Harry Sue Read Online Free Page B

mouth. “Boyth are conth and girlth are conetteth.”
    “‘Red the Hood'! ‘Red the Hood’!”
    “‘Beauty and the Hack’!”
    “No! ‘Padlocks and the Three Bears.’”
    “I want all the traps shut
now,
” I said. I needed a minute to think.
    It was Beau, Homer's home health aide from the county, who taught us all about life on the inside. Beau was fluent in Conglish, had smoked his share of roadkill, and knew the convict's code by heart. He was schooled, Fish. And not from watching movies, either. Beau came to Marshfield directly following a stint at an MCC down near Chicago where he did an eight ball for two counts of grand larceny.
    Beau taught us the importance of telling a good story. It wasn't enough to like stories. It wasn't enough to read them to yourself. You had to learn to master them. A good storyteller had power on the inside because she could wound without a weapon.
    She could strike an invisible blow with her mind.
    That was the reason I told the little crumb snatchers a story every day. You see, Granny and I were locked in a war for control of the joint. My aim was to shut her down for good. Put up a Closed sign on the front door. Soon as I knew the crumbsnatchers were sprung from Granny's Lap and she wouldn't be able to terrorize any more little children, I could begin the crime spree and the poor decision making that would land me in the joint.
    As I have already mentioned, it was past time for me to begin the running away, the life on the streets, and the petty criminal activity that is the hallmark of your average conette. I needed more contact with the system, maybe an abusive older boyfriend who sold drugs and a couple of years of eating out of Dumpsters if I was ever going to make it to a correctional facility.
    Since I had no idea where my mom was, I might have to check into two or three joints before I found her. That's why I felt a pressing need to get started.
    I pulled Moonie Pie onto my lap, not because I'm soft, but because he was funky. His diaper should have been changed about the time I was switching sugar for salt in the teachers' lounge at lunch recess. Bathing isn't required in the joint, so I had to get used to funky. Other than that, touching is strictly forbidden.
    The heart is too soft, remember? Cuddling babies is no kind of way to tough up.
    Moonie Pie was awful quiet, and even though he looked at me, he didn't seem to really register. It was half-past three and he could hardly lift his head, which probably meant that the hacks were giving him cold medicine again.
    Everybody gets a nick in the joint and hacks are no exception. I called Synchronicity and Serendipity hacks because that's another name for prison guards. But beyond that, they each got a personal nick. Your personal nick comes from the name on your birth certificate, your old neighborhood, the way you look, or your reputation from your days on the outs.
    I nicked those girls “Sink” and “Dip” because on a normal day they didn't share a sensible thought between them. I didn't have to look far. The girls I have to call cousins—on my father's side—had the nicks right inside their names: “Sink-ronicity” and “Seren-Dip-ity.”
    There's a program on TV about child development, and that psychologist says that teenagers are like one-hundred-pound toddlers. Just trying to satisfy their needs. That seemed to describe Sink and Dip to a tee. I often wondered how bad their own mom must have been to make them choose to live with Granny after they dropped out of school. Sometimes, I suspected they were just used to being pushed around. They were just crumb snatchers, plus a hundred pounds.
    Like everything else in life, you have your good hacks and your bad hacks. “Granny's little helpers,” as she called them in front of the parents, were mostly lazy hacks. If they put a spoonful of cold medicine in the applesauce, they scored three hoursof uninterrupted nap time to dish about friends, watch soaps,