14.
DEAD TWELVE-YEAR-OLDS
Same day—Sunday, August 18, 1935
The whole way to the Esther P. Marinoff School I try to plan everything out. I’m going to take Annie to the wrong field, so we don’t run into Scout. I hate the idea of missing out on a pickup game, but this is my life we’re talking about. I’m not sure what kind of pickup games they have in heaven. I don’t think there are that many dead baseball-playing twelve-year- olds up there.
The more I think about this, the harder I work to wiggle the string off the cannoli box and worm my big hand inside. I’ve just managed to eat two when Annie rips the box out of my hands. “What’s the matter with you, Moose?” she asks as we walk up the steep San Francisco street with the cables rumbling underground and the cable car bell clanking in the distance.
We’re almost to the Esther P. Marinoff now, which is good because my legs feel wobbly, like I just climbed up twenty flights of stairs. We didn’t have hills like this in Santa Monica. We didn’t have mansions like this either.
Up ahead is the familiar white house with its large, well-cared-for garden full of flowers. Orange flowers drape from a trellis and tiny pink and purple flowers the size of a lady’s thumbnail spill over the side of a planter. It smells sweet like honeysuckle. A metal placard reads in elaborate cursive The Esther P. Marinoff School.
I look around for roses. Just my luck, there are none.
“Es-thur. Pee. Mary-noff. Lookee, you guys! This is it!” Theresa runs around behind me and gives me a shove, head-butting me up the stairs to the massive front door. Annie laughs as I ring the doorbell and Theresa pounds on the solid oak door.
It takes a while, but eventually the big door is opened by a small woman with hair the color of tarnished nickels and a velvet dress thick as movie curtains. Her eyes are a clear gold, the color of beer.
“We’re here to visit Natalie Flanagan,” I tell her.
“And you are?”
“Moose, I mean Matthew Flanagan, her brother, and Theresa Mattaman and Annie Bomini, her friends.”
“Ahhh, the Alcatraz kids!” The woman smiles, takes my hand in her tiny one, and pumps my arm. “I’m Sadie,” she says.
Though she must be my grandma’s age, there’s something about her that seems young, like the graying hair and wrinkled skin are a costume change and not the real person at all. We follow her inside.
“I’ve heard a lot about you kids. Natalie talks about you all the—”
“Yes, ma’am.” I cut her off before I can stop myself. I don’t want to hear about Nat missing me while I’ve been home with my mom and my dad all to myself.
Sadie blinks like she has dust in her eyes. “Well then, you must be anxious to see Natalie. You wait right here. I’ll bring her up.”
Annie’s watchful blue eyes take everything in. The room reminds me of Sadie herself: full of once-elegant things that are well worn. Chairs with old-fashioned carved legs and threadbare seats. Brocade curtains, faded smooth in spots. But nothing about this place seems like gangsters, and Sadie sure doesn’t look like the kind of woman who would mix it up with mobsters. How did Al Capone do it? How did he get Natalie into this school?
Theresa bounces on the lumpy seat of her straight-back chair. She jumps up when she hears the sound of Natalie approaching, dragging one foot along the carpet. Step, drag. Step, drag.
“She’s here!” Theresa cries, clapping her hands together.
When Nat appears she’s wearing the yellow dress my mom and the convicts made for her, but the belt is gone and there are two extra buttons sewn to the front.
For a second Nat’s clear green eyes flash past me, then flip down to the carpet again.
“Sun get up okay today, Natalie?” Nat mutters.
Sadie’s thick velvet dress sweeps past us. “Natalie. Look at the person with whom you’re speaking. And speak in proper pronouns, please.”
I don’t like Sadie’s tone. What gives her the right to talk to Natalie this way? “Natalie loves the sunrise. She gets up for it every morning,” I explain. “When I get up, I always ask her if the sun got up okay.”
“She loves the sunrise and the garden too, but she can speak more directly,” Sadie informs me, her eyes trained on Nat.
“Three and oh. No hits, no runs. A fly ball. Ten base hits. A runner on third,” Natalie mumbles, digging her chest with her chin.
Sadie cups her hand under Natalie’s chin to prevent the digging. “No baseball talk,” she says.
“What’s the matter with baseball talk?” I ask.
“She’s just repeating random phrases. We’re working on the art of conversation,” Sadie explains. “Say what you mean. I am . . .” Sadie prompts Natalie.
Natalie tries to dig at her chest again, but Sadie’s hand won’t let her chin dip down. Nat looks quickly and fleetingly across the tops of our heads. “Moose, Theresa, Annie hello, hello, hello,” Nat mutters.
“Hi, Natalie,” we all say.
“You have new buttons.” Theresa points to the two extra mismatched buttons sewn to Natalie’s dress.
Natalie runs her hands over the new buttons, carefully, lovingly, tracing the outline of each one. “Good day new button,” she whispers.
“Who are you addressing, Natalie?” Sadie barks. “When I have . . . ”
Nat doesn’t respond.
Sadie motions for us to be silent. We wait a painfully long time and then suddenly Nat offers: “When I have a Sadie nice day, I get a new button.”
“Good, Natalie!” Sadie’s voice is buoyant.
Nat rubs her hand over one of her sewn-on buttons.
“Maybe you’ll get more buttons,” Annie offers. “When you come home next weekend, maybe you’ll have more.”
“More buttons, more,” Natalie repeats. “I am—”
“I am what?” Sadie pounces on this beginning. Her face is up close to Nat’s.
But Natalie lets it drop. Whatever she is right now, she isn’t going to say.
“What we’re working on here, Moose,” Sadie explains, “is keeping her engaged and a part of the conversation. We can’t let her float off into her own world.”
“She doesn’t float off in her own world with me,” Theresa says proudly.
Sadie smiles. “You’re the neighbor girl, right?”
Theresa beams. “Do you want to play button checkers?” she asks Natalie, laying out her hand-drawn checkerboard.
Natalie touches each button as Theresa sets it out. When she finishes, she starts again, following the exact same pattern of touching as before. When she’s done this time, she nods, almost to herself, and she and Theresa play.
After Natalie has won two games—even with our coaching, Theresa is no match for her—she begins twisting the buttons on her dress one way, then the other.
“I am—I am—” Nat’s voice is stiff with unnatural pauses. She drags her toe against the carpet and against the carpet again. Her eyes move back and forth in her head like she’s trying to make the room spin away.
Sadie looks up from her paperwork. “I am what?” she asks.
“I am . . . Natalie angry,” Nat says in the same mechanical way.
“She says she’s angry,” Theresa explains.
“I am angry,” Sadie corrects.
“I am angry,” Natalie repeats.
“Yes, you surely are,” Sadie says, her eyes keen and clear on Natalie. “Who are you angry with?”
Natalie’s head goes down again. She pinches the skin of her arm. “Angry at Mommy. Angry at Moose.”
“Me? What did I do?” I ask.
Nat doesn’t answer.
“You made her say that,” I tell Sadie before I can stop myself.
“I did nothing of the kind,” Sadie replies.
“Moose,” Annie warns in a low voice.
“Why is she angry?” I ask.
“You just left her in this place,” Annie murmurs.
“Yeah, but it’s for her own good,” I shoot back defensively.
“Doesn’t mean she won’t be angry,” Annie explains.
“Okay, okay,” I say. “But I don’t think she’s really mad at me.”
“I sure would be mad at you if you sent me away.” Theresa makes puppy dog eyes.
“You don’t understand,” I insist.
“We ask an awful lot of our students here, Moose.” Sadie neatens her stack of paperwork. “When you’ve spent your whole life one way, it isn’t easy to change. We are proud of how well Natalie is doing with us. She’s made a remarkable start.”
“Yeah,” Annie whispers, “she has.”
“She’s trying. I hope you see that. Part of what we’re striving for here is to give Natalie a way to control herself. Because once those blades inside her get to spinning, it’s just too hard for her to stop herself.”
“Why is she mad at me though?” I demand. “Natalie never gets mad at me. Natalie, you never get mad at me,” I tell her.
“Natalie never gets mad at me,” Natalie echoes.
“Use your words, Natalie. Your words, not someone else’s. I . . . I . . .” Sadie opens her mouth and enunciates in a way that makes me want to slap her face.
“Moose . . .” Nat dips her chin down before Sadie can stop her. “Moose, I missed Moose,” she says in a voice so low I almost don’t hear it.