Do Not Pass Go by Kirkpatrick Hill Page B

They always smelled like something weird. He could never get that smell out of them.
    Jam had a Barbie lunch box and P. J. had an Elmo lunch box, and you didn’t ever want to get them mixed up. It was not easy making lunches for them, because they complained about everything. Jam wanted honey with her peanut butter, and P. J. wanted jelly, but not grape jelly, just strawberry jelly. And Jam wanted her sandwiches cut in half, and P. J. liked quarters.
    The person who cooks takes a lot of flak, Deet was learning.

FOURTEEN

    When Dad called at night, the girls would chatter on about school, complain about Deet’s cooking, and tattle on each other. Dad managed to make the girls feel he was interested in them, not removed from their lives. In the old days, Deet thought, before there were phones, going to jail must have been like a death in the family.
    Dad didn’t talk about what was going on with him, he just asked the girls question after question, kept them chattering, and when they were finished they felt close to him. Where had he learned a thing like that? Not from Grandpa or Grandma. They never asked questions, at least not the kind that showed an interest, showed you were paying attention. Dad just knew how to make people feel good. It was like the way he knew that sidewise way of giving compliments. Thenext time Deet had trouble thinking about what to talk about to anyone, he’d just ask questions.
    â€œWhen can we come to see you, Dad?” P. J. asked every time.
    â€œNot ever,” he’d say. “Never. You can’t talk in here very well, because there are so many people around. It’s better to talk on the telephone.” But Deet knew he didn’t want the girls to see him in there. You think your dad is the king of the world, you think he can do anything. And then you see him led around by these guards, locked in, locked out, and then you know he isn’t the king. Maybe what you don’t see you can forget about easier. Maybe if the girls never saw him there, it wouldn’t be real to them.
    One night Dad told the girls, “Hold the phone up to the speakers and play me something on the CD player. Some Willie Nelson. Anything.”
    So they played some of his favorite songs for him. “Louder,” he said. “Lots louder.” They had to turn it up so loud Deet and the girls could hardly stand it. It was noisy in the jail at night, iron gates clanging, people yelling, so Dad couldn’t hear it unless it was cranked all the way up.
    â€œThanks,” said Dad. “I can’t believe how much I miss my music. Can you find ‘The Gambler’? Ronny wants to hear that one. It’s on that album with the stars on the front.”
    P. J. found it right away. She was getting a kick out of playing deejay.
    They all liked that one too. “You got to know when to hold ’em, know when to fold ’era,” they sang along as loud as they could, feeling joyful.
    When the song was finished, Dad said, “Ronny thanks you. He says that’s his new theme song, the one he’s going to live by.”
    Know when to walk away and know when to run,
thought Deet.
That’s what Ronny has to do, all right.
    One day that week Mom had taken a few hours off to go to the dentist, so she said she’d see Dad that day, before her appointment. Deet would take the school bus home instead of the downtown bus and give Sally a day off from the girls.
    When he got out of school, Deet was surprised to see that Nelly wasn’t waiting for him at their busstation. Usually Nelly was there first, because he had a study hall last period, but he wasn’t first that day, and Deet was by himself. He felt his stomach clench a little when he saw Dennis Slater come up.
    Dennis was a sort of smart-ass, an arrogant kind of guy, basketball star and all that. He lived on the ridge in one of the last houses on their bus run. Every time Nelly saw Dennis coming, or