Donny doesn’t answer. His face is blank, like he’s still holding cards in his hand. He untangles his coat from the chair turned over on the floor and opens the door. The moon shines on the entryway for one brief second and then he’s gone.
My father thumps the table to get Darby’s attention. “Don’t you go after him, Darby. You hear me?”
But Darby isn’t going anywhere. He’s looking at Nat, who is crouched in the corner collecting cards from the floor. Darby’s feet are parked in front of her, but her eyes are on the cards in her hand.
I hold my breath, willing her to look up. If only she could meet Trixle’s gaze right now. If only she could make that connection. Please, Nat. You saved him a bundle of money. He wants to like you. Can’t you pretend to be normal just this once? But Nat does not look up . . . and the moment passes.
Darby turns to my father. “How’d she know?” he asks.
“You pay attention, don’t you, sweet pea?” my father says.
Nat is sorting the cards in her hand, oblivious to us.
“Sure don’t look that way,” Trixle addresses my father again. “But she must.”
Nat starts mumbling. “You pay attention, don’t you, sweet pea.”
“What’d she say?” Darby asks.
“She said she pays attention,” I tell him.
He nods, but still can’t bring himself to give her more than a fleeting glance. He continues to direct all of his comments to my dad as if Natalie isn’t here at all.
20. Funny Business
Saturday, February 1, 1936
The next morning, I head for the Mattamans’.
“Moose,” Mrs. Mattaman says my name like I’ve been gone for a year. “Where is that sister of yours? She saved us an entire month’s pay. I’m gonna get busy here and whip up the best lemon cake she’s ever had. That’s still her favorite, isn’t it?”
“Yeah, thanks, Mrs. Mattaman. She saved Darby money too, but he didn’t say boo to her,” I tell Mrs. Mattaman.
“Can’t say that’s a surprise.”
“He’s always either ignored Natalie or had it in for her. If she would just look him in the eyes, it would make all the difference. I don’t understand why she can’t fake it.”
“One of the things I like about Natalie is she doesn’t fake anything, Moose. But I see what you’re saying.” Mrs. Mattaman pulls out a clean apron, slips it over her head, and ties the sash. “What have you tried?”
“Giving her buttons. Taking them away. Nagging her about not doing funny business. Taping math problems to my forehead. You name it, we’ve tried it.”
She looks at me for a long moment, tapping her pencil against her wooden recipe box. “I’ll tell you what, then . . . we got to try something new.”
“We’ve tried it all.”
“We got to figure out what makes her tick, that’s all. Moose, go get Annie, she’s got good ideas. Jimmy, we need that clever mind of yours. Theresa, eat your breakfast. You think better on a full stomach. We’re going to figure this out.” She shakes her pencil at me. “That’s all there is to it.”
When I come back with Annie, Mrs. Mattaman scootches over, making room for me on the sofa.
“You want to fill us in on the problem, Moose?” Mrs. Mattaman asks me. “We’ll take it from there.”
I look around at everyone squeezed together on the Mattamans’ worn brown sofa. Theresa, still in her pajamas, Jimmy, his hair wet from the shower, Annie in her new baseball clothes, Baby Rocky with a plastic bowl on his head.
Mrs. Mattaman finds Rocky’s favorite toy hammer and gets him started pounding. “Ang! Ang! Ang!” he babbles.
“Nat has to look us in the eye when she speaks to us. We’ve tried everything, but nothing has worked,” I say as we hear a knock on the door.
Janet presses her nose against the screen. “Hey! What are you doing in there?”
“Come on in and join us, Janet.” Mrs. Mattaman nods her head as if to reassure me this will be all right.
“What have you tried?” Annie asks.
I explain about the numbers on my forehead and the Esther P. Marinoff button reward system and Carrie Kelly’s focus on funny business.
“Why does she have to learn this? Why can’t she do things her own way?” Jimmy asks.
“Because strangers ignore her,” I say. “They treat her like she isn’t there, like she’s not worth anything, because she doesn’t look at them.”
“Why does everybody have to measure up in the same way?” Jimmy’s fingers thread a series of rubber bands. “She’s got other strengths.”
“That she does. But there are certain things you have to learn to do, like saying please and thank you,” Mrs. Mattaman tells him. “Part of a mom’s job is to help her kids learn the rules so they can be successful out there.”
“Did any of the things you’ve tried work better than the others?” Annie wants to know.
“The numbers didn’t work,” I say. “She hardly glanced up to read them. The buttons have worked really well for other things, but not for this.”
“Let’s start off by asking Natalie why she doesn’t want to do this,” Mrs. Mattaman suggests.
“She won’t say,” I tell her.
“Maybe she won’t, but we gotta try. It’s her that has to change. All we can do is help. Go on and get her, Moose.”
• • •
Back in #2E, Nat is awake but still in her pajamas and my dad is trying to get her up to the Chudleys’ for breakfast. He’s relieved when I take her off his hands. He doesn’t even comment when I march her over to the Mattamans’ with her pajamas on. My mom would be furious, but my dad and I think getting Natalie dressed is not worth the trouble. My dad won’t brush her hair either. That’s a guaranteed fight.
“Natalie,” Mrs. Mattaman says, “I heard you were the one who figured out the cheat . . .” Her voice trails off. She eyes Theresa. I don’t think she wants her to know that a grown-up was caught cheating. “Uh, you were the one that helped out last night. I was fixing to make you a lemon cake to thank you.”
“Lemon cake,” Nat whispers.
Now she’s talking Nat’s language.
“I’m gonna whip it up soon as we finish here. But your brother was telling me you don’t like to look at people when you talk to them. That’s important, Natalie,” Mrs. Mattaman says, “is there some way you can—”
“No,” Nat belts out loud and clear.
Mrs. Mattaman smiles. “No, huh?”
“No,” Natalie confirms, tasting her lip with her tongue.
“The pixies can help,” Janet pipes up. “When I can’t do something, they always help me.”
“No pixies,” Natalie says. She’s begun rocking now, sitting on one hand, then the other, trembling with agitation. “Lemon cake.”
“Maybe there’s something else we could do with numbers?” Jimmy suggests.
“No,” Nat shouts. “No Natalie look a person in the eye!”
“Okay, okay.” Mrs. Mattaman’s palms are up. “We hear you. We want to know why is all.”
Nat’s shoulders are hunched forward, making her look like a teenaged old lady.
“Natalie, you can tell me,” Theresa says. Nat shakes her off, shakes everyone off, like a wet dog shuddering the drops away.
“It’s a little too much,” Mrs. Mattaman whispers.
“Too much!” Natalie shouts, digging her chest with her chin. “Too much!”
“Nat,” I say. “Stop it.”
Janet Trixle’s eyes are the size of cupcakes. This is just what we need. Janet Trixle reporting this back to her parents.
I pull an afghan from the couch and wrap it around Nat. Having something tight around her usually helps for some reason, but not today. Today she tears the blanket off, a
ngry tears running down her face.
“Lemon cake! Lemon cake!” she demands.
“Calm yourself down, young lady,” Mrs. Mattaman tells her. “I’m not making lemon cake for you like this. No misseee.”
But Nat is beyond reason. The circuits have popped inside her brain and she can’t think anymore.
I hold her in a bear hug, but she thrashes against me, grabbing hold of the doorway as I half carry her out.
“Moose, no!” She bites my arm.
“Ouch!” My hand flies up to slap her. I only barely keep myself from doing it.
I find the blanket again and wrap it around her. This time she accepts the support and allows me to carry her out of there. But I’m so angry, I’m shaking as I lug her back to #2E. I’m not taking her to the Chudleys’. She’s too heavy. It’s too far.
“I hate you sometimes, Natalie,” I practically spit at her, dumping her on the bed in her room. I hold my arm where her teeth punctured the skin.
All I do for her and this is how she treats me?
I’m sick of trying so hard. Why is it always me who tries? Me who worries? Me who does everything?
“It must be fun to be you. You never have to do anything you don’t want to do,” I say.
Natalie doesn’t answer, doesn’t move. She’s turned into a human stone.
• • •
When my mother gets to #2E, there’s no hiding what happened. Nat’s pajamas are still on. Her hair is matted and stuck with spit and tears to the side of her face. Her eyes are open. She’s perfectly still, like one tiny motion will capsize her world.
My mother takes one look at her and the bottom drops out of her face. “What happened?”
I tell her about how Nat figured out the cheat Donny was pulling with the cards and how Trixle still wouldn’t pay attention to her. Then I explain about the meeting at Mrs. Mattaman’s.
“Has she even had breakfast?” my mom asks.
“No,” I admit.
“You know better than this, Moose.”
“She bit me,” I say.
My mother groans like she’s in pain. “Let me see.”
She looks at the bite and then up at me. “Go borrow some Mercurochrome from Anna Maria and put it on that.”
I don’t move. “We can’t parade her problems in front of everyone. We can’t have her biting you. With your dad in such a visible position, we have to keep her out of the spotlight now more than ever.”
I grind my teeth. “I was just trying to help.” I never get credit for anything. It doesn’t matter to my mom how embarrassing this was. It doesn’t matter that Nat hurt me.
“I know, Moose, but it made everyone more aware of her limitations.”
“She isn’t invisible. People see her anyway,” I snap at her.
“They don’t notice until you point it out.”
“Sure they do, Mom, they’re not blind.”
“We can handle this ourselves.”
“Since when? We’re not handling it. It isn’t working. Haven’t you noticed?”
“Look at her,” my mom says. Natalie is still wrapped in the blanket, still completely shut down. “Is this an improvement?”
“No. Okay . . . this didn’t help. And, don’t worry, I won’t try anything ever again.” I stalk to my room, but the door isn’t even there. They took it off to repair it. I hunker down in the blankets on the floor where I sleep now. I’m going to forget about the fire. I’m going to forget about everything. I’ll just wait around for the task force report like everybody else.
A few minutes later my mom comes in. “I didn’t mean that, Moose. I’m sorry. It’s just we can’t have her throwing tantrums like this. We can’t have her biting people. If she behaves that way, she won’t be welcome anywhere.”
“Yeah, but if we don’t try things, how’s she ever going to get better?”
Her shoulders sag. She sits down suddenly on a stack of lumber, like her legs have given out on her. “That’s the trick, isn’t it?” she whispers.
“Let’s make it a game.” I throw this out weakly. It feels like I have a truck parked on my chest. I can hardly breathe. “She likes games.”
“You tried that with the numbers on your forehead,” she says, her voice gentle for once.
“A different game, then,” I offer.
My mom stares down at her hands. “Fine. But only at home. Not out there.”
“She’s going to live out there, Mom. You can’t keep her in here forever,” I whisper.
“Stop.” My mother puts her hands over her ears.
I wait until she lets them down again. “She can do this,” I say. “She just has to want to. It can’t be us wanting for her.”
“Don’t you see how precarious this is? The Trixles still think she started that fire. The Esther P. Marinoff has her on probation. If she goes back to pitching fits in public, we’ll be off this island and out of that school. We’ll be nowhere.”
“But Dad’s a warden now.”
“That’s not insurance . . . if anything, it makes us more vulnerable. Do you know how badly Darby wants that job?”
“She can do this, Mom.”
“It puts too much pressure on her. She bit you!”
“If she can’t figure this out, then what, Mom?”
She closes her eyes. I watch the tiny veins in her eyelids pulsing. She doesn’t answer me. But she doesn’t say no again.
21. Al Capone Eats a Sandwich
Saturday, February 1, and Sunday, February 2, 1936
That evening when my father comes home, my parents go out to watch the sunset, and I get my chance to talk to Nat.
Nat is rolled up in her blanket. “Nat,” I whisper. “Every time you look in my eyes, you get a point. The points will add up. You can count them. You can keep track of the score,” I say.
She digs her chin into her collarbone and turns her head away from me. But the picture of Darby Trixle ignoring Natalie even after what she did is fresh in my mind. It’s late now, but tomorrow I’m going to talk to Annie and Jimmy, Theresa and Piper about this. We have to get everyone to help. We can’t do this alone.
When my father is done talking to my mother, I get my turn.
“I can’t believe Donny Caconi is a cheater.”
He sighs. “I was surprised too. I’m going to have to talk to him.”
“Could I come along?”
“Not a chance.”
“Why not?”
“You already know the answer to that.”
“Is it because I’m thirteen? Because that’s not a good reason. I’m old enough. I’ve earned the right.”
He smiles at this. “You have, have you?” he says. “Well, what if I say that I don’t want you carrying too much responsibility on your shoulders. What if I say I want you to be a kid while you still can.”
“I’d say you’re wrong.”
“Moose”—he holds my gaze with his—“I’m not wrong.”
• • •
The next day, on the switchback outside the Chudleys’, I see Mrs. Mattaman holding Baby Rocky’s hand.
“Bird,” she says as she points to a gull. “House.” She waves his hand in the direction of the Chudleys’.
“Toody.” He points at the ground.
“Ground,” she says.
He squats, then bursts up to a standing position. “Toody-toody.” He gets all excited now.
Mrs. Mattaman shakes her head like she doesn’t understand.
“Toody-toody.” He jerks his pointer finger all around.
“Turdy. Bird turdy,” I translate.
Mrs. Mattaman laughs. “Leave it to you to figure that out.”
“Can I talk to you for a minute, Mrs. Mattaman?” I ask as she c
hases Rocky, who is trying to catch a seagull, his pudgy arms wide open like he’s going to hug it to death.
“Course, Moose,” she says, scooping Rocky up, his fist full of feathers.
I tell her about the new idea for helping Natalie. I think she’ll be pleased, but she clicks her tongue the way she does when a cake falls. “Did you talk to your mother about this?”
Uh-oh. My mom must have talked to her. She must have chewed her out.
“Yes, ma’am,” I say.
She smoothes Rocky’s hair out of his face. “I’m afraid I’ve overstepped my place.” She sets Rocky down again. “Maybe I better talk to your mom about this.”
“All you have to do is ask Natalie ‘What’s the count?’ She’s keeping track herself. Then if she looks at you, you say add one more.”
“You’re sure your mom’s okay with this?”
“Yes,” I say.
“All righty then,” she says. Her voice is reluctant. She twists the ring on her finger.
• • •
The clock is ticking. It’s almost past time to meet Piper. We have to get in the shed before they show up. Piper is expecting just me, but suddenly I want Annie there, too.
I take off down the switchback to 64 building. I’m panting like a dog when she opens the door of #3H.
“I’m so glad you’re not at church.” I lean over breathing hard from the run.
She shakes her head. “My mom had a headache.”
“C’mon, you should be there when they question Capone.”
“Me?”
“You.”
“Why?”
“In case I miss something.” I look out toward the big hulk of Angel Island. “Because I want you to,” I admit.
She wrinkles her nose, takes an uneasy breath. “Okay,” she says.
“Thanks,” I say. It’s just one word, but boy do I mean it right now.
She nods. The corner of her mouth twitches, like it’s thinking about smiling. She grabs her coat and follows me.
• • •
When we get to Piper’s, it’s ten minutes after eleven and she’s waiting on her step.
“You’re late.” She looks at me, then at Annie. “What’s she doing here?” she asks.
Al Capone Does My Homework Page 12
