She shrugs. “Oh, who cares anyway. This is boring.”
“It’s boring? You get my dad and Mr. Mattaman on probation for nothing and then you say it’s boring?”
“So what do you want me to do about it?”
“Tell the truth.”
She rolls her eyes. “Why would I do that?” she asks like she really doesn’t know.
“Because it’s the right thing to do.”
“You actually think that matters to me?”
I’ve never met anyone as irritating as Piper. She makes me feel like I’ve got gun powder exploding in my veins.
“I’ll tell you what,” she suggests. “I’ll get this squared away, but then you’ll owe me.”
“You mean you’ll tell your dad the truth?”
“Of course not. I’ll tell him that I thought it was booze they were drinking. It was clear and gold like beer, but it was only apple juice.”
“How will you explain not telling him this before?”
Her brown eyes are keen. She looks directly at me. “I felt so awful about what happened.” She makes her voice tremble with emotion. “I couldn’t bring myself to tell you.” She dabs at her eyes.
What a performance! How can I like this girl? I make myself sick.
But even now I’m watching her lips, the curve of her arms, the shine of her hair. Messy as she is today, she’s still beautiful.
“But like I said,” she continues, “you’ll owe me.”
“I’ll owe you what?”
“I haven’t decided yet.” She takes a step closer, leans down so she’s right in my face. I breathe in the sweet talcum smell of her. Her lips brush my cheek and everything inside me hits a pothole.
“Piper, can I ask you something?” I whisper. “Couldn’t you be just a little nicer?”
“Now?” She strokes my cheek, ever so gently, just where her lips touched it. The sweet, powerful smell of her comes over me like a hot sweat.
“No,” I tell her as I reach my hand out to hold her chin, gently, so gently. “All the rest of the time?” I whisper as my lips find her lips. I don’t know if this is the way you’re supposed to do this, but suddenly I don’t care about Scout and his instructions. I’m going to do this my way.
“Theresa,” Natalie whispers, startling me. I’d forgotten all about Natalie, but here she is, swaying back and forth between her two feet as if she’s on a rocking horse. And then I see Theresa and Jimmy running up the hill toward us and I can feel the deep flush of blood in my face, but my back is to them. I don’t think they saw.
Still, I can’t believe it’s Theresa
“Moose,” Jimmy calls. “We need you!”
“Moose, we need you,” Piper mimics, her voice sour. She glares at me, turns, and walks back into her house, the door closing hard after her.
“Moose kiss,” Nat mutters. “Moose is kissing.”
My face gets so hot I feel like I just stuck my head in the oven, but Jimmy and Theresa are so upset they don’t hear Natalie.
“Just tell him, Jimmy,” Theresa prods.
“Shut up, Theresa,” Jimmy says, his cheeks flushed. He straightens his glasses one way, then straightens them the other, as if he can’t find plumb on his nose.
“Tell me what?”
Jimmy kicks the ground. “I messed up,” he mutters, his face scarlet. “I threw it, okay? I did, but-”
“Threw what?”
“The bar spreader. Janet Trixle has it,” Theresa blurts. “She’s using it in her carousel. All of the painted ponies are tied to it. And she has a hot pad on the top for the tent cover.”
“How’d she get it?”
“Must have washed back up on the beach and she collected it in her beach bag. Took it home and used it for her carousel.” Jimmy still can’t look at me.
“She doesn’t know what it is?”
Jimmy and Theresa both shake their heads.
“But Darby knows what it is… We are in so much trouble,” I say.
“She’s got it decorated like a barber pole,” Jimmy explains.
“It’s right in front of his nose and he hasn’t noticed yet?”
“Hiding in plain sight,” Jimmy whispers.
“That’s the best way to hide something. That’s what my dad says. C’mon, we gotta get it out of there.”
“Darn straight we do,” Jimmy agrees.
“Natalie!” I shout. “Let’s go!”
25. THE BAD GUYS ARE LOCKED UP
Saturday, September 7, and Sunday, September 8, 1935
Natalie shuffles along faster than usual. Just watching her come down the switchback, doing her best to keep up, fills me with a rush of gratitude. She is trying in her own weird way. She really is.
I wonder what she’ll make of the kiss. Of course, the one moment I wish she’d been lost in her own world, she wasn’t. But it wasn’t like she stood there and stared or anything. Piper didn’t even mention her and she would have if Natalie had been staring.
All of this is rushing through my mind as we head for the Trixles’. It’s not until we have arrived pell-mell at the door of the largest apartment in 64 building that it occurs to me we need some reason to be here.
“You’re visiting Janet,” I tell Theresa as I knock on the door.
“Me? Why me?” Theresa scowls.
“C’mon, Theresa,” Jimmy wheedles. “You can be nice to her for five minutes. We have to get the bar spreader back.”
“How am I supposed to do that?” Theresa’s hands are on her hips. “She’s not going to just hand it over to me, you know.”
I knock again. Still no answer.
Theresa looks at me, her lips pressed so hard together her chin wrinkles. “You can’t take Natalie inside,” she whispers.
“Why not?”
“Because,” Theresa mutters. She looks to Jimmy for help.
“They’re not home anyway,” Jimmy declares.
“Shall we go in?” Theresa asks, frowning.
Jimmy and I look at each other.
“We can’t just take it. Wouldn’t that be stealing?” Theresa wants to know.
I wiggle the knob. “It’s locked anyway.”
Doors are never locked on Alcatraz. Our parents say it’s safer here than in San Francisco because all our bad guys are locked up. We are used to running in and out of each other’s houses.
Of course, we don’t run in and out of Darby Trixle’s house, so we never noticed his door is locked. Maybe it’s just locked because they’re gone for the day.
“What do we do now?” Jimmy asks.
“Wait for them to get home,” I reply.
“She found it on the beach, though,” Jimmy reasons. “Why is that our fault? No one has to know how it got there.”
“Yeah, but it’s dangerous. If Seven Fingers were to get his hands on it…” I explain.
“Go ahead and say it,” Jimmy growls. “It’s because I throw like crap. This would never have happened if Scout had thrown it.”
“Scout would have wanted to keep it as a souvenir or else he’d trade it,” I tell him as we walk back down the stairs to our apartments.
“That’s not what you really think,” Jimmy grumbles.
“Am I mad about this, Jimmy? Do I look mad?” I ask, though I can feel as I say this that I’m beginning to get angry.
“You are, though.”
“What do you want me to say here? Just tell me so I’ll know,” I ask him.
“Why don’t you just tell the truth for a change?”
“What are you talking about? I always tell you the truth.”
“No, you don’t. You tell me what you think I want to hear, same as you tell everyone else.”
I open my hands as if to show him I’m not holding anything inside. “I’m not mad, okay, Jim?”
“You are, though. You’re mad because I messed up and you’re embarrassed that I can’t play ball.”
“Look, I’m not embarrassed. But yeah, I do wish you liked baseball. What’s the matter with that?”
Jimmy whistles long and low. “I thought you were different. You’re just like everyone else.” He turns on his heel and walks back to his apartment.
Theresa is silent. Her mouth hangs open. Her dark eyes are big as goggles. “Jimmy doesn’t get mad at anyone but me, not ever,” she says.
All through the evening, I check on the Trixles, but they don’t come home. By nightfall, I know I’ll have to wait until tomorrow. I can’t think of a reason to pretend I
