Al Capone Shines My Shoes

The next morning, though it is a Monday, Moose does not have school. He tells his parents that Mrs. Mattaman has invited him over for breakfast, but she has actually ordered him over so she can get to the bottom of what he and his friends were doing the night before. He asks his parents what’s wrong with Piper’s mother, but they know only that she’s doing poorly.

As Moose and Natalie walk to the Mattamans’, he worries about his sister’s reaction to the events of the previous night, and wonders if she knows what Piper’s insult meant. At the Mattamans’, Moose and Jimmy confess to the two parents how Piper lied about their fathers getting drunk, and then forced Moose to help her spy on the party at the Officers’ Club in exchange for her retracting the accusations. Mr. Mattaman orders them not to tell anyone else about this, and not to take matters into their own hands again, or he’ll tell the warden.

As Moose and his sister walk home, Natalie seems sad that others are angry at Moose, and adds that no one is angry at her, because she is (in Piper’s words) a “moron.” Moose tells her that Piper is the “moron,” not her.