Lockdown by Walter Dean Myers Read Free Book Online Page A

it,” Mom went on. “If you don’t put your mind to it, then naturally you won’t learn anything. I don’t want you coming home and just hanging out….”
    She was starting to drone on, talking about the value of education like she was inventing it or something. She came up to visit and she was sounding like a recording or a television commercial. I knew she didn’t care about what she was saying, either.
    I checked out Icy and she was looking around, scoping what the inside of a jail was like. Jail wasn’t the visitors’ room and I knew Icy was getting the wrong impression, but I didn’t want to say nothing.
    “…they have programs at the Family Resource Center down on Worth Street to help keep the family together when you get out.” Mom was still talking. “You know anything about them?”
    “Not really,” I said. “They down there and I’m up here.”
    “I left some papers for you to look at in the office,” she said. “They aren’t that hard to read.”
    “Yeah, okay.”
    Her skin was dull and her eyes were a little watery. I wondered if she was using again.
    “So if you run for president, what’s going to beyour slogan?” I asked Icy.
    “Okay, I got the whole thing figured out,” Icy said. “I’m going to tell everybody that they can get free food. In school we learned that the average family of four can be fed for seven thousand dollars per year, okay?”
    “Go on.”
    “I need you to write a letter for me,” Mom said.
    “Let me finish telling him this, Mama,” Icy said.
    “We can’t stay all day, girl!” Mom snapped at Icy.
    “You just got here,” I said.
    “I’m starting a new job tonight,” she said. “I’m going to be working as a waitress at Sylvia’s.”
    Lie.
    “What kind of letter?” I asked.
    “Reese, I’m really worried about your brother,” she said. She put her hand on mine. “I think he’s running the streets too much. He’s either going to get himself killed or end up in jail.”
    “He knows what he’s doing,” I said.
    “I don’t think so,” Mom said. “In a way I think he’s looking up to you instead of the other way around. You’re in jail now, so he thinks it’s cool or something. I’m trying to get him to go into the army and do something with his life. Learn a trade or even makea career of it. You know what I mean?”
    “Plus he’ll get an enlistment bonus. The man told us,” Icy said.
    “And he can use that for his college education when he gets out.” Mom shot Icy a glance.
    “So you can feed a family for seven thousand dollars….” I looked back at Icy.
    “Are you hearing me?” This from Mom.
    “Yeah.”
    “So I want you to write Willis a letter telling him that you think it’s a good idea for him to go into the army before he gets into trouble,” Mom said.
    “Yeah.”
    “No yeah,” she said. “Do it! I don’t want to see both of you in jail.”
    “Okay, I’ll do it,” I said.
    “Where’s the bathroom?”
    Icy pointed it out to her, and she got up and walked away.
    “What you thinking?” Icy asked me when Mom was going into the bathroom.
    “Tell me about your campaign for president,” I said.
    “You didn’t tell me what you were thinking,” Icy said.
    “That’s ’cause you’re too ugly,” I said, tapping her on the wrist.
    “Anyway…so there are a hundred and ten million families in the country. So to give them free food every year will cost us seven hundred seventy billion dollars. That sounds like a lot but it’s really not that much. If you’re in a war, you can spend that much in three years. So my campaign is that you give everybody free food for four years—”
    “While you’re the president?”
    “Yeah.”
    I loved my sister’s smile.
    “And then what?”
    “Then they would be fed for four years, we couldn’t afford to pay for a war, and people could turn their attention to doing stuff for themselves and be happy.”
    “Okay, you got my vote,” I said.
    “Can you still vote if