I’m already running up the steps with Piper right behind me. Mattaman can see us here too, only not as easily or as clearly. But right now I don’t care about Mattaman. I just want to find Natalie.

We tear up out of the tower guard’s sight lines and take the shortcut to Piper’s house. At least the passmen won’t be at the warden’s house. Thank God they don’t work at night.

When we get to Piper’s doorstep, heaving from the uphill run, Piper pulls open the door, slips inside, and slams the door in my face. “Wait here,” her muffled voice barks from inside the house.

“Hey.” I shove open the door.

“No!” She squeezes it shut again and turns the lock.

I pound on the door. “Piper!” I yell. Then I run around to the back door and shove myself against it. This door opens easily and I almost fall into the kitchen.

A bed has been moved inside the large kitchen along with bags of fluids and containers of pills. Mrs. Williams is lying on the bed, a thin cover over her enormous stomach, her skin as gray as dead fish, and a smell like overripe peaches is hanging in the air. Doc Ollie’s sister is running a washcloth across Piper’s mom’s forehead.

“Moose?” Doc Ollie’s sister looks up in surprise.

“I found her! She’s here!” Piper yells from another part of the house. Relief shoots through my system.

I duck out the back door, but not fast enough. Piper has run around the house looking for me. She sees me come out the back door.

“I told you not to go in.” Piper’s voice drops suddenly as Natalie comes around the house.

“Natalie,” I say, so glad to see her, my insides ache with relief.

“I told you!” Piper shouts.

“Yeah but-” I mumble, staring at Piper, whose face is half lit by the glow of the big yellow moon.

“Stop looking like that!” She shoves me.

“Like what?” I mutter, wondering how I’m supposed to look.

“Stop!” Piper’s nails are ready to scratch my eyes out. “My mom is fine. Buddy said so.” Her voice breaks.

“Okay,” I whisper.

It’s quiet up here-a world away from the party below. Only the sound of the night crickets and a distant boat horn. Piper looks as if she might burst. “Hey, I believe you,” I whisper in my most soothing voice.

Piper lunges at me again. “She is.”

“Okay, all right.” I lift my arms in the cool night air.

Tears stream down Piper’s face. “I told you to stop looking that way! She’s fine!” Piper sobs. “She’s just going to have a baby. That’s all.” Piper is crumpled over like an empty dress. “Say it!” she cries, her voice choked with sobs.

“She’s fine, Piper,” I tell her. Natalie is rocking from one foot to another, her eyes scanning Piper and then the ground, Piper and then the ground.

Piper’s eyes spit like bacon on the griddle. “You think you know everything. But you don’t. Everyone hates you, Moose.”

“Everyone hates you, Moose,” Nat repeats. “Not Natalie. Not me,” Nat mutters, touching her chest.

Piper ignores Natalie. “Jimmy does. You treat him like an imbecile because he doesn’t like baseball.”

“I don’t treat him like a-”

“Why do you think he’s trying so hard to learn to play?”

I grind my teeth.

“Yeah. Annie’s teaching him. And Annie… you only like her because she has a great throwing arm.”

“There are lots of things I like about Annie,” I whisper. “Piper, you’re just upset. Don’t take it out on me.”

“Yeah, name one. Name one thing you like about Annie.”

“She’s nice. She’s smart. I can trust her.”

“If she couldn’t play baseball, you wouldn’t be her friend.”

“That’s not true.”

“Yeah, it is, and Scout hates you because you’re always sure he’s after me.”

“Well, he is after you.”

“You don’t know anything, do you?” she lashes out at me. “You’re a complete moron like your sister. It runs in your family.” She glares at Natalie, the tears streaming down her face.

“You’re a moron!” Piper screams at Natalie.

“Shut up!” I can’t help myself. Nobody says this to Natalie. Nobody. But then the scene in the kitchen flashes through my mind. The gray, sick, drawn face. The sickly sweet rotting smell.

“What’s wrong with your mom, Piper?” I whisper.

“Nothing!” she screams. “Nothing is wrong!”

But the louder she screams, the more she sees I don’t believe her. She shoves me away. “Can’t you see, you moron? Nothing is wrong!” She turns and runs into the house.

When Natalie and I get back down to 64 building, Mrs. Mattaman is waiting for us outside our apartment. I’m not sure what Mrs. Mattaman knows and what she doesn’t know, but from the way her eyes are squinting and her foot is tapping, she’s clearly hopping mad. “Go straight to bed, you two.” Her voice is cold and hard. “I will be back in half an hour to check on you, and you had better be in bed snoring, do you understand me? My kids have no school tomorrow. What about you, Moose?”

I shake my head. It’s peculiar we would all be off when it isn’t a holiday. Normally I’d be happy about this, but with Mrs. Mattaman so burnt up, I wish I did have school.

“When Mr. Mattaman gets off at eight tomorrow morning you, Moose, will report to our apartment. You and Theresa and Jimmy have a lot of explaining to do, you hear me? Pulling shenanigans on an important night like this… shame on you!” She waves her fancy jeweled purse at me.

“Mrs. Mattaman?” I ask as she turns to leave. “Is Piper’s mom okay?”

Mrs. Mattaman stops, her chest heaving. “I dunno, Moose,” she says without turning back. “I really don’t know.”

Monday, September 9, 1935

The next morning when I wake up, Natalie is staring over me, peering into my eyes like she’s doing a wake-up spell.

“What is it?” I ask.

Natalie says nothing, but I can see by the way she’s digging her chin in her chest that she’s anxious.

I wonder what she made of what happened last night. Did she know she wasn’t supposed to go to the warden’s house? Did she understand why Piper was yelling at me? Does she know what the word moron means? It would be a lot easier to feel sad for Piper if she wasn’t so mean.

Natalie stays with me as if she is suddenly glued to my side. I have to go in the bathroom and close the door in her face to get changed. When I’m done, she’s waiting right outside.

In the kitchen, we hear my dad rattling around. What does he know about last night, I wonder. I’d rather he find out about it from me, but maybe he won’t have to hear about it at all. Maybe the Mattamans will want to keep this quiet. Mrs. Caconi too. I’m sure she’d prefer if my parents didn’t know Natalie disappeared on her watch.

“What’s your plan this morning?” Natalie asks when she sees our dad.

We both look at her as if the stove just spoke. This is what my father usually asks. Slowly, my father’s face changes from surprise to pleasure.

“Gonna make myself some breakfast,” he tells Natalie. “And you, sweet pea?”

“Moose,” she mutters. “Stay with Moose.”

“Mrs. Mattaman invited us over,” I tell him.

“For breakfast?” He cocks his head and sets the coffeepot down.

“Uh-huh. Dad, what’s happening with Mrs. Williams?”

My dad shrugs. “It’s hard to know. The warden likes to play things close to the vest.”

My mother pokes her head in the kitchen.

“Piper’s mom… is she okay?” I ask her.

My mother rubs her eyes and tightens the cord on her bathrobe. “We’re all worried.” She sighs. “You hear something?”

I can’t tell her what I saw without explaining what in the heck I was doing up there. I wish I could, though. I really wish I could.

At the Mattamans’ the first person we see is Riv Mattaman. The whites of his eyes are shot through with pink and his legs are kicked over the arm of the chair, as if he’s too tired to sit the normal way. Mattaman did a shift and a half in the guard tower. No wonder he’s beat.