“105?” my father says as a gust of wind blows his officer’s cap off.

“The gardener. He worked over here. Piper said he got released from Terminal Island a few weeks ago.”

“Oh yes, Onion. Why in the Sam Hill are you worried about him?”

“Because…” My voice trails off. I’m about to tell him how Seven Fingers said he knew where she slept. On the island? At the Esther P. Marinoff? Which is worse? I don’t even know.

“Because?” my father prompts.

“I dunno, I just-what if 105 visited Natalie at school?”

My father stares at me. “What on earth makes you think he’d do that?”

“I had a… a dream. A nightmare.”

He breathes out a huge gush of air. “For Pete’s sake, Moose. You had me goin’ there for a minute.”

“Could he find her?” I ask.

“Why would he want to, son? She doesn’t have money. We don’t have money. They could kidnap her, I suppose, but it wouldn’t be worth their while. She’s safer there than she is almost anywhere.”

“What about here then?”

“Moose, look at me.” He waits until my eyes connect with his. “I’d never bring my family on this island if I thought there was any real danger. That cell house is sealed up tight as a drum. Try to stop worrying so much. Ollie thinks your nerves could be triggering the hives.”

I find a smooth rock and sail it into the bay. “I don’t trust Seven Fingers.”

“Good! I wouldn’t want you to trust him.”

I find another rock and throw it as hard as I can. “I don’t want him in our apartment.”

My father nods. “Don’t much like him there myself. I wish those city plumbers didn’t cost an arm and a leg… But you know what? Our plumbing problems never seem to get that much better. It’s occurred to me that old Seven Fingers likes his chocolate bars a little too much.” He fishes in his pocket for a new toothpick.

Sometimes it feels like our life is made out of toothpicks and if I pull one out, the whole thing will collapse.

“I like the way you’re thinking all of this through. Sometimes life throws you a curveball. You can’t always accept what other people tell you; you have to reason it out for yourself.

“Once when Natalie was little, a doctor told us what she had was contagious. If we kept her at home with us, you could catch it from her. He said we should send her away to a ranch in Arizona where she would be quarantined so as not to infect others.

“You were so healthy. Everything I ever wanted in a son.” He sighs and presses his lips tight together. “I couldn’t risk you getting this terrible thing she has, this blackness that eats her up from the inside. But I couldn’t ship my daughter off like she was no more than livestock. I went around and around trying to reason it out, but in my gut I knew the answer. I wasn’t going to send Natalie off like that. If she were infectious, wouldn’t we have caught it already? The next week we went to another doctor who said there was no evidence her condition was contagious. None at all.

“You got a good noggin.” He knocks on my head with his fist. “I’m not worried about you.”

“And Natalie?” I whisper. “You worried about her?”

He looks out across the bay to San Francisco. The streets are so straight and orderly over there. Everything makes sense in the city.

“Her life isn’t gonna go the expected way. But just because she doesn’t see the world like you and me doesn’t mean she isn’t getting just as much out of her days as we do. Who are we to say what life’s supposed to be about, Moose? Who are we to say that?”

Same day-Saturday, September 7, 1935

First things first. I have to get my dad and Mr. Mattaman off probation. Then if something happens, they won’t automatically be fired. This means I need to talk to Piper. I still don’t think she’s the culprit, but everybody else is sure she is.

I consider taking Jimmy to Piper’s, but I decide against it. It will be better if she doesn’t feel we’re ganging up on her.

Okay, there’s another reason too. It has to do with how her ears poke out of her hair and the softness of her skin-like a brand-new baseball, only better.

I’m on my way up to the warden’s house, a warm wind battering me backwards, making it twice as hard to walk uphill, when my mom waves me down. She has her hat and her gloves on, and her music satchel is tucked under her arm. “We’ve been looking all over for you, Moose,” she says. “Could you keep an eye on Natalie for a few hours? I just got a call from a family in the city. They want me to interview this afternoon… four private lessons at full freight… now that’s good money.”

“Now? I was just headed for Piper’s house.”

My mom’s face clouds. “I need to get a move on,” she says. “I have to give myself time to find the place.”

“Could I take Natalie along?” I don’t look directly at my mom when I ask this. I’m afraid of what she’ll say.

“To the warden’s house?” My mother’s voice is incredulous.

“She’s been there before with me,” I wheedle.

“Yeah, but with Mrs. Williams feeling so poorly, I don’t think it’s a good time. And you know Daddy’s still on probation, Moose.”

I’m itching to tell her that’s exactly why I need to go up there. I want her to know this isn’t kid stuff, but I’m afraid she’ll say this is Daddy’s business, not mine. “Mom, it’s important.”

She takes a deep breath and asks, “Why?”

“What if Dad says it’s okay?” This is a gamble. Sometimes it makes my mom mad when I suggest consulting with my dad, as if her opinion isn’t enough.

“Let’s see what he has to say,” she answers, hurrying on her high heels to the electric shop.

So far so good, I think as she pokes her head in the electric shop door. “ Cam!” she says. “I have a chance at four new privates but I need to go in and interview this afternoon. What do you think about Moose taking Natalie up to the warden’s house?”

My father is up on a stepladder, pulling down a wooden soda pop crate where he keeps nails and screws and bolts organized by size. He fishes his hand in one of the squares. “What business do you have up there? And how long will it take?”

“I have to talk to Piper and it won’t take long. An hour maybe.”

“You’ll keep a close eye on your sister?”

“Of course.”

“You can handle this, right, Moose?” He jingles wing nuts in his hand.

“I can handle it,” I tell him.

My father nods to my mother but doesn’t meet her eyes. “We can’t keep her locked up in the house all week, Helen.”

My mom’s bottom lip puckers out.

“Sadie will read us the riot act if we don’t let her go with the other kids,” my dad continues. “You know that as well as I do.”

My mother nods a small unwilling okay to me. She watches me and Nat walk up the switchback. I know she’s worried about Natalie, like always, but there’s something else in her eyes-something I’m not used to seeing She’s worried about me too.

In the distance, the boarding whistle blows and the buck sergeant hollers last call. I hear the clickety-click of her high heels as she runs down to the dock, clutching her music bag in one hand and keeping her hat on her head with the other.

Natalie walks along at her own pace oblivious to the gusty wind that picks up a leaf and blows it against her cheek. She operates out of her own cocoon, which she takes with her wherever she goes. She doesn’t follow me, lead me, or walk by my side but seems to drift along like we are caught in the same gust of wind. I explain we’ll be visiting Piper. I tell her if she’s good, I will bake her a lemon cake.

She appears to be ignoring me, but then I hear her say almost to herself, “No bake.”

I laugh. Natalie knows I can’t cook. I once tried to bake her alphabet cookies and they were so hard you could shoe horses with them.