Al Capone Does My Homework Read Online Free Page B

it.
    “You going to be okay, Moose?” Piper asks, surprising me with the softness in her
     voice.
    “Yeah,” I say, though my head feels like a few hundred cars have driven through it.
    “I gotta get Walty to bed,” Piper tells me.
    I watch as she heads up the switchback.
    “Where you gonna go, Moose?” Theresa asks.
    “He’s coming home with us,” Jimmy announces.
    “Natalie!” Theresa claps her hands. “You can sleep in my room. Won’t that be fun?”
     she asks as we trudge to 64, past a small group of adults.
    “The least they could do was build us a fire escape,” Bea Trixle, Darby’s wife, complains.
     Her hair is white blond, but black at the roots. She’s wearing a uniform shirt of
     Darby’s with her skirt and high heels. “It’s a death trap, our 64 building. Might
     as well get some barbeque sauce and call it a day. How did it start, anyway?”
    “Just what I was wondering,” Donny Caconi says as he stacks the extra buckets, his
     dungarees wet at the bottom and dusted with ash.
    “Ask Moose.” Darby nods toward me.
    “Do you know, Moose?” Bea’s voice is tight as a stretched rubber band.
    I think about the flames shooting out from the kitchen. “I have no idea.”
    “It was
her,
wasn’t it.” Bea points her head toward Natalie. “She was counting matches or some
     fool thing.”
    “No!”
I say.
    Bea’s face is red and puffy, and her arms are wrapped around her seven-year-old daughter,
     Janet, protecting her as if the fire is still raging.
    “Could have burned the whole place down, killed every last one of us,” Darby Trixle
     says. “Look at her. She can’t even look at me. That’s a guilty girl if ever I saw
     one.”
    We all stare at Natalie, who is picking at her chest with her chin.
    “She didn’t do this. Just because she’s different, doesn’t mean she’s guilty.” I try
     hard to speak gently and reasonably the way my father would.
    Officer Trixle looks up at our apartment and then back around to the dark water behind
     us. There’s no moonlight tonight, only the fog closing in like a lid. Mrs. Caconi
     stands huddled in her giant pink bathrobe.
    “I always liked you, Moose, but don’t try to protect your sister.” Bea shakes her
     finger at me. Janet watches, her eyes dazed. She hasn’t left her mother’s side all
     evening.
    “It wasn’t Natalie,” I tell her.
    “How do you know?” Darby asks.
    “Because I was there.”
    “But you were asleep, weren’t you?” Darby asks.
    “Natalie was asleep,” my mouth says, while my head tells me what a chump I am. If
     I’d stayed awake, none of this would have happened.
    Bea’s chin is raised. “How do you know that?”
    “Now look here, Bea,” Mrs. Mattaman jumps in. “This isn’t the time or place for this.
     We’ll sort it out in the morning.”
    “I got a right to know where the Flanagan girl is sleeping tonight,” Bea Trixle says,
     her hands on her hips.
    “I’d like to know that too,” Mrs. Caconi joins in. Some of the other folks from 64
     building nod their heads.
    “They’re sleeping at our apartment,” Theresa says.
    “Oh, my. I think I have a migraine coming on,” Mrs. Caconi says, tightening the belt
     of her bathrobe.
    “C’mon Mama, you’ll feel better when you lie down.” Donny puts his arm around her
     and walks with her back to the Caconis’ apartment.
    Bea Trixle’s eyes find Mrs. Mattaman. “The Flanagan girl is staying with you, Anna
     Maria?” she asks.
    I don’t think Jimmy and Theresa consulted her; still Mrs. Mattaman doesn’t skip a
     beat. “That’s the plan.”
    “Who’s going to keep watch, then?” Bea has her nose right up in Mrs. Mattaman’s face.
    “Keep watch?” I ask.
    “So’s she don’t burn the rest of the building down,” Bea says.
    Donny is back outside now, without his mom. “I’m sure there’s another explanation
     for how the fire started,” he says.
    Darby scowls at him. “I doubt it.”
    “Could be an electrical