All Rise for the Honorable Perry T. Cook Read online

  VanLeer nods like a bobblehead. “You said two things?” he reminds her.

  “Yeah.” Mom points at the round top of a table propped against the side of the house. “That has to come inside,” she tells him. “Maybe Perry will help you.” She lifts her chin and calls my name. “Per-ry!”

  I sprint in from the side yard and take one end of the tabletop in my hands. VanLeer takes the other. (He’ll be the one walking backward.) “On my count,” I say. “One, two, three!”

  And we lift.

  chapter eighty-three

  OUTSIDE AND INSIDE

  The school bus rolls to a stop in front of the Blue River Co-ed Correctional Facility in teeny-tiny Surprise, Nebraska. A boy hops down the steps and up to the door. He’s none other than Perry T. Cook. He opens his hand over the square call button. The intercom clicks to life.

  “Who’s there?” says a voice.

  Perry faces the security camera and crosses his huge blue eyes. He tilts his head back, supplying the camera with a shot up his nostrils while he calls, “Who NOSE?”

  The voice says, “Ew . . .” and Perry laughs while the foreman buzzes him in.

  He always looks up the stairs first when he enters the Blue River Common. These days, the door to his old bedroom off the Upper East Lounge stands open most of the time. He makes a run, takes the stairs two at a time, and only grips the red railing in three places on his way to the top. He pokes his head inside the door. There is a circle of chairs where his bed used to be and a desk in place of the cupboard that used to hold his clothes.

  His mother turns around, arms open, for a hug and a sloppy sort of swing-around in the office chair—Perry riding one armrest, the chair bumping and tipping. They both laugh when his sneakers thump into the desk drawers. “Go see what Eggy-Mon has for a snack,” she says. She kisses his dark head before she lets him go.

  In the caf Big Ed and a small crew are rolling down the tables for supper.

  “Perry, my man! How are things on the outside today?” Big Ed wants to know.

  “Great” comes the answer. Perry always brings a story.

  The two talk for just a minute. But Big Ed has work to do—the foreman reminds him of that. The boy opens his pack and starts his homework while his mother finishes for the day. Blue River took in six new female residents this month. Four others are preparing for release. Jessica Cook has been busy firmly planting the beautiful notion of hope inside each and every one of them.

  She puts her desk in order then punches the clock. She waves good-bye to Warden Joe Banks.

  Meanwhile, the residents come in from the woodshop and the greenhouse to gather in the common before the supper bell. Somebody will always spot the one and only boy on campus at this hour and say, “Mouse in the house! Hey, it’s Perry Cook! All rise!” They do, because it feels good to get a handshake or high five at the end of the workday. That’s the way they do things at Blue River.

  On Tuesdays and Fridays the Bucking Blue Bookmobile will take Perry and Jessica home on its way back through Rising City. Other nights they are greeted with kindness—a friend from town pulling to the shoulder and calling them into a warm car or the cozy cab of a pickup truck or a family SUV. Someone always comes.

  But these two feel no worry walking along the road, where the wide, flat fields open out on both sides. If they had to walk the whole seven miles, they would. Time belongs to them at the end of the day. They’re heading home, to the house on Button Lane, where the duck-egg blue chairs sit in a circle around a hand-me-down table.

  Soon the first snow will come and float a perfect blanket down on all the rooftops all around teeny-tiny Surprise, Nebraska.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  For me, story always begins with a character in a situation. I gather lots of facts. Then I begin to ask the question, what if?

  Let me set a few things straight.

  There really is a teeny-tiny town called Surprise on the Big Blue River in eastern Nebraska.

  It is true that some correctional facilities, including one in York, Nebraska, have nurseries for infants born to incarcerated mothers. Parenting programs are offered to nonviolent offenders. Children may come for extended day and overnight visits in special housing on the grounds. Co-ed correctional facilities are unusual, but they do exist.

  For this story I asked, what if a boy was born in a prison nursery? What if he spent his babyhood there, and then stayed on? What would be his sense of home? Who would be his family?

  The Blue River Co-ed Correctional Facility is fictional. So are the residents and their Blue River stories. However, they are inspired by the stories of real inmates.

  One of the most heartbreaking things about being incarcerated is the struggle to stay connected to family while serving out a sentence. At the same time, family love is a powerful defense against recidivism.

  About one in twenty-eight school-aged children in the United States has a parent in prison. Many feel fear, sadness, shame, and guilt. Many live too far away from assigned correctional facilities to make frequent visits.

  Perry T. Cook, his mom, and all the characters you meet here are real only on these pages. That doesn’t mean they won’t find a place in your heart; I hope they do.

  Leslie Connor

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  family |'fam(ǝ)lē|

  a person or people related to one and so to be treated with a special loyalty or intimacy: I could not turn him away, for he was family.

  With thanks to all my families: one that raised me, one that I raised, one that sits around the writing table with me, one that walks with me in the woods, one that publishes me with great care.

  BACK AD

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Photo by J.F. Connor

  LESLIE CONNOR is the author of several award-winning books for children, including Waiting for Normal, winner of the ALA Schneider Family Book Award, Crunch, Miss Bridie Chose a Shovel, and the young adult novels Dead on Town Line and The Things You Kiss Goodbye. She lives with her family in Connecticut. You can visit her online at www.leslieconnor.com.

  Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at hc.com.

  BOOKS BY LESLIE CONNOR

  FOR MIDDLE GRADE READERS

  Waiting for Normal

  Crunch

  FOR YOUNGER READERS

  Miss Bridie Chose a Shovel

  FOR TEENS

  Dead on Town Line

  The Things You Kiss Goodbye

  CREDITS

  Cover art © 2016 by Erwin Madrid

  Hand lettering by Jenna Stempel

  Cover design by Joel Tippie

  COPYRIGHT

  Katherine Tegen Books is an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

  ALL RISE FOR THE HONORABLE PERRY T. COOK. Copyright © 2016 by Leslie Connor. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

  www.harpercollinschildrens.com

  * * *

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2015940765

  ISBN 978-0-06-233346-9

  EPub Edition © February 2016 ISBN 9780062333483

  * * *

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