’s privates, Theresa!” Jimmy orders.
    I look for a second at Annie. Something about