Little Boy Blue Read Free Page A

the balance sheet was still in her favor. She lacked
patience with interfering parents. They’d turned over to her a job they
couldn’t handle. Most of the boys came from broken homes; many had
alcoholic parents, some had been abused, and a few were en route to full-blown
delinquency and institutions.
    Thelma Cavendish told Alex to make his bed,
put his clothes away, and then come to see her.
    The room had two double bunks. A bottom bunk
was empty, and Alex put his duffel bag and cardboard box on top of it. He
ignored the two boys watching him silently from their bunks. Alex didn’t
unpack anything but instead went back down the hallway to Mrs.
Cavendish’s rooms. The door was open, and he could see the woman darning
socks from a large basket, her fingers flying. Alex knocked on the doorframe,
and she beckoned him in with a head gesture. She nodded toward a wicker chair,
the only place to sit not piled with clothes.
    “I saw that display in the parking lot
and I’m not going to stand for anything like that, you understand?”
    “Yes, ma’am. I’m not going to be here very long
anyway.”
    The woman’s fingers paused as she
looked closely at the youth. “I talked with your father. He didn’t
mention that you weren’t staying.”
    “When did you talk with him?”
    “Last week. We had a long talk about
your problems.”
    “Well, he just told me.”
    “Are you sure you’re telling the
truth? That it isn’t something you’re imagining because you want it
to be true?”
    “No, it’s true.”
    The woman’s lips pressed tighter.
“Well, be that as it may, while you’re here you’re going to
have to follow my rules. If you do, we’ll get along fine. If you
don’t, we won’t get along at all.”
    Alex said nothing. He resented her authority
and the threat it represented.
    “I can’t tell you all
that’s expected in one session,” she said. “But the boys get
up at six and clean their rooms. Breakfast is at seven. We all go together. The
school bus leaves at seven forty-five. When the bus brings you home, you check
with me before you go out. You get back to the cottage by five. Study hall is
from seven to eight for junior high school.
    “One place my boys don’t go—behind
the kitchen. That’s the smoking area for high school boys. I don’t
approve of it, but Mr. Trepesanti is the superintendent, and he lets them smoke
there.”
    Alex said, “Yes, ma’am,”
whenever it was appropriate; he was glad when she let him go back to his room.
    When he reentered the room, a fat little boy
was searching through Alex’s box. When he saw Alex he wheeled around,
flushing wildly, obviously frightened. Alex had long ago learned how boys steal
in boarding homes. He’d done it himself. Usually he would have started a
fight, but today he was too drained. The fat boy had nothing in his hands, so
Alex simply warned him to never do it again. The boy’s name, he later
learned, was an appropriate “Porky.”
    No sooner had Alex put his property on the
floor and started to make his bed when an olive-skinned boy came in. He slept
on the bunk above Alex. His name was Sammy Macias. His father was Mexican, but
his reddish hair came from his Irish mother. She’d died in an automobile
wreck two years ago, which was how Sammy had gotten into the Valley Home for
Boys. He was also constantly in trouble.
    When they finished putting Alex’s
things away, Sammy offered to show Alex the grounds.
    “We can go swimming after
supper,” Sammy said.
    Much of the Valley Home’s ten acres was
trees and underbrush, wild as a forest and more green than most of the area
because a trickle of the Los Angeles River bordered one side of the property.
In the shadows of the greenery, where their feet crunched on fallen leaves, the
heat was less intense. Streaks of dazzling light broke through the trees. When
they were through exploring there, Sammy showed him the barns and pastures. The
Valley Home bought its milk, but there was a small