Alabama Moon (11 page)

I climbed out of my bunk a couple of hours after lights-out. I passed by Kit and Hal, and both their eyes were wide open and watching me. “I'll be back,” I whispered. “Wait here.”

I slipped out of the bunk room and down the hall into the rec room. Then I crawled under the Ping-Pong table and used a penny I'd found in the play yard to unscrew a flat metal fastener that held the two halves of the table together.

I went back out into the hall with the fastener and crouched against the wall opposite the entrance to the rec room. From there I could hear the opening and closing of
the front door. I sat still until I heard Mr. Carter leave at midnight.

When I returned to the bunk room, Hal and Kit were still watching me. “He's gone,” I said. “Get dressed.”

The two of them got out of their beds quietly, then all three of us put on our uniforms and jackets.

“I still don't see how you're gonna do this,” Hal whispered.

“Come outside,” I said. “We can talk where nobody hears us.”

I pushed the door to the play yard open, and we stepped out into the night. I showed them the fastener. “You see this? Hal, you lift me and Kit up on the roof of one of those school trailers. I'm gonna unscrew a piece of that sheet tin with this Ping-Pong piece for a screwdriver. I figure that roof's about twelve feet wide and that trailer's about ten feet from that fence. Once I get that piece of tin off, we can lay it from the roof of the trailer to the top of the fence. Somebody light, like Kit, can slide right down it and out of Pinson.”

Hal thought about it. “What's gonna happen when he falls off the other side of that slide? He's gonna break his leg.”

I looked at Kit. “Kit, you know how to make a monkey-landin'?”

Kit shook his head.

“Like this,” I said. I jumped up and landed with most of my weight on my knees, bent them slowly, then rolled across the ground. “You've gotta take the fall like that. Just sink to the ground when you land and roll over.”

“I don't know if I can do it.”

“You can do it. After you get over there, you're gonna go
around to the supply room door next to the kitchen where you get haircuts. When I was in there, I saw that you can get in from the outside without a key. They come in there to drop off food boxes. Once you get in, though, you gotta prop the door open so it won't lock behind you. Then there's gotta be somebody to open the kitchen door from the inside. We'll be there waitin' on you.”

“How you gonna get through the kitchen to that supply room door?” Hal asked. “Mrs. Broomstead locks it every night and takes the key home with her.”

“I got it all figured, Hal. Don't you worry.”

“You better have. You got it figured what car we're gonna drive out of here?”

“I don't know yet. Whichever one has keys in it. Y'all ready?”

“I'm ready, Moon,” Kit said.

Hal frowned and shook his head. “I guess. Jesus.”

Kit and I stood on Hal's shoulders to get onto the roof, where I started unscrewing a piece of sheet tin. I went slow so I wouldn't make any noise and wake Mr. Gene. We could see every window of his kitchen from where we were, and the streetlight had us lit up like we were on a stage. I told Kit to keep a lookout for anything unusual going on in Mr. Gene's house.

It seemed that I took out nearly fifty screws and passed thirty minutes before I could lift the sheet tin. When I looked down, Hal was sitting against the trailer sleeping. “Hal,” I said. He jerked awake and rubbed his eyes. “Get ready. Go stand under this slide I'm about to make in case Kit falls.”

“This better work. I'm tired.”

“Hurry up,” I said.

Hal stood and walked around the other side of the trailer near the fence. “You ready, Kit?”

“I think so.”

I lifted the tin and walked to the edge of the trailer. My plan was to stand it straight up in the air and let it down slowly to the top of the fence, but when I had it up, a breeze came and blew against it. I almost slid off the roof trying to hold it.

“Kit, come help me! I'm about to fall off here!”

Kit jumped up and grabbed one side of the tin. The breeze came again and blew against it. We held on the best we could, but we weren't strong enough. The tin slipped from our fingers and slammed down against the top of the fence. A prickly feeling shot up my back as I heard the sound travel across the yard. I saw Hal dive to the ground and lie still. “Get down!” I told Kit. “Lay as flat as you can on the roof!”

Kit and I flattened ourselves against the roof and watched Mr. Gene's house. Not a second later, his kitchen light came on and his face pressed against the glass. I knew that he couldn't see the tin lying over the fence from where he was, but he could see us on the roof of the trailer if we weren't low enough.

“What are we going to do?” Kit whispered.

“Shhh! Suck in your stomach.”

“Anybody comin'?” Hal asked.

“Shhh!”

We watched Mr. Gene's face. It was staring directly at us.
Kit was breathing loudly, and his feet were shaking. It seemed like ten minutes passed before Mr. Gene stepped away from the window and turned off his kitchen light. We lay there quietly for several minutes until Hal called to us from below. “Anybody see you?”

“No,” I said. “Mr. Gene looked out his window, but he didn't see us.”

“Mr. Gene!”

“Shhh. He might not be asleep again.”

“I'm gettin' out of here!”

“We need you, Hal. He'll be back in bed by now. Kit, go ahead and start out there.”

Kit was still shaking from our close call. He nodded at me and began to crawl out onto the sheet tin. I knelt on the end so that it wouldn't slip. Sliding forward on his knees, Kit made his way to where the metal hung over the outside of the Pinson fence. When he stared down at the ground at the other end, he looked back at me.

“That's good,” I whispered. “Now, remember what I said about the monkey-landin'?”

Kit nodded and looked back at the ground. I thought he might hesitate, but he got up to the edge and jumped off. He hit the ground almost like I showed him and rolled across the grass. I held my breath, hoping he wasn't hurt, until he stood up and brushed off his pant legs. He turned around and smiled. “Like that?”

I looked down at Hal. “I told you we'd bust out of here.”

Hal smiled at me nervously. “Let's just hope you're right about the kitchen door. If you can't get it open, we ain't gonna be able to get him in here again.”

I jumped down from the roof, and we ran across the play yard and slipped back into the bunk room.

“What are y'all doin'?” we heard a kid named Eddie say from his bed.

“Go to sleep, Eddie,” Hal snapped.

“I've got to get somethin',” I said. “Wait here.”

I hurried to the bathroom, stood on a chair, and carefully pulled a shower rod loose. After stripping it of the curtain, I tucked it under my arm and returned to Hal.

“Y'all are gonna get us in trouble,” Eddie said.

“Eddie, if you don't want me to beat the crap out of you,” Hal said, “then shut your little baby mouth.”

We continued into the dining hall, where I stopped in front of the kitchen door. “Watch this,” I said.

I took the shower rod and stuck it through the slot in the wire mesh where the dishes were returned. By working it sideways I was able to press against the deadbolt latch, and in a second the cage door popped loose and swung open.

“I ain't believin' this,” Hal said. “All them nights I was hungry.”

“Come on,” I said.

By the time we made it to the back of the kitchen, we heard Kit tapping on the inside door of the supply room. I unlocked and opened it, and he stood there grinning. “I can't believe it,” Hal said. “We're just gonna walk out of here.”

I motioned through the open door with my hand. “Go find somethin' you can drive.”

Hal went outside and disappeared into the parking lot around the corner. I turned to Kit. “You sure you wanna go?”

Kit nodded his head.

“Why are you so quiet?”

“I'm just a little scared is all.”

“About what?”

“About getting caught,” he said.

“Shoot, we'll get out again if they catch us. What about your medicine?”

“I don't need it.”

“You sure?”

Kit hesitated for a second, then said, “I'm sure. I don't need it anymore.”

“We won't need anything anymore, Kit. We can make everything we need.”

“And we'll go to Alaska?”

“Yeah. And we'll go to Alaska, where there's all kinds of people that live in the forest and don't need the government.”

Kit began to knead his hands together with excitement. “Tell me what kinds of things we'll eat, Moon.”

“Anything we want. Deer, rabbit, coon, turkey, acorns, pine-needle tea, huckleberries, thistle, cattails, poke salad. There's everything you could want out there.”

“That's what I want. I want to get my own food out of the forest.”

“We'll hide for a while and I'll teach y'all some things about livin' out. Once everybody's stopped lookin' for us and we've got plenty of supplies, we can start for Alaska and find some more people that hate the government.”

“Yeah,” Kit said.

Both of us thought about all of that while we waited on Hal.

“I've gotta get a gun, too,” I said. “Maybe we can find the way to my shelter and get Pap's rifle. You know anything about the roads around here?”

Kit shook his head.

“Hal prob'ly does,” I said.

Suddenly, we heard something that sounded like of a big truck coming around the corner. Kit and I looked at each other. “What'd he get that makes such a loud noise?” I said.

Kit's eyes grew wide. “I don't know.”

Hal pulled up to the door and stopped. “Hey, Moon?” came his voice. I looked out and saw Hal standing in front of a bus.

“Why'd you get that?”

Hal shrugged. “It's the only thing that had keys in it. I found 'em under the seat.”

“Mr. Gene's going to be mad now,” Kit said. “He loves his school bus.”

“How many does it hold?”

“It's got about twelve seats in it,” Hal said. “It'll hold everybody with two people in a seat.”

“All right, I'll go see who all wants to go. Whoever wants out of here might as well come on now.”

“What!” Hal said. “After all this you're gonna go and get us busted?”

“I won't get us busted.”

“Shit,” Hal said. He shook his head and spit. “Suit yourself. I think you're crazy.”

I started back towards the bunk room with Kit following me. “Moon, I don't think we should get everybody up. I think we should just go ahead and leave while we can.”

“It doesn't seem fair,” I said. “I'll bet everybody in here's about to go crazy thinkin' about gettin' out.”

I flipped on the light to the bunk room. “Everybody stay quiet,” I said. “We're bustin' out of here. Anybody that's comin', we've got a bus outside the kitchen.”

 

All the other nineteen boys at Pinson got on the bus with their blankets and pillows.

“Should we get any of this food, Moon?”

“Naw, it'll be too much to carry and we'll already have everything we need in the forest.”

Fifteen minutes after we pulled away from the boys' home, a sign said we were driving south on Highway 69. Hal sat straight in the driver's seat and squeezed the steering wheel. I stood beside him, looking out the windshield and hoping that I'd see Mr. Abroscotto's store. I didn't know the name of the highway that went from Tuscaloosa to Gainesville, and neither did Hal. All I knew was that it was somewhere between us and Livingston. I figured the police would find us if we tried to stay near the shelter, but I wanted to get Pap's rifle and the rest of the bullets before we found a place to live.

Kit sat behind me, while the other boys jumped on the seats and yelled and fought with their pillows.

“Where we goin'?” Eddie yelled.

“Forest,” I said.

“What're we gonna do?”

“We're gonna go live out there. Catch our own food and stay away from the government.”

Everyone cheered and I smiled back at them. “We're gonna make our own clothes out of animal skins and swing on vine swings.”

Some of the younger boys began to bounce on the bus seats again. “We're not ever gonna go to school, and we can stay up as late as we want. We're gonna shoot guns and make traps and swim in creeks and catch animals for pets. I know how to do it all.”

“Can we throw away our uniforms?”

“You don't have to wear anything. Everybody can be naked if they want.”

“We'll make Moon president!” somebody yelled.

I held my hands up in the air. “And . . . and we'll whip up on anybody that tries to catch us and tell us what to do.”

All of the boys cheered and shook the seats. I was so excited that my hands trembled. Kit was standing on the seat and yelling and jumping along with everyone else. Hal was still quiet with his eyes locked on the road. “You doin' okay, Hal?”

Hal nodded. “Yeah, but I ain't seen no signs for Gainesville. We're about to come to some place called Moundville.”

“I don't wanna be president,” I said. “You're still president.”

Hal didn't answer me. He was concentrating too hard on the highway to care about what I said.

“Can't you get them to shut the hell up and stop rockin' the bus?” Hal said.

“They're goin' crazy back there.”

“Jesus,” Hal said. “Johnny, get 'em to shut up!” he yelled back to one of the older boys.

“What's after Moundville?” I asked him.