The Prisoner of Snowflake Falls Page 3

  Wally would never admit it, but I think he was proud to be teaching me what he knew about locks. “When it comes to challenging a young person’s coordination and mental agility, your computer games and your Rubik’s Cubes are child’s play when compared to picking a sturdy lock,” he said.

  It wasn’t long before Wally began to brag to the others about my lock-picking abilities. “This kid has the touch,” he would say. “He is going to become a big-time surgeon, if the concert violin doesn’t get to him first.”

  Of course, some of Uncle Andy’s associates doubted my talent. That’s how I started participating in a series of friendly wagers. For example, when I was ten, they asked me to try and open a locked door without using the key. Instead of a key, I was given a lock pick. My uncle and his friends placed their bets and put a pile of cash on the table. I was told that if I could pick the lock in under three minutes, all the money on the table would be mine. I opened the door in under two minutes.

  After that, a number of Uncle Andy’s friends began to take a personal interest in my development. Before long, I learned the fundamentals of how to forge an ID, hot-wire a car and pick somebody’s pocket on a crowded bus.

  None of my uncle’s colleagues ever encouraged me to use such skills for financial gain. They were just showing off to me a little. In the words of Mr. Cookie Collito, who can hot-wire anything on wheels faster than it takes to butter a piece of toast, “If we were farmers, we would teach you how to grow corn. But we are not farmers.”

  Almost all of our boarders in the rented house were men around my Uncle Andy’s age. The one exception was Madam Zora, who made her living as a professional fortuneteller in a downtown tearoom. She would forecast people’s futures by looking at the lines on their palms or turning over special cards with drawings of things like skeletons and devils on them.

  When she wasn’t working, Madam Zora let me call her Cindy, which was her real name. She said that people would never believe somebody called Madam Cindy could accurately predict the future. Cindy always seemed to have time to help me with my arithmetic or bake brownies for the class party on Valentine’s Day.

  You may think that it’s impossible to predict the future. But Cindy said that her real job was making her patrons feel good about themselves. She’d always make sure that a customer’s future looked very bright, telling them they were going to come into some unexpected inheritance or find their one and only true love. Then she would tell this long, sad story about how her little brother was trapped in a child-labor gym-shoe factory in outer Bulgaria and how she was trying to save up enough money to send him a plane ticket to Vancouver.

  At least seventy percent of the time, her customers felt so optimistic about their new and improved future that they’d insist on giving her some extra money for the plane ticket. There was no actual little brother in outer Bulgaria. There was just Cindy herself, who was putting aside a little nest egg so that she could live her lifelong dream of getting a fresh start in Las Vegas.

  Personally, I think Cindy was kind of sweet on my Uncle Andy, who I noticed always got the biggest piece of her homemade lasagna. Of course, my uncle is the sort of person who avoids romantic attachments at all costs. When Cindy figured this out, she lost a lot of her initial interest in me. Not that I blame her at all. Everyone deserves a fresh start in life. And she stuck around way longer than I thought she would.

  I have visited Uncle Andy in prison a couple of times since moving into the tree house. In his last conversation with Cindy, he learned that I was moving in with her friends the Hendersons. On my last visit, he was very concerned that Cindy was not returning his phone calls.

  “She’s probably very busy doing her homework for blackjack school,” I said.

  “Why isn’t she answering?” asked Uncle Andy. “She knows how hard it is to make a long-distance call from prison.”

  For those of you who have never made a phone call from jail, it is very difficult. Your time is strictly limited, and there’s always a long line of people pestering you to hurry up and finish. According to Uncle Andy, there’s very little privacy. “People are always pushing and shoving to overhear any news from the outside,” he says. “Last week a guy dialed a telemarketer by mistake and ended up ordering a set of commemorative dinner plates.”

  As it turns out, Uncle Andy’s phone situation is working to my advantage. Cindy didn’t provide him with a lot of details concerning my living arrangements. So I was able to make my version of the Hendersons sound a lot more ideal than they actually were. Once I got past the lying part, it was actually kind of fun making up my own family.

  The pretend Mrs. Henderson was always supervising Girl Scouts or going to charity bake sales. I put a lot of thought into creating my own best friend—the totally fictional but ever-obliging Ricky Henderson. I even made up a cat named Ginger, who is always rubbing up against Ricky’s leg and making him sneeze.

  My only problem is that Uncle Andy keeps wanting to talk to the Hendersons. I gave him the number to a pizza place that I happened to know off the top of my head. And then I managed to convince him that I copied the number down wrong. He’s tried phoning the new number a couple of times, but all he got was a recorded voice that said, “We’re not home right now, but leave a message after the beep.” I have no idea who recorded the message. But I’m personally very grateful that it wasn’t more detailed.

  I should mention that Uncle Andy can always reach me in an emergency, because he’s provided me with a prepaid cell phone. We like to call it the Holloway hotline. I carry the phone with me wherever I go and always remember to charge it up whenever I make a trip to the library. He’s managed to call me a couple of times when I’m chilling out in the tree house. I’m always very glad to hear from him. Until he asks to speak to one of the Hendersons. Then I have to create a diversion. This usually involves food.

  The highlight of Uncle Andy’s week is the night they have Salisbury steak. The steak is always served with overcooked peas and undercooked potatoes. This should give you a good idea of how bad the food is in jail. So, whenever I need to distract Uncle Andy, I conjure up an elaborate menu. “The Hendersons are fine,” I might say. “Last night, we had fried chicken with glazed baby carrots and garlic mashed potatoes.” And then, just to make the lie sound a little more convincing, I’ll add, “Ginger ate a carrot off the floor.”

  There will be a slight pause at the other end. And then Uncle Andy will say, “The guys want to know what you had for dessert.”

  “Raspberry crumble,” I say.

  And then I’ll hear a voice in the background saying: “Ask him if it was à la mode.”

  And Uncle Andy will say, “Did you have ice cream with it?”

  “French vanilla,” I reply. Usually, after that, I’ll have to hang up. Because my stomach will be growling so loud, I’m afraid Uncle Andy will be able to hear it over the phone.

  Luckily, my uncle’s schedule doesn’t allow for many calls. In fact, the most important rule about the hotline is that, while he can call me, I can never call him. “I don’t want to be one of those guys who is always waiting for the phone to ring,” he says. “If there’s an emergency, just make sure the Hendersons call the Warden’s office right away.”

  When it came right down to it, Uncle Andy’s attitude toward the Hendersons was very similar to the way most people feel about fake ID. Just about everyone expects you to be exactly who you say you are. This means you have an automatic head start in the deception department. I could tell that my uncle really wanted me to be staying with a good family. So he was all prepared to be convinced, despite a few rough spots.

  Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I enjoy lying to my uncle. Okay, I’ll admit that I don’t want him to find out about my little summer adventure. Much as it would pain him, he wouldn’t hesitate to turn me over to Social Services if he discovered I was on my own. But it’s also a very important bonus for me to provide him with a little peace of mind.

  After all, w
e’re family. That means he worries about me and I worry about him. Since Uncle Andy knows that I worry, he tries his best to put my mind at ease by making jail sound like it is one big recreational center. He has painted me many pictures of horses and dogs over the years, and he has spent so much time doing jigsaw puzzles that he can assemble a three-thousand-piece puzzle faster than any four people working as a team.

  Currently he’s working on a very complex nature scene entitled The Majesty of Cape Cod. This puzzle demands a great deal of concentration. Which is another reason not to trouble him with the details of my predicament.

  Uncle Andy whispers a lot during our visits. He calls it “doing a Wally.” My uncle whispers because our meetings take place in a large room called the visitor’s lounge. Of course, the average lounge does not have guards. Or fellow inmates who like to eavesdrop because they’re so bored. On the plus side, the walls are a nice restful shade of green. And sometimes my uncle is so glad to see me he even forgets to do a Wally.

  Every once in a while, when I visit, my uncle likes to pass the time by telling me elaborate stories about his daily life in jail. I think this is because he wants to discourage me from following in his footsteps. He says many of his cellmates snore or talk about gourmet food in their sleep. He says it is impossible to get any rest when someone you are sharing accommodation with keeps mumbling about roast duck with orange sauce.

  According to my uncle there is no privacy in prison at all. For example, sometimes Uncle Andy gets help on his puzzles from Clarence, a very big inmate who likes to look over my uncle’s shoulder whenever he is busy trying to relax. The most irritating thing about Clarence is that he likes to pester my uncle during his precious puzzle time. “Are you sure you’ve got that piece of tree bark in the right place?”he might ask. I can tell my uncle is more than a little annoyed at having his jigsaw judgment questioned. But, since Clarence has what he calls “a slight problem with anger management,” Uncle Andy cuts him a lot of slack.

  Every now and then, a helpful Clarence offers to make a certain piece of the puzzle fit by forcing it into place with his fist. Uncle Andy patiently explains that the whole point of the exercise is to find the one and only piece that naturally fits in that particular space. And then Clarence says, “I’m just letting you know we have another option.”

  Sometimes, during a visit, my uncle will shoot me a secret look. It’s a look that silently asks how much I would like to have Clarence looking over my shoulder and offering to flatten little pieces of cardboard into any shape I want. “Do you think I am smart?” he asks.

  “I think you are one of the smartest people I know,” I always reply.

  “Well, if I’m so smart,” says Uncle Andy, “what am I doing in jail?”

  The question always gets a big laugh from my uncle’s fellow inmates. But then, after a while, the laughter stops because everyone is in exactly the same situation.

  I try not to worry too much about Uncle Andy being in jail, but I always do. I also worry that he’ll catch me lying. There was something about my last visit that made me especially nervous. Sometimes my uncle can tell that I feel guilty about something, but he’s not exactly sure what it is. Finally, he said, “You’ve been breaking into houses and making up the beds again, haven’t you?”

  I just looked down at the table, taking a sudden interest in a carved heart that read Hughie and Laverne Forever. I could hear him saying, “I know you want to pay back the Hendersons for their kindness. But I’m working on that, okay?” And then he sighed and added, “How many times do I have to tell you? Don’t steal.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because as a thief, you make an excellent chamber maid,” he whispered.

  “I have never been caught,” I whispered back, immediately regretting the statement since my poor uncle was currently as caught as you could get.

  He took a deep breath and appeared to gather his thoughts. “I started in the business when I was about your age,” he said. “Believe me, you won’t be able to hide behind being a kid forever.” He pinched the sleeve of his orange jumpsuit and asked, “You think it’s fun looking like a human Popsicle all day long?”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell Uncle Andy that I was going through some lean times burglary-wise. Lately, the only money I could count on consistently came from looking underneath the cushions of strange couches. In the world of thievery, there is probably nothing lower than a sofa-change bandit.

  Uncle Andy looked like he was reading my mind. “I know it’s tough out there without family, Henry,” he said. And then, brightening up a little, he added, “Thank god for people like the Hendersons.”

  Sometimes I think it was a mistake to tell Uncle Andy about my criminal activities. I believe he spends a lot of time feeling bad about not being around to steer me away from a life of crime. He has always thought that if we could buy a place of our own in some faraway town with a really good school, both of us could get a fresh start. He’s earned a little time on the prison computer for purposes of self-improvement, and he always uses it to check out the latest real-estate listings.

  He fantasizes about buying property in a high-end neighborhood with lots of trees and grass. “There’s a whole room for me to spread out my jigsaw puzzles,” he says, “and nobody is looking over my shoulder except you.”

  Then he’ll sigh, and I know he’s worrying about me again. Last time, he told me why. “You suffer from an overabundance of character, Henry,” he said. “What you need to be a successful crook is a definite lack of character.”

  When I told him that my character would diminish with time, the professional burglar in him looked somewhat hopeful. Then his shoulders began to droop. “It’s no use,” he sighed. “You’re too much like your mother.” My uncle thought for a second and then smiled wistfully. “Your mother was the most solid citizen I ever knew,” he said. “She couldn’t even steal from somebody she disliked. Which is a good thing because she spent her whole life disliking nobody in particular.”

  I pointed out that there were lots of people I disliked. “Who?” asked Uncle Andy, like it was some sort of challenge. When I couldn’t name anybody, he said, “I’m beginning to think I should have turned you over to Social Services for your own good.”

  I could feel myself getting pale at the mention of Social Services. I guess Uncle Andy noticed. He made me promise to stop breaking into houses while I was living with the Hendersons. It was an easy promise to keep since the Hendersons were long gone.

  I was just about to leave when my uncle called me back. “Henry?” he said. “I’m kind of glad you don’t dislike anybody.”

  I could tell that Uncle Andy was missing me, which made me miss him too. That’s when I started to get that lonely feeling again, even though my uncle was right there in front of me. I couldn’t think of much to say that wouldn’t make things worse. So I asked, “How’s your puzzle going?”

  “It’s a funny thing,” he said. “Putting together the blue sky is hard because it’s all one color. Even so, I think it’s my favorite part of the whole puzzle. You know what I mean?”

  “I think so,” I said. And then I made my way toward the first of several doors that would take me outside. Along the way, I couldn’t help but wonder what it would be like not to be allowed to see the sky whenever I pleased.

  Sometimes I can’t help thinking how different my life would be if I came from a family of farmers. For example, I doubt that Uncle Andy would be incarcerated right now if he had been growing corn. But, like Cookie said, we are not farmers. When you’re a thief, the closest thing you have to a barn is called prison. Of course, there is one big difference: Nobody ever leaves the barn door open in prison.

  THREE

  Sometimes I think that my uncle sits in prison and worries about what my mother wanted for me. In fact, sometimes I think he worries so much that not even Salisbury steak night can cheer him up.

  A few years ago he thought he had my future all figured out. Rememb
er that intelligence test I took back in elementary school? After I finished the test, there was a follow-up report with a bunch of recommendations. The testers thought I should go to a special boarding school for really smart kids called the Monroe Academy.

  The Monroe Academy was in Victoria, on Vancouver Island. A long way from my uncle or any of his associates in Vancouver. If that wasn’t bad enough, the school seemed superstrict.

  I’ve always had a problem following other people’s rules. It’s not that I’m lazy or anything. It’s just that if I’m going to do anything that involves actual effort, I want it to be my own decision. When I read some literature on the school, right away I knew it wasn’t for me.

  On the front of the academy’s brochure, there was a picture of a big gray building with a Latin motto on the front. The English translation of the motto read To Love Learning Is to Love Discipline. On the inside of the brochure, the school promised to mold academic warriors in the bracing atmosphere of a Spartan existence. Photos showed their world-class rowing team, a live-in dormitory with rows of tightly made bunk beds and a cafeteria with vending machines for three kinds of vitamin-enriched bottled water.

  Boys in shiny shoes, gray flannel pants and blazers featuring the Monroe Academy crest were pictured doing homework, mopping floors and pruning rose bushes for the camera. One guy was so proud to be pruning rose bushes in his blazer that he was almost smiling.

  When the testers said they could get me a scholarship to the Monroe Academy as part of the school’s program for disadvantaged youth, Uncle Andy called a family meeting with just the two of us.

  “I’ve been thinking about your future,” said Uncle Andy. “And I demand that you attend the Monroe Academy.”