Al Capone Shines My Shoes (Tales from Alcatraz, Band 2) - Softcover

Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Gennifer Choldenko is the New York Times bestselling and Newbery Honor Award-winning author of ten children's books, including Notes From a Liar and Her Dog, If a Tree Falls at Lunch Period, No Passengers Beyond this Point, Al Capone Does My Shirts, Al Capone Shines My Shoes, and Al Capone Does My Homework. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area with her family.

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The big question . . .

I don’t know for certain it was Capone who helped us. I mean the guy is locked up in a five-by-nine-foot cell. He’s not allowed to make a phone call or write a letter that isn’t censored word for word. It doesn’t seem possible he could have done anything to help us, even if he wanted to.

But out of desperation, I sent a letter asking Capone for help and Natalie got accepted. Then I got a note in the pocket of my newly laundered shirt. Done, it said.

I haven’t told anyone about this. It’s something I try not to think about, but today, the day Nat’s finally leaving for school, I can’t keep my mind from going over the details again and again.

The thing that stumps me is why. I never even met Al Capone . . . why would he help me?

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PUFFIN BOOKS

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First published in the United States of America by Dial Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2009

Published by Puffin Books, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2011

Copyright © Gennifer Choldenko, 2009

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE DIAL BOOKS EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

Choldenko, Gennifer, date.

Al Capone shines my shoes / Gennifer Choldenko.

p. cm.

Summary: Moose Flanagan, who lives on Alcatraz with his family and the families of the other prison guards, is frightened when he discovers that noted gangster Al Capone, a prisoner there, wants a favor in return for the help that he secretly gave Moose. Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN: 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

The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Table of Contents

The big question

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Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

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

Discussion Guide for Al Capone Shines My Shoes

An Excerpt from Al Capone Does My Homework

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 a cuff or the fly is sewn shut so the guy can’t even take a leak unless he pulls his pants down like a little girl.

I can’t say the cons are wrong about Officer Trixle. Darby Trixle is the kind of guy who only his wife likes—and not that much either. Last Saturday my best friend Jimmy Mattaman and I were looking for a barrel for Jimmy’s fly...