Philip and the Fortune Teller (9781619501317) (6 page)

“Oh, Emery. We’re sunk if the police really
investigate.”

“They will investigate. They’ll have to. What
are we gonna do?”

They’d reached Emery’s house, but they kept
walking. They could take no chance of being overheard by any
grownups.

“Oh, man,” Emery groaned. “I wish the old
lady had her box back, and I hope the stupid gypsy and the pharaoh
get arrested.”

“If
they
don’t,
we
might. Our
fingerprints, remember?”

Emery had a thought. “If the police come to
arrest us, we can tell them about the gypsy and the pharaoh.”

“Emery, you think anybody’s going to believe
we were so stupid to believe we’d get three wishes if we robbed the
old lady? Besides, the circus is leaving day after tomorrow.”

“You sure the wishes are fakes? I got a
circus ticket wish come true. I wished for dinner
now,
and
your mother called us down right away.”

“We already talked about that. Forget wishes.
We have to find some way to get the box back to the old lady so the
police stop looking for us and before they check for fingerprints
or ask if anybody else in the neighborhood saw me and you.”

“How?”

“You tell me how.”

“No, you tell me how.”

“I can’t tell you how. I don’t know how.”

“I can’t tell you how, either. I don’t know
how, too.”

Emery often made Philip’s stomach tighten up,
and this was one of those times. They walked a while in silence
before Philip came up with a meager idea.

“We still have a day and a half. Let’s think
of something when we go to sleep tonight.”

Emery frowned. “How can we think when we’re
asleep?”

“We don’t think when we’re asleep. What’s
wrong with you? Before we fall asleep, we lay in bed and think when
we’re
awake.”

“Oh. I thought you meant we’d
dream
an
answer.”

“How could we dream an answer? Tell me, how?
How could you think I meant we’d dream an answer?”

“Stop yelling.”

Philip rubbed his stomach to quiet it.

“Let’s just go home,” Philip said. “Come for
me tomorrow morning. We gotta think of something.”

The boys finished their walk and separated,
Philip deciding he’d better go to bed early so he’d have plenty of
time to think.

Saturday morning found Philip and Emery
walking the streets, grumpy with one another after a night of
tossing and turning in bed, looking for a way out of their
dilemma.

“Maybe,” Emery offered, “we should think up a
story and stick to it. We were at the circus, and then we met your
father, and that’s that.”

“And when they ask us how our fingerprints
got on the jewelry box and in the old lady’s garage? Go on. Finish
the story.”

Emery couldn’t.

“Look,” said Philip, “we gotta do something
to get the jewelry box back to the lady so there’s no need for any
investigation.”

Emery stopped walking.

“Philip! Let’s tell the police where the
jewelry box is. In the gypsy’s tent!”

“Good, you go tell them. I’ll wait for you in
Mrs. Logan’s bushes and never come out again.”

“No, on the telephone.”

“The telephone?”

“Sure. We call them and tell them where the
jewelry box is, only we don’t say who we are. They get the jewelry
box, arrest the gypsy and the pharaoh, and they don’t even have to
worry about fingerprints or anything. The gypsy doesn’t know who we
are really. Just two kids.”

Philip saw possibilities.

“You know, Emery, sometimes you get good
ideas. Let’s do it.”

“Okay, you go home and call them.”

“What! I can’t call them. My parents are
home. They can’t hear me call the police and tell them about stolen
jewelry. You go home and call them.”

“I can’t. My mom’s always there. She doesn’t
hear much when I talk to her, but she’d hear that. Guaranteed.
That’s how parents are. They hear what you don’t want them to hear
and don’t hear the other stuff you tell them.”

Philip couldn’t argue with that.

“I told my mother I needed a cell phone,”
Emery grumbled.

“That idea’s dead then,” said Philip, his
spirits plummeting.

“How about one of those old fashioned
phones,” Emery suggested.

“What old fashioned phone?”

“The kind on the street you drop money
into.”

“Where’s one of them?”

“There’s one near the school.”

“What, the one without the thing you put to
your ear? What good’s that?”

“There gotta be others. Let’s find one.”

The boys walked to the supermarket and along
the stores lining the small outdoor mall attached to the
supermarket. They found one phone, but when Emery put the receiver
to his ear he heard nothing.

“I think it’s dead,” he reported. Philip put
the receiver to his own ear and agreed.

“Wasn’t there one by the corner store where
we hid the box?”

Emery thought back. “Yeah, on the side wall.
You think it might work?”

“Let’s go and see.”

The boys raced to the store, and when they
arrived, they gave two people walking by a chance to pass.

“Go try it,” Philip said.

Emery put the receiver to his ear.

“It’s buzzing like a real phone.”

Philip read the instructions and said, “Put
in two quarters and call the police.”

“You sure we’re allowed to do this. Call the
police. I only know 911; not the real number.”

“We have no choice. Make the call real quick
so they can’t complain about it.”

Emery hung up the phone and pulled a dollar
out of his pocket.

“This is all I got.”

Philip checked his own pocket and pulled out
a dime, two nickels and a penny.

“Get change,” Philip suggested, pointing to
the store. “Four quarters.”

Emery hustled inside the store but returned
with a glum look on his face.

“What?” Philip asked.

“He won’t give me any change. Says I gotta
buy something.”

“So go buy something! What’d you come back
for? Go. Go.”

Philip gave Emery an encouraging little
shove, and Emery headed back inside the store. He returned a moment
later, the same glum look on his face.

“What now?” Philip cried in exasperation.

“The cheapest thing is a pack of gum, but
it’s sixty cents. I won’t have enough to make the phone call.”

Philip dug in his pocket and turned his dime
over to Emery.

“Take this. If you spend sixty cents and give
him your dollar and my dime, you’ll get fifty cents back. Make sure
it’s two quarters.”

Emery took the dime and started off. He
turned the corner, but came right back around the corner and walked
toward Philip.

“That was fast.”

“I didn’t go in. What kind of gum you want?
They have . . .”

“Any kind,” Philip shouted. “Just go.”

“Sheesh. Just asking,” Emery grumbled.

When Emery returned, he had an open pack of
gum and two quarters. He chewed noisily.

“You opened the gum already?” Philip cried.
“You couldn’t wait until after the phone call?”

Emery shrugged. “Want a piece?”

“No. Call.”

Emery slipped the gum into his pocket and
lifted the receiver.

“Disguise your voice,” Philip suggested. “And
make it quick.”

Emery dropped the quarters in the slot and
dialed 911.

“Yes, what is your emergency?” came a voice
in Emery’s ear.

Emery stuffed his tongue in the back of his
mouth to change his voice.

“Go to the gypsy and pharaoh, and you’ll find
the stolen jewels. Ha, yes you will.” And he hung up.

Philip slapped his two hands against his
forehead.

“What?” Emery asked.

“You didn’t tell them what jewels, what
gypsy, or what pharaoh. They won’t know what you’re talking about.
And what was ‘Ha, yes you will?’ You sounded ridiculous. Like a kid
playing a trick”

“You said to make it quick.”

“Yeah, but not so quick you sound like a
moron. Let’s get out of here.”

Philip started running, and Emery followed
along. Philip didn’t stop until he and Emery nestled safely in Mrs.
Logan’s bushes.

“What were we running for?” Emery asked, out
of breath.

Philip glared at Emery. “You know the police
don’t want people joking when they call them. You sounded like you
were making fun of them. ‘Ha! Yes you will.’ Really? They probably
can tell where the call came from, and they might go see who made
it.”

“Oh,” was all Emery could think to say. “Now
what?”

“Now, we gotta get the box ourselves and give
it back to the lady.”

Emery’s head sailed to the rear in
amazement.

“Get the box from the gypsy’s tent?”

“I was thinking . . . when we were running .
. . remember when we came out of the circus that night. We got out
quick because we didn’t want to get stuck in the crowd and lose
time?”

“Yeah.”

“Remember there weren’t a lot of people
walking around the booths and rides and things?”

“Right. Everybody was inside watching the
circus.”

“There’s a show today at two, so there
probably won’t be a lot of people walking around during the
show.”

“So?”

“So maybe the gypsy will take a walk and
leave his tent if there aren’t any people around to have their
fortunes told. He can’t stay in that tent all the time. I didn’t
even see a bathroom.”

“Yeah, or a kitchen. He’s gotta go eat
someplace.”

“Right. We watch, and when he leaves the
tent, you go in and get the box.”

“Yeah, I go . . .
I
go? What do you
mean I go? Why don’t you go? You should go. It’s your idea.”

Philip wondered whether he could trust Emery
with an important job like this one. Emery might end up doing
something dumb, like he usually did.

“All right. All right. I’ll go. But you gotta
be the lookout. If I’m in the tent, and you see the gypsy coming,
you gotta let me know.”

“I will.”

“And no practicing. Only say he’s coming if
he’s really coming. Got it?”

“I got it.”

“The show’s not until two o’clock. Let’s go
home for lunch. Come for me around one-thirty.”

With that agreed upon, the boys crawled out
of their secret lair and headed home.

The boys stood across the street from the
entrance to Lighthouse Field and watched the crowds of people
walking around the midway visiting the booths and rides before
heading into the big tent to see the show. The boys spoke little,
and when the people began to disappear into the big tent, they
spoke not at all.

Finally, Philip said, “Let’s wait until
fifteen minutes after the circus starts and then go see.”

Emery nodded, too tense to speak.

The time passed until Philip tapped his
watch, and the boys crossed the street.

“Not many people walking around,” Philip
said. He looked toward the pharaoh’s tent. “I don’t see the
pharaoh.”

The pharaoh played some kind of card game
with people who bet they could find the card with a picture of a
pyramid on it after the pharaoh moved the cards around a table. If
they found the pyramid, they would win a stuffed Egyptian snake. If
they lost, they lost the money they paid to play. Philip thought
the snake was cheap looking and wondered why anyone would want to
win it. At the moment, the table the pharaoh set outside his tent
to play the game on was missing, his tent flap closed.

“I don’t think he’s there,” Emery answered.
“Let’s check on the gypsy.”

They walked a few steps further and saw that
the gypsy’s tent looked empty too, with the flap closed and the
table the gypsy used to tell fortunes nowhere in sight.

“Go see if he’s home,” Emery said.

“Suppose he is?”

“Then say we came to say hello.”

The boys approached the gypsy tent. Philip
cleared his throat and called, “Hello. Mr. Gypsy. Anybody in
there?”

Nothing happened.

“Go peek,” Emery said.

Philip, his heart pounding, pushed open the
flap of the tent. He pushed it further.

“Nobody here,” he reported.

“Go in. I’ll watch,” Emery encouraged.

Philip entered the tent and looked around.
The gypsy’s crystal ball sat on its usual table. Some gypsy
clothing was tossed over a chair. A pair of gypsy shoes lay on the
cot. The same handful of change and paperback book sat on the small
table at the head of the cot. Philip moved his gaze below the cot.
He didn’t see the box. He moved in a slow circle, checking
everywhere he could see. No box. Philip fell onto his knees and
looked way under the cot. There it was! The box of jewelry sat
pushed against the bottom of the tent wall. Philip heard the flap
of the tent behind him and nearly screamed in horror. It was only
Emery.

“I see them coming! The gypsy and the
pharaoh. Hurry up!”

Philip knew he couldn’t let the gypsy see him
carrying the box out of his tent, so he pushed the box as hard as
he could. The bottom of the tent was very tight against the ground,
but using all the power he could call up, Philip managed to get the
box under the tent and outside. A few pieces of straw came inside
the tent when he pushed the box outside. Philip wriggled backwards
from under the cot and paused to grab two quarters from the gypsy’s
spread of change on the side table. Then he rushed through the tent
flaps to join Emery.

“They saw me,” Emery reported. “Here they
come.”

Philip saw the gypsy and pharaoh coming their
way. They’d seen him come out of the gypsy’s tent.

“What are you two kids doing here?” the gypsy
demanded.

“We . . . we . . .” Emery sputtered.

Philip saved him. “We came to see if you had
anything else for us to do so we could get more wishes?”