Jailbird Kid Read online

  Jailbird Kid

  ALSO BY SHIRLEE SMITH MATHESON

  NONFICTION

  Youngblood of the Peace

  This Was Our Valley

  Flying the Frontiers Volume I:

  A Half-Million Hours of Aviation Adventure

  Flying the Frontiers Volume II:

  More Hours of Aviation Adventure

  Flying the Frontiers Volume III:

  Aviation Adventures Around the World

  A Western Welcome to the World:

  The History of Calgary International Airport

  Lost: True Stories of Canadian Aviation Tragedies

  Maverick in the Sky:

  The Aerial Adventures of WWI Flying Ace Freddie McCall

  Amazing Flights and Flyers

  TEEN FICTION

  Prairie Pictures

  City Pictures

  Flying Ghosts

  The Gambler’s Daughter

  Keeper of the Mountains

  Fastback Beach

  Jailbird Kid

  Shirlee Smith Matheson

  DUNDURN PRESS

  TORONTO

  Copyright © Shirlee Smith Matheson, 2010

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise (except for brief passages for purposes of review) without the prior permission of Dundurn Press. Permission to photocopy should be requested from Access Copyright.

  Editor: Michael Carroll

  Design: Jennifer Scott

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Matheson, Shirlee Smith

  Jailbird kid / by Shirlee Smith Matheson.

  ISBN 978-1-55488-704-0

  I. Title.

  PS8576.A823J34 2010

  jC813’.54

  C2009-907473-7

  We acknowledge the support of the Canada Council for the Arts and the Ontario Arts Council for our publishing program. We also acknowledge the financial support of the Government of Canada through the Canada Book Fund and The Association for the Export of Canadian Books, and the Government of Ontario through the Ontario Book Publishers Tax Credit program, and the Ontario Media Development Corporation.

  Care has been taken to trace the ownership of copyright material used in this book. The author and the publisher welcome any information enabling them to rectify any references or credits in subsequent editions.

  J. Kirk Howard, President

  www.dundurn.com

  Dundurn Press

  3 Church Street, Suite 500

  Toronto, Ontario, Canada

  M5E 1M2

  Gazelle Book Services Limited

  White Cross Mills

  High Town, Lancaster, England

  LA1 4XS

  Dundurn Press

  2250 Military Road

  Tonawanda, NY

  U.S.A. 14150

  To Devon. And to families like Angela’s:

  Per ardua ad astra —

  “through adversity to the stars.”

  1

  Birds

  Today at school our grade nine teacher, Mrs. Madsen, made me stand on my desk while everyone sang “Happy Birthday.” I hated it. I didn’t want people to notice me.

  I looked over at my friend, Ryan Phelps, and he gave me a high-five.

  Ryan was crazy about computers and always put in extra time in the computer lab. He had a powerful computer at home, too, with a million games on it. He, Hannah Singer, and I were always on Instant Messenger, which was easier than phoning because we could all talk at once. When Ryan was online, he was “Judge Dredd.” Hannah was “Perfect Pliés,” since she was totally into ballet; she’d been doing it for years. I came on as “B-Phlat,” as in a music note — not my body, please! My mom, who once played in a country music band, was teaching me to play the guitar. I’d had enough sorrow and heartbreak and crazy stuff in my life already to write a hundred country songs.

  My friends and I were all really different, but it was just us three that hung together. Ryan was tall and skinny and wore what he felt most comfortable in, usually a hoodie and jeans. Hannah was quite beautiful and dressed very smart. And me, I was sort of in the middle — mostly casual, but I liked to look nice, too. That came from my mom. She was very classy.

  But, in fact, I told nobody here about my “private life,” not even Ryan or Hannah — especially Hannah because her dad was a bank manager and, well, my private story just wouldn’t go over very well if she told her parents.

  “Why aren’t you having a birthday party, Angela?” Hannah asked me at the fifteen-minute break between classes.

  “Oh, Mom’s too busy. She’s been working long hours. I’ll have a party later, maybe in the summer holidays.”

  “Sounds great.”

  Hannah gave me a cool present — a beautiful necklace with little bird charms made from jewels and tumbled rocks. Hannah’s mom was an artist. She made all sorts of jewellery — bracelets and rings and things like this cool necklace.

  Hannah became my first friend when Mom and I moved from our too-small hometown into this small but bigger city when I was in grade seven. When we came here and rented our little house, I made up a story. Okay, a lie. I said my dad was working out of town and wasn’t home much.

  The truth was, my dad’s release date from prison, and my fifteenth birthday, fall on the same day: June 5.

  There was no way I could have a birthday party. What would I do if my friends and I were playing games and Dad walked in? What would he be like after two years? I’d have to stop everything, say “Hi!” as if he’d just been out for a walk, and introduce him to my friends. “Hey, this is my dad. He just got out of jail.”

  The day of my birthday was so hot you could fry eggs on the sidewalk. I walked home from school, wearing my new necklace and carrying a book my teacher had given me: Bedtime Ghost Stories for Young People. Yeah, right, just the thing to chase away my nightmares. I also had Ryan’s present, a science fantasy book called Space-Song, featuring my favourite character, Princess Anya. I was thinking that maybe Mom would order in a pizza or Chinese food to celebrate my birthday, or we might go out.

  I came around the corner and stopped dead in my tracks. All plans vanished. My dusty front lawn looked like a hostel for street people. In fact, it was Grandma Wroboski, Aunt Gemma, my dad’s younger sister who was eighteen, and two men. Plus bags of groceries loaded onto the front steps and porch. I stopped before they saw me.

  Gemma was lounging on the lawn with her shirt rolled up, likely trying to get a tan. Her silver belly-button ring gleamed in the sun. Grandma had sunk into a rickety lawn chair she’d found somewhere. She was wearing a pink-flowered summer dress that shrouded her big body like a tent, and wide plastic flip-flops decorated with white daisies. Grandma was fanning her face with a magazine and sipping a can of pop. The men were squatting in the shade, smoking. One had his shirt off, revealing his tattoo-covered chest and arms, and the other was wearing a white T-shirt with the sleeves ripped off.

  When Gemma rolled onto her stomach, she spotted me and waved lazily. “Hi, Angela! We’ve been waiting for you. Happy birthday, kid!” She flicked her fuchsia fingernails at me. I noticed the colour matched her toenails and her newly highlighted blond hair.

  Grandma tried to heave herself out of the lawn chair, but it remained suctioned to her bum. When she stood, hunched over, she was still wearing
it. One of the men held the chair while the other jumped up to give her a hand.

  “Hot, hot, hot,” Grandma said, panting. “Lord love a duck, it’s supposed to be over thirty degrees today.” She held out her big brown arms and sailed toward me. “My little angel! Fifteen years old! All grown up!”

  I ran to give her a hug. She smelled like ginger.

  “We brought stuff to make a birthday supper for you and a homecoming supper for your daddy,” Gemma said, indicating the bags on the porch. “If we don’t get these chickens into the fridge, they’re going to come to life again and start squawking.”

  I stared at the men.

  “This here’s Mike, and this is Jerry,” Gemma said. “Maybe you remember them. Friends of mine and your daddy’s. They’ve come to say hi.”

  I knew who they were — guys that Mom called “the outlaws.” Like my dad, they’d do anything for the boss, our Uncle Al. And, like my dad, they got into lots of trouble because of it.

  Grandma and Gemma hoisted some of the bags off the porch and waited for me to unlock the door. The men carried in more bags, cases of pop, and other stuff they’d brought.

  Amid the clanging and muttering, Grandma stopped and put her hand to her ear. “Listen!” I couldn’t hear a thing, but we stopped our noise and there it was — a sound like a tiny motorboat flip-flapping in the water. It came again.

  Grandma dropped her bags and waddled back to a half-filled rain barrel at the corner of the house. She leaned over until her head was inside the barrel and her round pink-flowered bottom was balanced precariously on the barrel’s edge. “Well, look at this, will you!” her voice boomed from inside the barrel. Her arms moved down and around as if attempting to scoop something out.

  Gemma and I got closer. Grandma surfaced, and in her hand was a young robin, its feathers a dark slick.

  “It’s dead!” I cried.

  But Grandma didn’t listen. She pried open the tiny beak with her thumb and finger, put her mouth over it, and blew. Again and again, puff, puff. Then she massaged its tiny chest and back with her fingers, holding the limp little body gently in her hands.

  The bird shuddered, its breast fluttering as it began to throb. Grandma grinned. “Poor little twerp. Just about a goner.”

  She wiped the bird dry using the folds of her dress. When the ruffled feathers were filled with air, she set it on the grass. The bird struggled to its feet.

  “He’ll be okay in a couple of minutes, as long as a cat don’t see him. You girls keep watch. It’s too doggone hot out here for me.”

  Grandma picked up a couple of bags and went inside the house, leaving Gemma and me to bird-sit. It hopped along the grass, stopped for a rest, and tried its wings. We lifted it into a bush where it flapped from one branch to another.

  “Looks like it’ll live,” Gemma said, snapping her gum.

  Grandma appeared in the doorway, happily watching the bird hop to higher branches. “That little fella reminds me of your daddy,” she said softly. “Some of God’s creatures just need a little push.”

  We went inside. The house was hot, quiet, and full of flies. We couldn’t keep them out if we wanted the windows open, since we didn’t have screens. Mom didn’t like spraying with chemicals, so we put up with the flies.

  But Grandma had her own method of getting rid of them. She heated a long knife on the stove burner and held it up against a piece of yellow stuff that smelled like cough medicine. The flies took one sniff and were gone.

  “Camphor,” Grandma announced triumphantly. “Old pioneer trick. I got lots more, too. Now, Angela, where does your mamma keep her deep fryer? We got enough chicken here to feed an army.”

  So that was how all those birds came into my life on my birthday: Grandma’s chickens, which were the best-tasting in the world; my new necklace; and a half-drowned baby robin. And, of course, there was “the famous jailbird,” as Gemma once called my dad, expected home any minute from a long “business trip” out of town.

  2

  In-Laws/Outlaws

  We were peeling potatoes and hard-boiled eggs for a salad when Mom arrived from her receptionist job in a downtown office.

  “Connie, honey, you go and change out of that hot outfit and pantyhose into something cool,” Grandma said to Mom. “We’ve brought stuff for Angela’s birthday and Nick’s homecoming.”

  “You remember Mike and Jerry?” Gemma asked, nodding toward them.

  Mike, who was standing by the door, threw his cigarette butt out onto the sidewalk and extended his hand toward Mom. She ignored it and brushed past him. I thought about how easily a fire could start on this hot day on the dry lawn, so I went out to stomp on the butt with my shoe, then bent to pick it up.

  “Let me,” Mike said.

  “Don’t!” Mom signalled for me to go inside, then glared at Mike. “You and your friend — just get!”

  We all stood there, shocked.

  “Wh-what?” Mike sputtered.

  “You heard me. Leave my house. Both of you. I want you out of here.” She nodded toward Jerry, who was standing with his arm casually draped around Gemma’s shoulders.

  “Hey, just a minute!” Jerry said. “We came to see our old pal, the Weasel. And to wish the kid a happy birthday.”

  Mom cringed, hearing the gross nickname they called my dad, but stood her ground. “Well, you’ve said happy birthday, now go.”

  I knew there was going to be a fight, like the kind I used to hear. I slammed into the house past Grandma, who had her back to them sorting groceries at the kitchen counter, and went to my bedroom, but not before I heard something I wished I hadn’t. It was Mike’s voice, gone hard and cold.

  “C’mon, Con, you don’t need to get uppity with old friends.”

  I heard the front door slam, Jerry mumbling something, and Gemma crying, “Hey, you don’t hafta ...” And then the men were gone.

  Mom entered my bedroom. “When did they get here?” She was really angry.

  “They were waiting on the lawn.”

  “Oh, great. All the neighbours likely saw.”

  “Mom, they’re dad’s friends, and Gemma and Grandma are our relatives! We can’t hide them now that Dad’s coming home.”

  “Grandma and Gemma are okay, but not those two traitors.” Mom sighed and wriggled her feet out of her shoes. “I’d planned to take you out for supper as a birthday treat,” she said, stroking her feet, “but I guess we can celebrate at home tonight.” I could tell she was thinking about Dad, and the homecoming

  of the “in-laws and outlaws,” as she called his family and friends.

  “It’ll be okay, won’t it, Mom?” I asked. I’d had dreams about Dad’s homecoming, too, some good and some not so good. In fact, I’d thought about nothing else for the past few weeks.

  She sighed deeply again. “Angel, I’m frankly quite concerned. I haven’t seen your dad for two years. People change. It’s like I heard about marriages that happened during the war. Some couples met and married within a few weeks or days. Then the men would be sent overseas. When they came back, nobody recognized each other. They had to wear name tags at their homecoming.”

  “But Dad wrote letters to us ...”

  Mom laughed. “If you can call them that.”

  Dad’s letters, especially to Mom, were kind of strange. The censors at the prison had blackened or cut out places where he apparently talked about crime or his fellow inmates, or swore. Some of his letters contained more holes than news.

  But his letters to me weren’t like that. “I love you and miss you,” he’d write. “This is what I look like now.” He’d draw a clown with big tears rolling down his cheeks. Even the flower in his hat was wilted. “But here’s what I’ll look like when I see you again.” Same clown, but the flower on his hat stood straight up, his eyes smiled, and a happy g
rin stretched from ear to ear.

  Dad was a good artist, but most of his pictures were weird, like the last one he sent. It was done in blue pastel crayons and showed two little monsters crawling out of a graveyard. He titled it Two Little Ghouls in Blue.

  “Well, honey, we’ll just have to make the best of it,” Mom said. She stood and opened the door, heading for the shower. “Happy birthday, by the way. Your present’s being delivered tomorrow. I think you’ll like it.”

  I joined Grandma and Gemma in the kitchen. They were telling stories about Dad when he was little. I sat down to listen.

  “Nicky always seemed to be in the right place at the wrong time,” Grandma was saying, “and then he got blamed for other people’s dirty work. Like that terrible time when he got four years in the pen for armed robbery. Not his fault! When the police brought him in to answer those cooked-up charges, they just ruined his career with the horse-racing track.”

  “He was on the Ten Most Wanted list before they found him!” Gemma said proudly.

  “Gemma, that’s your big imagination running away with you! Nicky was never on that list. That’s for serious criminals! Nicky’s just unlucky. He’s not serious at all.” Grandma stopped for a drink of cream soda. “The best thing that ever happened to him was when he got out of the penitentiary, came home, and met Connie.”

  “So, see, it turned into a good thing, after all!” Gemma said.

  Grandma shot her a disgusted look. “He didn’t meet her there, in that prison. He met her in his own home, which he should never have left in the first place!”

  Gemma liked to talk about crime stuff. She read True Detective and Real Crime and all those magazines, hoping she’d see someone she knew. She cut out every article about that old criminal Al Capone — Dad’s and Uncle Al’s big hero — and pasted them in a scrapbook. And then she cut out pictures of her hero, Jesse James. She freaked when I told her I’d learned on the Net that they were going to dig up his old grave and do a DNA test on his bones.