Al Capone Does My Homework

by Gennifer Choldenko

  “It was an accident!” she shouts.

  “Look. You tell or I will,” I say.

  “We’ll go with you if you want.” Annie’s voice is gentle. I wonder if she’s figured out what the counterfeit money has to do with Piper.

  I know what I have to do. I leave the bathroom. My legs move like I’m outside watching them walk. How could this be happening?

  “Moose, c’mon, don’t tell,” Piper pleads as I open the Bominis’ front door, but I keep walking.

  I head down to Mrs. Caconi’s and pick up the phone. “I need to talk to Warden Flanagan, please.”

  “Not here. He’s doing an airport run picking up some mucky-mucks from Washington. Moose, is that you?”

  “Yes, sir,” I say. “If my dad isn’t here, I need to talk to Warden Williams.”

  “Ahh, Moose, you know better than that. You can’t call a meeting with the warden.”

  “I have to, sir.”

  “Is this some kind of a dare you kids are playing?”

  “No, sir. It’s important.”

  “You’re going to need to tell me more than that.”

  “It’s about his daughter.”

  “Is Piper injured? Is this an emergency?”

  “She’s not injured. But it is an emergency. Look, I know this is unusual, but you have to trust me.”

  I can hear him suck in his breath. He lets it out with a groan. “It better be. That’s all I can say. All right, I’ll relay the message. We’ll see what he says.”

  I hear the squeak of his swivel chair, the sound of his footsteps, and then the line goes silent. A minute later he’s back. “You can speak with Officer Trixle.”

  “No,” I say.

  “Excuse me?”

  “It can’t be Trixle. Look, this is the warden’s daughter. We have to talk to him.”

  He grunts. “Moose, you’re out of line here.”

  “I know. You have to trust me. Do it for my dad.”

  He clears his throat. I think he’s going to tell me forget about it, but then he says: “Hold on.”

  It takes a long time before he comes back. I’ve begun to scratch everywhere, even my scalp. I’ve never gotten hives on my scalp before.

  When he gets back on the line he says: “Go on up to the warden’s house, but this better be important.”

  The walk up the switchback takes four hundred years. None of us want to face this. But when we finally get to the warden’s house, Piper’s mom opens the door. She has a glazed look in her eyes. She knows something’s up. Her eyes focus on Annie as if Annie’s the only one she trusts. Annie looks away.

  “Is the warden in his office?” I ask.

  Mrs. Williams points to the stairs. “He’s waiting for you.”

  The warden is seated behind his desk. The chain of his pocket watch is twisted, his eyeglasses are crooked. He knows something is very wrong.

  The birds tweet outside his window. A buoy dings in the distance. The sky is blue outside, but dark in here. My skin is itching, my legs are shaking. I’m scared out of my mind and it wasn’t even me who did it.

  “What’s going on, Piper?” the warden asks as Piper dissolves into a side chair.

  “Moose and Annie and I hid in the shed on Ollie’s back porch when Capone was interrogated,” Piper mumbles.

  “You know better than that,” the warden tells her. “You too, Annie.”

  “When we were there we found out—I found out,” Piper whispers, tears sliding down her face.

  “You found out what?” he asks.

  Piper takes the newspaper out and hands it to the warden. Her hand is shaking hard; the paper flutters.

  “COUNTERFEIT MONEY FLOWS INTO SAN FRANCISCO.” The warden looks up. “I’m not following this.”

  No one answers him. He reads the whole article; the room is silent except for the happy-sounding bird tweets outside.

  When he’s done, he pushes his glasses up on his forehead. “Why is this our concern?” he asks in a terrifyingly quiet voice.

  Piper’s eyes are glued to her shoes. She takes a wobbly breath and tries to talk, but tears stream down her cheeks. “I found a dollar in my dungarees.”

  “What?” the warden says.

  “The laundry,” she whispers. “I left a dollar in the pocket of my dirty dungarees by mistake. When they came back, there were two dollars in the pocket.”

  The warden’s eye is twitching.

  “I put in another dollar.” Piper’s voice is so soft now, you can hardly hear it.

  “And two came back?” the warden asks.

  She nods. “Then I put in five dollars and ten came back.”

  “And then what?”

  She can’t look at him.

  “And then what did you do?” the warden’s voice booms.

  “I spent it.”

  We listen to the warden’s labored breathing.

  “How many times did this happen?”

  “I dunno.”

  “Piper!” he thunders.

  She looks like she’s seen her own death. Her eyes are glazed and her mouth is slack. “Fourteen, maybe more,” she whispers.

  “Fourteen!”

  She nods. “Some weeks I put dollars in more than one pocket.”

  “It’s like gambling,” I whisper, not realizing I’ve said it aloud until the warden responds.

  “No gambling involved,” he murmurs. “It was a sure thing. Double your money. It never occurred to you to wonder why this was happening?”

  “I thought one of the laundry cons, you know, liked me,” Piper mumbles, her eyes focused on her shoes. This is the only safe place to look.

  “Liked you?”

  “Why else would he give me money?” she asks.

  Nobody looks at the warden.

  “How was I supposed to know it was counterfeit?” Piper’s voice again.

  “You knew it was wrong,” the warden whispers.

  “I was going to stop,” Piper tells him.

  “But you didn’t and you guessed it was counterfeit.”

  “Not at first,” she admits. “Then I saw that the Count worked in the laundry. In his file it said he was a counterfeiter.”

  “Among other things.”

  “Yes. But I didn’t know for sure, until I saw the newspaper. I shopped at the places where they said they found the counterfeit bills.”

  “Why would the Count give her counterfeit money?” I ask.

  “Shhh,” Annie says under her breath.

  “To get it into circulation,” the warden explains. “They got one real dollar and gave back two pieces of worthless paper.

  “When did you get your hunch?” the warden asks, spitting the words out like food that’s gone bad.

  “A couple of weeks ago.”

  “So you heard them question Capone about the gifts and it made you nervous,” the warden asks.

  “How could a con make counterfeit money inside of Alcatraz?” I ask.

  “Keep control of your mouth, Mr. Flanagan,” the warden warns, but then he answers, his voice softening, “Couldn’t. He got it from the outside.”

  “Oh.” The word skips across my lips before I can stop it.

  The warden’s eyes drill into me. “You know something about that?”

  “I—I . . . maybe. We were watching the cons on the dock. And it looked as if the Count put something in the rain gutter. So when he left, I checked it.”

  “And you found . . . ?”

  “A note with some numbers on it. I just now figured out what they were. It was a locker number and a combination.”

  The warden nods. “That’s an old trick. He probably has counterfeit bills in a number of lockers in train stat
ions all over. That way he can maintain control. Do you know who picked up the slip of paper?”

  “We watched, but we never saw anyone. There was something else too. Donny Caconi beat me at a pitching game. I didn’t think he won fair and square, so I looked in his laundry bag to see if there was something—some evidence he cheated.” My words come out in a hot rush.

  “And?”

  “I found forty dollars in Mrs. Caconi’s apron. I thought it was real, but maybe it wasn’t.”

  “What did you do with it?”

  “I put it back. It wasn’t what I was looking for.” The warden takes off his glasses and puts his big forehead in his hands. He closes his eyes.

  “Did anyone know you had that laundry bag?” he asks.

  “Just Natalie. I didn’t know it was counterfeit. I didn’t know anything. I just thought it was an awful lot of money for Mrs. Caconi to forget in her pocket.”

  “I didn’t know it was counterfeit either,” Piper squeaks.

  “You.” His hands fly up as if to block her. “Do not say one word.” His voice trembles.

  But Piper can’t shut up.

  “I thought I was lucky,” she mumbles.

  “We got a depression going. People don’t have a pot to pee in and you’re rich as Croesus from luck?” The warden’s voice is thick.

  “All right,” he says. “I appreciate you bringing this to my attention. Moose, keep your nose out of cell house business. Annie, you keep him out of trouble. Piper . . .” His eyes move quickly across her as if he has been belted in the gut and can no longer breathe. He puts his head in his hands and closes his eyes.

  23. “Am I a Criminal Too?”

  Sunday, February 2, 1936

  Annie and I head back down to 64. We are both in shock. Our Piper, involved in a counterfeit scheme?

  “How could she be that stupid?” Annie says.

  “You put in one dollar and two come back. There’s something pretty exciting about that.”

  “Yeah, I know. I could see trying it a second time . . . just to see if it worked. But at what point do you ask yourself what is really going on here? She isn’t six years old.”

  “She used the money to help people. She knows the Mattamans never have enough. Paying Theresa was a good thing and so was that dress Mrs. Mattaman got. That had to have been Piper,” I say.

  “Yeah, but why do you think she didn’t tell anyone?” Annie asks.

  “She knew we would tell her to stop,” I say.

  “I feel bad for her, but I’m kind of mad at her too. She knows better than this,” Annie says as we walk down the stairs to the Mattamans’.

  Through the window we see Theresa clanking pot lids together, followed by Rocky with a big smile on his face, a pan on his head, and a muffin tin in each hand.

  “Piperz otty,” Rocky says.

  “Naughty,” Theresa corrects.

  “Otty, otty, otty,” Rocky shouts. “Piperz otty!”

  “News travels fast,” I say.

  Theresa sees us and puts her pot lids down. “What happened?” she asks.

  When we tell Mrs. Mattaman and Theresa, Theresa’s mouth falls open. “I didn’t know! Am I a criminal too? Mooooommmeeeeeeee!”

  “No, sweetie.” Mrs. Mattaman smoothes her hair. “We’ll get all the money she paid you and we’ll pay it back—”

  “I don’t have it anymore. Not all of it!” Theresa sobs as she runs into her room and comes out with a mason jar, which has a few dollars and some coins.

  “I spent some,” Theresa cries.

  “This isn’t your fault, Theresa. You didn’t know,” Mrs. Mattaman says.

  “What’s going to happen to Piper?” Annie asks.

  “Her dad will take care of it, like he always does,” I say.

  Mrs. Mattaman shakes her head. “You can’t protect a person who breaks laws.”

  “She has plenty of money,” Annie says. “She didn’t need to do this.”

  “That girl has her head screwed on backward,” Mrs. Mattaman says. “She had to have known she’d be caught. I hope she learns from this is all I can say.”

  Part of me is glad Piper finally got caught. As long as I’ve known her, she’s always gotten away with things. I just wish it was for something little.

  Thank goodness she didn’t pull me into this scheme. I’ve been a sucker for Piper plenty of times. My head hurts just thinking about it. I need fresh air.

  “You want to play ball?” I ask Annie.

  “Now?” Annie asks like I’ve suggested swimming with sharks.

  “Why not?”

  “Probably the best thing for you,” Mrs. Mattaman agrees.

  Annie heads out to get her baseball gear with me on her heels.

  I look out at the sun, low on the water. “C’mon, let’s go,” I say. “We don’t have much baseball time left.”

  But even as we walk up to the parade grounds, more pieces start to fall into place. “Piper pretended she got a gift from a secret admirer. But I don’t think there was a secret admirer.”

  Annie nods. “She wanted to make you jealous.”

  “I guess so. The thing that’s strange is she never seemed to care if I was her boyfriend or not.”

  “Until you weren’t,” Annie offers. “I was always supposed to be her best friend. I could never have another best friend even though she really didn’t want to spend time with me.”

  “I guess she just wanted you as a pinch hitter—always ready just in case,” I say.

  “Yeah, maybe. I’ll pitch,” Annie says. “You hit.”

  She winds one up and sends a soft pitch my way. My timing is off. I can’t hit the ball to save my life.

  “Shape up, Moose,” Annie barks.

  I set my bat down. “Do you still like her?” I ask.

  Annie sighs. “Golly, I don’t know. I suppose I like her sometimes. What about you?” Annie’s face flushes like she wishes she hadn’t asked this.

  “Not as a girlfriend,” I say. “I can’t trust her, but I feel like I should have . . . I don’t know, stopped her from doing this.”

  “How could you stop her when you didn’t know what she was doing?”

  “I couldn’t,” I agree. The gulls are closer now. They know we aren’t playing ball anymore.

  “Moose, you can’t be responsible for everyone.”

  “I guess not.”

  “Promise me you’ll never do anything stupid like that,” she says.

  “I don’t need to promise, I never would.”

  “Sometimes you get a little, I don’t know . . . desperate about Natalie,” Annie observes.

  “You try being Natalie’s brother,” I say.

  “It must be hard,” Annie concedes, her brow furrowed. “But if I were Natalie, you’re the guy I’d want for my brother.”

  “Thanks,” I say.

  “You’re welcome.” She tries to shrug this off, but her face is red again.

  We start tossing the baseball back and forth, but neither of us seems to be able to concentrate. The ball has become just a round object. Not everything it usually is to me.

  We sit down on the hill that faces San Francisco to watch the sun set. The sky is pink, the water orange. The windows of the buildings in the city glint like tiny mirrors in the setting sun.

  “Annie,” I say. “You look different.”

  “No, I don’t,” she mumbles.

  Now my face is flushed too. And then out of nowhere, I’m leaning toward Annie. I’m not thinking. I’m too tired and worn out to think. I’m inches away from her now. She smells like baby powder and mint.

  She freezes. Her face is stiff, her eyes too large. And then the tiny Annie smile flashes across her lips and I know she wants to kiss me too.


  Her lips feel springy, her breath smells like spearmint, her hair is as soft as puppy fur. Who knew kissing Annie Bomini would feel so nice? We sit there for a minute, my arm warm against hers. The sun is down now, but it isn’t night yet. One time is gone and the other has not yet begun.

  We get up and start walking back to 64. “Forget we did that,” I say.

  “I’ve already forgotten,” she says.

  But I’m still holding her hand and I won’t let go.

  24. State Problem

  Saturday, February 8, 1936

  A week later, I still haven’t made sense of the changes happening all around me. I mean, I kissed Annie Bomini! How did that happen? And the weirdest thing about it is . . . I wouldn’t mind doing it again. It’s different when you kiss someone you really care about. It’s like when you’re there in person at a baseball game instead of just hearing it on the radio.

  Jimmy and me are outside the canteen when we hear the task force report is finally released. “It’s Donny Caconi.” Annie runs down the steps to tell us.

  “I knew all along,” Bea Trixle informs Annie as she puts the empty soda bottles in the wood tray.

  I’m eating an apple and it’s all I can do to keep from spitting it out. “How could she have forgotten she blamed Natalie?” I whisper to Jimmy.

  “She remembers what she wants to remember,” Jimmy tells me.

  “Did she give you your job back?”

  “Yep, I start tomorrow. Brought the pie up this morning.”

  “They think Donny was the guy who brought in the counterfeit money for the Count too,” Annie says.

  “That’s not a surprise,” I say.

  “Annie told me you figured out the note in the downspout was the locker number and combination. That was smart, Moose,” Jimmy says.

  “I didn’t tell you guys about the money I found in Mrs. Caconi’s pocket, though.”

  “What were you doing looking in Mrs. Caconi’s pocket?” Jimmy asks.

  My face gets hot. I can’t look at either one of them. “I wondered if Donny rigged the bottle cap contest. I was looking to see if I could find any, you know, evidence,” I mumble, hoping they won’t think I have a fat head.

  “He rigged it,” Jimmy says. “The question is why?”