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

the way she’s concentrating makes me think she’s paying more attention to us than to her work. “How do you do, Annie,” I say in my most charming voice.
    “Hello, Moose.” She doesn’t look up.
    “You wouldn’t want to play a little ball . . . would you?” I ask.
    Slowly and deliberately she folds down a corner of her book and closes it. She snatches my extra glove and walks out clear to the basketball hoop.
    I run up close. I don’t want to embarrass her. She’s only a girl, after all. I pop her one light and easy.
    She catches it no problem and zips me a hard fastball.
    “Wow!” I jump in the air, and I wave my hands around like some kind of idiot and then, before I can stop myself, I run up to this Annie girl and give her a big hug.
    “No slobbering!” she cries.
    “Sorry,” I say, my face hot as a furnace. But then I see a slight little smile in the corner of her mouth.
    “So, Annie.” I walk up close so we can talk and throw at the same time. “Does anyone else here play?”
    “No one except the cons. They play in the rec yard. Sometimes they hit one over the prison yard wall. The way they play, it’s an automatic out. But when a ball comes over to our side, we get to keep it. They’re pretty popular around here.”
    “If the cons don’t want to hit ’em over, it must not happen that much,” I say, catching Annie’s brand of stinger, which has a little curve on it. Quite a good throw if you ask me.
    “They try to hit them hard, but not hard enough to go over.”
    “Kinda tricky. How many you guys find?” I ask, winding up my own stinger.
    Annie catches it, no problem. “I have one. Piper has one. Jimmy has one. None of the little kids do.”
    We’re tossing the ball back and forth in a hard fast rhythm that feels great. My arm is purring. The ball, my glove, my arm are all working together like greased motor parts. Annie is so good, I don’t hold back.
    “Where is Piper, anyway?” I can’t keep myself from asking.
    “Charm school.”
    “Charm school? That’s a laugh. Is it remedial charm or what?”
    Annie catches the ball and holds it. She walks up close enough to whisper. “You got to get along with Piper. Otherwise she’ll make trouble for you and your dad.”
    “Can she do that?”
    “She can do anything she wants,” she says, handing me back my glove, picking up her book and dusting it off. “I gotta go in.”
    “You going to that party tonight?” I ask.
    “Everybody goes,” Annie explains. She walks heavy, like she weighs two hundred pounds. She’s sturdy, but not fat, and she has the best throwing arm I’ve ever seen on a girl. Pete would never believe it.
    I look around for Theresa and Jimmy, but they’re already inside. I toss the ball up in the air and catch it just as the four o’clock bell rings. On Alcatraz a bell rings every hour to remind the guards to count the cons and make sure no one’s escaped. I’m about to go in when I spot Piper.
    “Well, if it isn’t our very own Babe Ruth.”
    She’s being sarcastic, but to me this is the best compliment in the world. “I like to play. What’s the matter with that?” I say, tossing the ball in the air and catching it bare-handed.
    She looks around the parade grounds, then starts walking back to the road like I’m not the person she’s looking for.
    “Did you see me play after school?” Why am I asking this? I can feel my face heat up.
    She snorts, but doesn’t answer.
    “They teach you how to make those sounds in charm school?” I’m half skipping to keep up with her, that’s how fast she walks.
    “They teach you how to be a nice little church boy in Santa Monica?”
    “Oh, so now I’m a church boy? Talk about playing both sides and down the middle too.”
    “You won’t help with our laundry service because you don’t want to get in trouble. How do you spell Boy Scout?”
    “I just don’t feel like doing it.”
    “Right. I’ll bet you don’t feel like doing anything against the