Alabama Moon (9 page)

My stomach had started to feel a little better by the time the rest of the boys came back. Kit saw me on my bed and came over. “Why didn't you come to the rec room?”

“Stomach hurt,” I said.

“You ate too much.”

I didn't answer.

“Hal came and talked to us through the window,” Kit said. “He said he's gonna tear into you as soon as he gets a chance.”

“I'm not scared of him.”

“You oughta be. He's the toughest one in here. He's almost fourteen. They're gonna send him to Hellenweiler in a couple of weeks. One time, he hit a guy in the gut so hard he threw up.”

“Pap says I can whip anybody three times my size.”

“That's a good thing.”

“I know. I've been learnin' that.”

Some other boys walked over and stood behind Kit. They all watched me. One tall boy with red hair and freckles said my name.

“What?” I said.

“What's it like to be famous?”

“I don't know.”

“They've got you all over the TV. We watched it in the rec room. They said you beat up a constable.”

“I didn't beat him up good enough. He still got me. Threw my wheelbarrow in the swamp. Threw my hat in the road. Took my rifle and all my livin' stuff.”

“Do you really live in a cave?” another boy asked me.

“No, it's a shelter that's built low to the ground.”

“What did you eat out there?”

“Coons and deer and stuff we grew. Things that came out of the forest.”

“Did you have to go to school?”

I shook my head. “Pap got me some books. I learned with him.”

“Can you read?”

“Yeah.”

“Write?”

“Yeah. Morse code, too.”

“They gonna take you to jail, or you stayin' here?”

“I'm gonna bust out as soon as I find a way.”

“You can't bust out of here,” Kit said.

“I can get out of most anything. Pap used to trap me like I was a coon and snare me twenty feet up in a magnolia tree. I'd be up the rope and down the tree before he could go touch the shelter and get back.”

“Must have been fun living out there!”

“Better than being in here like a penned-up bird dog.”

“Hal's gonna kill you,” another boy said.

“Kit already told me about it.”

Suddenly we heard Mr. Carter standing at the entrance to the bunk room and hammering on the wall with his club. “Lights out, everybody! Get in your bunks.”

Some of the boys mumbled complaints as they made their way back to their beds. I looked over at the window, and Hal was still there, staring in at me. I turned my head and went to sleep.

 

Mr. Gene woke us by beating on the door just after daybreak. I reached to my feet and grabbed my uniform, which I'd balled up under the covers, and jumped down. Kit came over and stood in front of me.

“We've got showers now,” he said.

“I already took one yesterday.”

“We have to take them every morning.”

“Okay,” I said. “I don't mind.”

I stripped down like all the other boys and followed Kit into the shower room. I waited in line until it was my turn to walk under the water. It was warm this time and I let it run over me. Kit stepped under the shower beside me and tapped me on the shoulder. He pointed to the soap. “Rub that on you,” he said.

I took the soap and rubbed it on my arms and chest like Kit. Then I closed my eyes and let it rinse off.

“Hurry up!” somebody behind me said.

Kit tapped me on the shoulder again and I opened my eyes. “Come on,” he said. “The breakfast bell's gonna ring soon.”

We wrapped ourselves in towels and returned to our bunks. I grabbed my uniform off the floor where I'd left it.

“We've got lockers, you know,” Kit said.

“I know. I put some books in there.”

“You're supposed to keep your clothes in it, too.”

“I don't care. I'm not gonna be here long enough to need a place to put clothes.”

“Can I come with you?”

“I don't care who comes.”

“Where are you going?”

“Alaska.”

Kit's eyes grew wide. “Man!”

I zipped up my uniform and sat on the edge of the bottom bunk. “Gonna find more people that don't like the government.”

“Are there lots of them up there?”

“That's what Pap said.”

“Why do you hate the government?”

I thought for a second. “Because they never gave me anything,” I said. “And they think we owe 'em somethin'.”

“Sounds like it would be fun to live on your own.”

“Then you should come with me.”

“How are we gonna get out of here?”

“I don't know yet. Where's Mr. Carter?”

“He comes at lunch and leaves at midnight.”

“Good. I think he might be able to outrun me . . . Mr. Gene here the rest of the time?”

“He lives here. His house is connected to the back of the building.”

Mr. Gene walked into the room again and crossed the floor. He opened the door to the play yard and Hal came in. His clothes were dusty and his hair was cowlicked over to the side. He glared at me as he walked to his bunk.

“You're in for it now,” Kit said.

Mr. Gene watched Hal. “We don't want any more trouble out of you, Hal. You hear?”

Hal didn't answer.

“Hal, don't make us punish you again!”

“I hear you,” Hal said.

Mr. Gene shook his head and walked out of the room. Hal spun around and looked at me. “I'm gonna get my chance at you,” he whispered.

“All right,” I said.

Hal glared at me for a second longer and then headed for the showers. I stood and followed Kit to the dining hall. We sat next to each other and ate a breakfast of eggs, bacon, grits, toast, and orange juice.

“They always have food this good?”

“Most people don't think it's so good.”

“I think it's the best I've ever had. Better than jail.”

“Don't eat too much again.”

“I'm tryin' not to, but it's hard. I've never had people cookin' me all I could eat.”

Mrs. Broomstead walked up to our table and gave Kit a
small cup with a white tablet in it. Kit dumped the pill on his tongue and washed it down with water.

“What is that?”

“My medicine.”

“How often do you take it?”

“Every day.”

“What does it do to you?”

“It helps me stay well. I won't need it much longer.” He shrugged, then asked, “What trailer are you in for class?”

“Number two.”

“Me too. Are they gonna make you cut your hair?”

I nodded with my mouth full.

“How'd you cut it when you lived in the forest?”

I chewed fast and swallowed. “Pap jammed his hat down over my head and burned around the edges with a candle.”

“Hurt?”

“No, but it stunk real bad.”

“You didn't have scissors?”

“Yeah, we had scissors. We had most everything you'd need to cut and sew things. Sometimes he'd cut my hair with scissors when it got too thick.”

“You know how to sew?”

“I can make some beaver britches that'll keep rain and stickers off. I made my own deerskin hat.”

“I've always wanted a coonskin hat. Is it like that?”

“Yep. Tail and all. Soon as I get out of here, I'll get a deer and make you and me one.”

Kit smiled. I could tell he was thinking about the deerskin hat. I caught myself eating too fast again and set my fork down. I heard laughing and looked up to see Hal coming
into the dining hall. His hair was wet and he smiled like he didn't care that he'd gotten into trouble. He didn't look at me, but sat down with another group of boys across the room.

“What did he do to get in here?” I asked Kit.

“Most people didn't do anything. Most of us just don't have parents. I think Hal's got parents, but they won't let him stay with them.”

“The government?”

“Yeah.”

“How come?”

“I don't know.”

“What about you?” I asked.

“I didn't ever know my parents.”

“You lived here your whole life?”

“No, I've lived lots of places,” he said. “I saw on the news that your daddy died. What about your momma?”

“She died when I was little. I don't hardly remember her. Sometimes yellow finches remind me of her.”

Kit thought about that for a minute, then went back to his breakfast. Before long, Mr. Gene told us to go to our lockers and get our things for school. I said goodbye to Kit and headed for the kitchen. Not far from the serving slot was a door of the same thick wire that made up the rest of the kitchen wall. I walked through the door and saw Mrs. Broomstead making a list at a small table in the back of the kitchen. When she saw me, she stood and pointed in the direction I'd come from. “Nobody steps in this kitchen without me knowin' about it first,” she said.

“Mr. Gene told—”

“Get back out there and wait until I call for you,” she snapped.

I did what she said and returned to the dining hall. In a few minutes she appeared again and motioned for me to follow her through the kitchen. We ended up in a small room with no windows and boxes of food stacked against the wall. At the opposite end of the room was a steel door with no alarm signs. Mrs. Broomstead grabbed a metal chair and set it out for me. She motioned for me to sit, then got beside me and pulled scissors from her apron pocket.

“You're that boy that lived in the forest, aren't you?”

“Yes ma'am.”

“They say you're mean.”

“I'm not mean.”

“That's good. You sit still and stay that way.”

“Okay.”

“I ain't never seen such hair,” she said.

“Me and Pap wear it long in the winter to keep warm. We wear it short in the summer so bugs don't get in it and so we keep cool.”

She got behind me, and I felt her fingers moving through my hair and gathering it. “Better not be bugs in there now,” she said.

“There's nothin' livin' in there.”

“Hmph.”

I heard the scissors snipping and felt my hair getting tugged. Mrs. Broomstead smelled like something in Mr. Abroscotto's store. I was trying to figure out what it was when the steel door opened from the outside and a man entered the room carrying a box.

“Where you want it?” he asked.

Mrs. Broomstead put the scissors back in her pocket and showed the man a place to put the box. “You do haircuts, too?” he asked her.

She frowned. “Seems like I do most everything around here. What else have you got for me?”

“Milk, eggs, flour, cheese, peanut butter. We've got some boxes of mashed potatoes we'll bring later.”

Mrs. Broomstead waved her hands in the air. “Just put it wherever and I'll arrange it all later on. I've got too much to do right now.”

“Yes ma'am.”

“And don't forget to pull that door shut when you leave.”

The man continued to bring boxes of supplies through the door while Mrs. Broomstead finished my haircut. When she was done, she brushed her palms against her sides and told me to put my chair against the wall, get my books and jacket from my locker, and get to my classroom trailer. On the way back I rubbed my hand over my new haircut and buzzed with excitement. Short hair was fine with me. I'd just discovered a piece of my escape plan.

 

I was fifteen minutes late for class when I walked into the trailer. There were eight boys in the ten- and eleven-year-old group, and they laughed when I came in. I felt my new haircut and smiled back at them. Mrs. Crutcher stood at the
front of the room before the chalkboard and waited for me to find a chair. She was young and pretty, with her hair pulled into a ponytail.

“Everyone get quiet,” she said. “This is our new student, Moon Blake.”

“They all know me,” I said.

“Very well, Moon. I'm Mrs. Crutcher. Why don't you go ahead and sit down and tell us about yourself.”

I sat in the chair and put my books on top of the desk. Everyone was staring at me, and I felt jittery. “What do you wanna know?”

“Where are you from?”

Everyone started to laugh again until Mrs. Crutcher held up her hand for them to be quiet. “The forest,” I said.

She got a surprised look on her face. “The forest?”

“Yes ma'am.”

“Let's don't be silly, Moon.”

“He is from the forest,” Kit said. “He's the one on TV.”

Mrs. Crutcher put her hands on her hips and narrowed her eyes at me. “They sure did clean you up,” she said.

“Took three showers. Got my hair cut by Mrs. Broomstead.”

Mrs. Crutcher walked to my desk and looked down at my schoolbooks. “When was the last time you attended school?” she asked suspiciously.

“This is my first time.”

The other kids began laughing again as Mrs. Crutcher's eyes grew wide. She turned in a circle with her finger to her lips and they grew quiet.

“Well,” she continued, “we've got our work cut out for us. Do you know how to read?”

I nodded. “Read to myself and write, and I know most anything you can ask me about animals. Pap said he taught me more than I'd get at school.”

“Very well, why don't you help us out by turning your reader to page sixty-seven and reading the first page to us.”

“Okay,” I said. I opened the book to page sixty-seven.

“Do you mind reading out loud from the front of the room?”

“I don't mind readin' from anywhere.” I went to stand before the chalkboard and read about a boy and his yellow dog. I enjoyed the story and smiled as I read it. When I was done, Mrs. Crutcher nodded. “That was very nice, Moon.”