Jailbird Kid

  “I told him to get a bank loan, but I didn’t think he’d take me that seriously!” Gemma slapped me on the shoulder, urging me to get the joke.

  “Here, Mamma, drink your coffee,” Mom said.

  Grandma leaned forward in her chair and sipped the coffee. “I’m gonna pray to St. Jude for your Uncle Al, wherever he is, same as I did for your daddy. That’s the saint for hopeless cases. He sure heard my prayers for Nicky.”

  “We could all use a little help from above,” Mom said thoughtfully, and I agreed.

  “Nicky was always delicate, while Al was the strong one,” Grandma continued. “Now we don’t know where Al is, and Nicky’s gonna be a businessman. Such a strange world.”

  “Where are Nick’s pictures?” Gemma asked, noticing blank places on the wall. The only ones left were family portraits: Mom clutching the bouquet of daisies; me wearing a big straw hat and holding Patsy up on my finger; Gemma and Grandma at the kitchen table, peeling potatoes and laughing; Grandpa Hank with Trixie in their garden; Uncle Al looking like a millionaire, leaning against the shiny black Dial-a-Dream Caddy.

  But the other pictures, Gemma’s favourites, were gone.

  “They’re over at my friend Hannah Singer’s place,” I said. “Her mom came here to see Dad’s work, and he loaned them to her. They’re both artists, you know. Mrs. Singer wants him to give lectures to her art class this fall.”

  “That bank manager Singer?” Gemma asked, incredulous. “The paper said it was his bank that was hit.”

  I felt my face flush. “Yeah, could be.”

  Gemma started laughing. Then I did, too, thinking of Mr. and Mrs. Singer examining Dad’s art: Dead Oak Tree with Noose, Two Little Ghouls in Blue, Scarface’s Valentine, sketches of Dad’s fellow cons, a detailed layout of the warden’s office.

  Mom and I walked Grandma and Gemma out to the car. I ran my hand along the shiny black fender of our Cadillac. The words dial-a-dream glowed brightly in the noonday sun, reflecting off the polished paint.

  Perhaps our family would never be television models of perfection, but they were my flesh and blood. And they were trying hard. I was becoming prouder of them every day, especially Dad because he had the farthest to travel along the road to respectability, pulling Gemma — and maybe even someday Uncle Al — along with him. We’d be okay. Our family being together, with a future, was our shared dream. We were all front-runners now.

  Also by

  Shirlee Smith Matheson

  The Gambler’s Daughter

  978-1-55002-718-1

  $11.99

  In early 1940s British Columbia, teenage Loretta, younger brother Teddy, and their gambling stepfather, “Bean Trap” Braden, are one step ahead of the law and a band of angry miners. Run out of town for winning more than his share of the miners’ wages, Bean Trap and the children jump borders, hide out in ghost towns, and stow away on trucks, sleds, and trains. Now Loretta must take the biggest gamble of all. Can she and Teddy get out of the game and start a new life, or are the stakes too high?

  Available at your favourite bookseller.

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