Twelve-year-old Moose is distraught when his parents move his family to Alcatraz Island so Dad can take a job as an electrician at the prison. Moose was happy back in Santa Monica, where he got to play baseball and ride bikes with his friend Pete whenever he wanted. However, as part of her latest scheme to help Natalie (who’s severely autistic), Mom insists that Moose take Natalie everywhere with him like he would “a normal sister.” Natalie and Moose quickly integrate into the band of children on Alcatraz, something that, to Moose’s surprise, is extremely beneficial for him and for Natalie—and fun for him and the other children. Jimmy, Theresa, and Annie help Natalie add to her collections of rocks and feathers, while Piper even includes Natalie in several of her schemes to catch a glimpse of the convicts. Moose, meanwhile, finds that it’s comforting to, for the first time in his life, have friends who fully accept Natalie—and who are willing, as Piper ultimately is, to help him break the rules to seek help for Natalie. Ultimately, thanks to Moose and Piper’s rule-breaking, Natalie is admitted to the Esther P. Marinoff School, which will help her further develop basic life skills. But Natalie’s readiness to attend the school, the novel suggests, is almost entirely thanks to the friendship and community she enjoys on Alcatraz. Further, befriending Natalie also has positive effects on the other kids: domineering Piper, for instance, becomes more accommodating, generous, and caring. Friendship, the novel shows, isn’t just nice to have. Rather, it has the power to improve people’s lives and provide much-needed support.
Related Themes from Other Texts
Friendship and Community ThemeTracker
Friendship and Community Quotes in Al Capone Does My Shirts
“Some cockamamie psychiatrist decides the problem is Natalie doesn’t get enough attention, and Helen ships him off! Our Matthew! I’m happy as a pig in mud to have him here, but it’s a darn fool thing. What child doesn’t have a brother or sister? Half the world has seven or eight. Having a brother didn’t make Natalie the way she is. One look at the two of them together and that big-shot psychiatrist would have known that. He’s the one ought to have his head examined. It’s going to make Nat sicker just having Moose gone.”
“Gram doesn’t live down the street anymore, honey.” My mom sighs. “We can’t do this without you. Being around kids is good for Natalie. Mrs. Kelly says so. And if she’s to get accepted to the Esther P. Marinoff...”
“Numbers Nat, we need you!” Theresa interrupts.
Natalie looks up.
Piper hands Nat the money, rolled up in a handkerchief. “Three dollars and twenty cents split four—excuse me.” Piper looks at me. “Three ways.”
“One dollar six cents, two cents left over.” Natalie rocks with pleasure.
“Extra two cents goes to me,” Piper says as Natalie counts out each share.
We sit with her. Annie and Theresa, Jimmy and me. Keep her company wherever she’s gone.
That is the way my mom finds us when she gets off the boat, her music bag over her shoulder.
[...]
“Get them out of here.” My mom spits the words out.
“Mom, it’s—”
“I won’t have her made a spectacle.”
“It’s really not like that. They like her,” I say.
“NOW, Moose.”
But right where the chain link meets the cement wall, I see a gap.
[...]
I look down at Natalie. She hasn’t moved a muscle. I won’t be able to see her once I get up there. But I know better than to try to move her once she’s all set up.
I’ll just make it quick, that’s all. A couple of seconds to look. One minute, that will be enough. A ball could be sitting right there out in the open, just waiting for me. I know this is a lousy idea. But it doesn’t matter. A gap in the fence is a magnet. It just is.
“I know what Mrs. Kelly says. I’m talking about Moose now and what he thinks. He’s good with Natalie. They’ve worked out a relationship. We have to respect that and trust him.”
“Well, yes, but—”
“You have to let him care about her his way.”
And then something I can’t hear.
“I got one child who has everything,” my mom says, “big, strapping, healthy, smart...makes people laugh. Got kids coming over looking for him night and day, just like at home. Little ones, big ones and the girls—they all like Moose. But Natalie, Natalie doesn’t have the whole world looking out for her. She needs me.”
“Moose needs you too.”
“Me? I’m not going to upset Natalie. She likes me,” Piper says.
“I’m sorry,” I say, my hand on the door.
Piper scoffs. “Can’t I at least say happy birthday?” She looks so earnest, so sincere, smiling her sweet smile. She’s even prettier without her hat.
“How did you know it was her birthday?”
“Theresa told me.”
“People know, Mom. They know.”
“They don’t know!” she cries, tears streaming down her face. “You don’t know! She won’t have a chance at sixteen. No one will take her. No one cares about an adult that isn’t right. It’s only kids who have a chance. It’s too late if she’s sixteen. Don’t you see?”
“Yeah, but Mom, you can’t pretend! It’s worse. People know—”
“No one knows. They don’t know and they don’t care. Put her in an institution. Do you know how many times I’ve heard that? Lock her up with all the nuts. She has to be TEN. It’s the only chance she has!”
I try to go to sleep. But I keep thinking about Natalie at home in Santa Monica—living her life in the back room of our house and on the steps of Gram’s. I rode bikes with Pete, played ball, did my homework. She did not. I will graduate from high school, go to college, get married, have kids. She will not.
[...]
Nothing has helped. But suddenly I see this isn’t true. One thing has helped. Carrie Kelly. Natalie has been more a part of things here on this island than she ever has before. She’s had a life here, for the first time. Maybe just a little bit of a life. But a life just the same.
I look directly into his blue eyes. “Remember you said we should think hard about going against the rules? Remember you said that. Well, I have thought hard.”
The warden meets my gaze. “I see that,” he says. “But in this case you’re asking me to bend the rules. And I’m not about to. You may think it’s the right thing to do, but I do not.”
“‘I like your mother very much’?” Piper says when she reads it.
“You got to say something about the guy’s mother.”
“Why?” she asks.
“Because then he remembers he has one. And he knows we know her too. Makes him act better. It’s The Mom Rule—all guys use it.”
“This is Al Capone we’re talking about. I don’t think he’ll fall for a cheap trick like that.”
And every day I wonder if we’ll be going back to Santa Monica. It seems so long ago that we lived there now, I’m not even sure I want to anymore. And I know moving back will be bad for Natalie.
