“Like what?” I mutter, wondering how I’m supposed to look.
“Stop!” Piper’s nails are ready to scratch my eyes out. “My mom is fine. Buddy said so.” Her voice breaks.
“Okay,” I whisper.
It’s quiet up here-a world away from the party below. Only the sound of the night crickets and a distant boat horn. Piper looks as if she might burst. “Hey, I believe you,” I whisper in my most soothing voice.
Piper lunges at me again. “She is.”
“Okay, all right.” I lift my arms in the cool night air.
Tears stream down Piper’s face. “I told you to stop looking that way! She’s fine!” Piper sobs. “She’s just going to have a baby. That’s all.” Piper is crumpled over like an empty dress. “Say it!” she cries, her voice choked with sobs.
“She’s fine, Piper,” I tell her. Natalie is rocking from one foot to another, her eyes scanning Piper and then the ground, Piper and then the ground.
Piper’s eyes spit like bacon on the griddle. “You think you know everything. But you don’t. Everyone hates you, Moose.”
“Everyone hates you, Moose,” Nat repeats. “Not Natalie. Not me,” Nat mutters, touching her chest.
Piper ignores Natalie. “Jimmy does. You treat him like an imbecile because he doesn’t like baseball.”
“I don’t treat him like a-”
“Why do you think he’s trying so hard to learn to play?”
I grind my teeth.
“Yeah. Annie’s teaching him. And Annie… you only like her because she has a great throwing arm.”
“There are lots of things I like about Annie,” I whisper. “Piper, you’re just upset. Don’t take it out on me.”
“Yeah, name one. Name one thing you like about Annie.”
“She’s nice. She’s smart. I can trust her.”
“If she couldn’t play baseball, you wouldn’t be her friend.”
“That’s not true.”
“Yeah, it is, and Scout hates you because you’re always sure he’s after me.”
“Well, he is after you.”
“You don’t know anything, do you?” she lashes out at me. “You’re a complete moron like your sister. It runs in your family.” She glares at Natalie, the tears streaming down her face.
“You’re a moron!” Piper screams at Natalie.
“Shut up!” I can’t help myself. Nobody says this to Natalie. Nobody. But then the scene in the kitchen flashes through my mind. The gray, sick, drawn face. The sickly sweet rotting smell.
“What’s wrong with your mom, Piper?” I whisper.
“Nothing!” she screams.
But the louder she screams, the more she sees I don’t believe her. She shoves me away. “Can’t you see, you moron? Nothing is wrong!” She turns and runs into the house.
When Natalie and I get back down to 64 building, Mrs. Mattaman is waiting for us outside our apartment. I’m not sure what Mrs. Mattaman knows and what she doesn’t know, but from the way her eyes are squinting and her foot is tapping, she’s clearly hopping mad. “Go straight to bed, you two.” Her voice is cold and hard. “I will be back in half an hour to check on you, and you had better be in bed snoring, do you understand me? My kids have no school tomorrow. What about you, Moose?”
I shake my head. It’s peculiar we would all be off when it isn’t a holiday. Normally I’d be happy about this, but with Mrs. Mattaman so burnt up, I wish I did have school.
“When Mr. Mattaman gets off at eight tomorrow morning you, Moose, will report to our apartment. You and Theresa and Jimmy have a lot of explaining to do, you hear me? Pulling shenanigans on an important night like this… shame on you!” She waves her fancy jeweled purse at me.
“Mrs. Mattaman?” I ask as she turns to leave. “Is Piper’s mom okay?”
Mrs. Mattaman stops, her chest heaving. “I dunno, Moose,” she says without turning back. “I really don’t know.”
28. PIG HALF IN THE POKE
Monday, September 9, 1935
The next morning when I wake up, Natalie is staring over me, peering into my eyes like she’s doing a wake-up spell.
“What is it?” I ask.
Natalie says nothing, but I can see by the way she’s digging her chin in her chest that she’s anxious.
I wonder what she made of what happened last night. Did she know she wasn’t supposed to go to the warden’s house? Did she understand why Piper was yelling at me? Does she know what the word
Natalie stays with me as if she is suddenly glued to my side. I have to go in the bathroom and close the door in her face to get changed. When I’m done, she’s waiting right outside.
In the kitchen, we hear my dad rattling around. What does he know about last night, I wonder. I’d rather he find out about it from me, but maybe he won’t have to hear about it at all. Maybe the Mattamans will want to keep this quiet. Mrs. Caconi too. I’m sure she’d prefer if my parents didn’t know Natalie disappeared on her watch.
“What’s your plan this morning?” Natalie asks when she sees our dad.
We both look at her as if the stove just spoke. This is what my father usually asks. Slowly, my father’s face changes from surprise to pleasure.
“Gonna make myself some breakfast,” he tells Natalie. “And you, sweet pea?”
“Moose,” she mutters. “Stay with Moose.”
“Mrs. Mattaman invited us over,” I tell him.
“For breakfast?” He cocks his head and sets the coffeepot down.
“Uh-huh. Dad, what’s happening with Mrs. Williams?”
My dad shrugs. “It’s hard to know. The warden likes to play things close to the vest.”
My mother pokes her head in the kitchen.
“Piper’s mom… is she okay?” I ask her.
My mother rubs her eyes and tightens the cord on her bathrobe. “We’re all worried.” She sighs. “You hear something?”
I can’t tell her what I saw without explaining what in the heck I was doing up there. I wish I could, though. I really wish I could.
At the Mattamans’ the first person we see is Riv Mattaman. The whites of his eyes are shot through with pink and his legs are kicked over the arm of the chair, as if he’s too tired to sit the normal way. Mattaman did a shift and a half in the guard tower. No wonder he’s beat.
He groans when he sees me. I can’t meet his bloodshot eyes.
Nat sits right down to a game of button checkers already in progress from last night. She looks up at Theresa, her eyes full of longing, but Theresa has hold of her dad’s hand and won’t let it go. Natalie reluctantly settles in to play by herself.
“Piper’s not here, Dad.” Theresa pulls on his arm. “You can’t start till she gets here.”
“Mind your own business, missy,” he tells Theresa, then looks at all of us. “What the heck happened last night?”
Jimmy takes a step forward. “Piper got you and Moose’s dad in trouble because she was mad at Theresa.”
“I didn’t do anything! It wasn’t me,” Theresa cries.
“Was so.” Jimmy glares at her.
Mattaman pulls at his still crisply creased pant leg and rests his foot on the chair rung. “Come again?” he asks.
“She told the warden she saw you and Mr. Flanagan drinking just before you went on duty.”
In the kitchen, Mrs. Mattaman slams her rolling pin down, then yanks her apron off, wads it up, tosses it on the chair, and marches into the living room.
“She said she’d get you out of trouble if Moose would help her meet Capone,” Jimmy explains. “So she and Moose snuck back inside to watch.”
“That true?” Mr. Mattaman directs his question at me.
“Yes, sir. We saw Capone spit in Eliot Ness’s mashed potatoes. He hocked up a gob of phlegm, then he smoothed it over with his finger. Gave it a little swirl. I saw with my own eyes.”
Mr. Mattaman pulls at his mustache.
Theresa makes a face. “Eew,” she says.
“But Natalie didn’t go with you. It was just you and Piper in there?” Mr. Mattaman asks.
“While they were gone, we were watching Natalie with Mrs. Caconi,” Jimmy explains, “but Nat snuck out. She went to the warden’s house.”
“She wanted to see Molly, the mouse Willy One Arm has,” Theresa adds.
Mr. Mattaman points at her. “And you, missy? What did you do that annoyed Piper so much that started this whole thing?”
Theresa’s lower lip puckers up. “Nothing. Piper is the wrong one, not me.”
Jimmy snorts. “C’mon, Theresa.” He glares at his sister, then turns to his dad. “She spies on us, Dad. And she can’t stand that Moose likes Piper.”
