Chapter 1. - THE CREAM OF THE CRIMINAL CROP
Chapter 2. - THE SECRET PASSAGEWAY
Chapter 3. - WILLY ONE ARM
Chapter 4. - MURDERERS AND MADMEN
Chapter 5. - AUNTIE’S REVENGE
Chapter 6. - WHAT CAPONE WANTS
Chapter 7. - ITCHY ALL OVER
Chapter 8. - ICEBOX FLY
Chapter 9. - THAT YOUR BOY, BOSS?
Chapter 10. - A DANGEROUS GAME
Chapter 11. - A ROOMFUL OF WIND-UP TOYS
Chapter 12. - THE IRISH WAY
Chapter 13. - EVERYBODY LIKES MOOSE
Chapter 14. - DEAD TWELVE-YEAR-OLDS
Chapter 15. - MAE CAPONE IS A LOOKER
Chapter 16. - PINEAPPLE UPSIDE-DOWN CAKE
Chapter 17. - PIXIE GUARD #1
Chapter 18. - KISSING A DEAD SQUID
Chapter 19. - DRUNK IN THE GUARD TOWER
Chapter 20. - WELKUM HOM NADALEE
Chapter 21. - SHINY BUTTONS
Chapter 22. - TOILET’S STOPPED UP
Chapter 23. - SEVEN FINGERS’S CANDY BARS
Chapter 24. - A DEAL WITH THE WARDEN’S DAUGHTER
Chapter 25. - THE BAD GUYS ARE LOCKED UP
Chapter 26. - AL CAPONE IS THE WAITER
Chapter 27. - THROW, CATCH, THROW, CATCH
Chapter 28. - PIG HALF IN THE POKE
Chapter 29. - A SWEET SPOT FOR MOOSE
Chapter 30. - WHY ARE BOYS SPECIAL?
Chapter 31. - THE WARDEN’S PARTY
Chapter 32. - THE GOOD PRISONER
Chapter 33. - OUTSIDE THE WARDEN’S HOUSE
Chapter 34. - THE BOSS
Chapter 35. - THE PIXIE JAILER PLAYGROUND
Chapter 36. - KIDS ON THE ROCK
Chapter 37. - THE YELLOW DRESS
AUTHOR’S NOTE
NOTES
Acknowledgements
DIAL BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS
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Copyright © 2009 by Gennifer Choldenko
This is a work of fiction. All names, characters, places, organizations, and events portrayed
in this book are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously to lend a
sense of realism to the story.
eISBN : 978-1-101-15578-3
1. United States Penitentiary, Alcatraz Island, California—Juvenile fiction. [1. United States
Penitentiary, Alcatraz Island, California—Fiction. 2. Alcatraz Island (Calif.)—History—20th
century—Fiction. 3. Autism—Fiction. 4. Brothers and sisters—Fiction.]
I. Title. PZ7.C446265Ap 2009 [Fic]—dc22
2009004157
To my brother,
GREY CATTELL JOHNSON,
who is every bit as kind as Moose
1.
THE CREAM OF THE CRIMINAL CROP
Monday, August 5, 1935
Nothing is the way it’s supposed to be when you live on an island with a billion birds, a ton of bird crap, a few dozen rifles, machine guns, and automatics, and 278 of America’s worst criminals—“the cream of the criminal crop” as one of our felons likes to say. The convicts on Alcatraz are rotten to the core, crazy in the head, and as slippery as eels in axle grease.
And then there’s me. Moose Flanagan. I live on Alcatraz along with twenty-four other kids and one more on the way. My father works as a prison guard and an electrician in the cell house up top. I live where most of us “civilians” do, in 64 building, which is dockside on the east side of Alcatraz—a base hit from the mobster Al Capone.
Not many twelve-year-old boys can say that. Not many kids can say that when their toilet is stopped up, they get Seven Fingers, the ax murderer, to help them out, either. Even simple things are upside down and backwards here. Take getting my socks washed. Every Wednesday we put out our dirty laundry in big white bags marked with our name: FLANAGAN. Every Monday our clothes come back starched, pressed, folded, and smelling of soap and flour. They look like my mom washed them for me.
Except she didn’t.
My laundry man is Alcatraz #85: Al Capone. He has help, of course. Machine Gun Kelly works right alongside him in the laundry along with thirty other no-name hit men, con men, mad dog murderers, and a handful of bank robbers too.
They do a good job washing the clothes for us and most everyone else on the island. But sometimes they do a little extra.
The cons don’t care for Officer Trixle, so his laundry doesn’t return the same way as everyone else’s. His shirts are missing buttons, underwear is stiff with starch or dyed pansy pink, pants are missing