Al Capone Does My Homework

The next day, Moose and his friends, with the exception of Piper, meet to discuss how to pass a message on a cockroach to the convicts without the guards noticing. Annie harbors serious reservations about the plan, which she feels is too risky, but finally agrees. The kids gather on a balcony overlooking the dock, where some of the cons are busy unloading things from a boat. Indiana, the convict with no chin or eyebrows, shouts a drawling greeting to them, which they find creepy and intimidating, but eventually the cons begin to ignore them. Moose deduces from their interactions that Indiana, Lizard, and Count Lustig are close friends or at least accomplices. Count Lustig is the only one of the three who looks relatively “normal.” As the kids watch, Darby counts the convicts and feeds the list, by way of a guy-wire, to the officer in the tower.

Just when Jimmy is about to try his cockroach experiment, Bea Trixle stomps up to him and accuses him of stealing $50 from her grocery. Jimmy strenuously denies it, but Bea insists that he is the only one who could have stolen it, and she fires him. When she leaves, Jimmy tells the others that this happens frequently because Bea often miscounts the receipts; when she discovers her mistake, she always hires him back, claiming “the books” were in error.