Philip and the Loser (9781619501522)

PHILIP AND THE LOSER

by

John Paulits

All rights reserved

Copyright © March 14, 2013, John Paulits

Cover Art Copyright © 2013, Charlotte Holley

Gypsy Shadow Publishing, LLC.

Lockhart, TX

www.gypsyshadow.com

Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book
are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or
persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the
intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or shared by
any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to
printing, file sharing, and email, without prior written permission
from Gypsy Shadow Publishing, LLC.

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ISBN: 978-1-61950-152-2

Published in the United States of America

First eBook Edition: March, 2013

DEDICATION

Charlotte and Denise

Philip slumped at his desk. The teacher
eyed him coldly, so he quickly sat up. When the teacher looked
elsewhere, Philip slumped again.
Will this class never
be over?
he wondered.
Will lunch time never
get here?
Fourth grade had to be the most boring thing
in the world, and September hadn’t even ended yet! The teacher
looked his way a second time, so Philip took the trouble to wriggle
upright again. Mr. Sagsman wasn’t their real teacher. He only came
into the class twice a week to teach about feelings, conflict
resolution, brotherhood, and stuff like that.

“
And so, kids, what I want you to do is
find an example of brotherhood somewhere in your own lives,” Mr.
Sagsman went on.

Philip quietly moaned and glanced at
his best friend Emery, who sat next to him.
Brotherhood;
oh, brother,
Philip moaned inwardly. He had one baby
sister, and Emery
two
baby
sisters. Why didn’t Mr. Sagsman teach about
sister
hood and how to put up with it? That would
have been something worth learning, instead of his making the class
write a whole page about some kind of brotherhood in their lives.
Philip didn’t even know what Mr. Sagsman was
talking
about. He hoped Emery would be able to clue
him in.

Suddenly, a jolting crash came from outside
the classroom. Philip sat up again. At last! Something interesting
to break the monotony. Mr. Sagsman walked over and opened the
classroom door, and from where he sat, Philip saw a boy lying on
top of an upside-down, single desk, trying to get untangled from
the four upright legs of the desk.

“
What in the world happened?” Mr.
Sagsman asked, stepping outside to help the boy to his
feet.

Philip noticed Emery put his head down on one
arm and cover the top of his head with his other arm. Philip looked
back at the doorway. Mr. Sagsman led the boy into the room.

“
Are you all right?” Mr. Sagsman asked.
“What happened?”

The boy smiled, and Philip could see one of
his big front teeth had a chip out of it. The boy’s hair looked
like his mother forgot to make him comb it. The boy gave a loud
sniff, scratched above his right ear, and said, “I fell down.”

The class laughed. Mr. Sagsman shushed them.
“What do you mean you fell down?”

“
Well,” the boy said slowly, scratching
the other side of his head above his left ear. “I was pushing this
desk to Ms. Bethal’s class. She’s my new fourth grade teacher, and
this is my first day here, and that’s gonna be my desk.”

New in school,
Philip thought.
No wonder he hadn’t seen him before.

“
I was pushing it and . . . and . . .”
The boy wobbled his hands around in front of him for a few seconds.
“. . . it fell over.”

The class laughed again.

“
You were pushing the desk, and it fell
over?”

“
Yep,” the boy nodded. “It went . . .”
He flipped one hand over the other. “. . . over.
Boom!”
The boy smiled at the laughing children,
pleased to be entertaining them.

Mr. Sagsman looked at the class and shook his
head. “Stop.” He turned back to the boy. “Are you hurt?”

“
No,
I
didn’t go
. . .
boom!
The table went . . .
boom!”
He said
boom
real loud
and gave a loud
yuk yuk
after the second
boom, and the class laughed even harder.

“
All right. All right, enough,” said
Mr. Sagsman. Philip wondered why teachers didn’t have the same
sense of humor as their students. Mr. Sagsman, especially. “Come
on. Let me help you.” Mr. Sagsman took the boy into the hall and
righted the desk for him. “Be careful now.”

The boy stared back into the classroom
and said, “No more
booms?”

“
No more booms,” Mr. Sagsman responded
over the laughter of the class. He turned away from the boy and
reentered the classroom. The boy followed Mr. Sagsman to the door.
“
Boom!”
he cried again and joined in with the
wildly laughing children in front of him.

“
Young man,” Mr. Sagsman began. Philip
saw this boy knew what
young man
meant. The
boy turned away and got behind the desk and pushed it out of sight.
“All right, class. We still have ten minutes. Let me finish
explaining your assignment.”

Philip saw Emery raise his head. The class
hadn’t quieted yet, so Philip quickly said, “You missed everything.
Why’d you have your head down? It was pretty funny.”

Emery shook his head. “It wasn’t.”

“
It was.”

“
It wasn’t. That boy?”

“
Yeah?” said Philip.

“
He’s my cousin Leon, the one I told
you was moving a block away from me.”

“
That goof’s your cousin?”

“
Quiet, there,” said Mr.
Sagsman.

Emery nodded at Philip and faced the
teacher. Philip faced front, too.
That
was
Emery’s cousin? The cousin Emery never wanted to talk about? The
one Emery’s mother said they’d have to play with every day? Philip
glanced at Emery, who sat with his head cradled in one hand. Philip
knew if Emery had to play with him,
he
would
have to play with him, too. Philip cradled
his
head in one hand while Mr. Sagsman droned on about the
wonders of brotherhood.

“
Where is he?” whispered Emery. “You
see him?”

“
Not yet, but I’m looking,” Philip
replied.

Philip and Emery crouched down behind two of
the eight dented metal trash cans lined up near the wall outside of
the school kitchen in the corner of the play yard. They were
looking for Leon.

Philip sniffed. “
Pshew.
It really stinks here.”

“
It’s where they throw all the leftover
junk from lunch,” Emery informed him, looking around at the wilted
string beans, soggy pizza, squashed potato puffs, and other stuff
the children had rejected and which hadn’t quite made it into the
garbage cans.

“
I gotta move somewhere else. It’s
really bad right here.” Still squatting, Philip shuffled toward
another garbage can. Suddenly, he slipped on something and lost his
balance. “
Whoa!”
When he grabbed the top of
the nearest garbage can, his hand sank into something soft. “Yuck,”
he said. He let go fast and fell backwards.

“
Philip, what’s on your hand?” Emery
asked as Philip scrambled back into a squat.

“
Nothing,” said Philip, looking for
someplace to wipe his hand.

“
Yeeessshhhhh.
You got lunch
junk all over your back.”

“
Lunch junk?” Philip twisted his neck
around, but not enough to inspect his shirt. Emery pointed. “Look
what you fell in.”

An assortment of mashed fruit, lunch trays,
and oozing bread spread out behind Philip. Emery couldn’t help
laughing, even though he knew Philip wouldn’t like it.

“
What’s funny?” snapped
Philip.

“
It’s Leon. Whenever he’s around,
things like this happen.”

Philip rubbed his old-lunch dirty hand along
the ribs of the nearest garbage can. “Some of it won’t come off,”
he mumbled. He started shaking his hand to loosen the stuck garbage
and make it fall off. “Brush me off,” he told Emery.

Emery looked around and found two napkins
that looked cleaner than everything else. Philip turned his back to
him. Emery rubbed the paper softly along Philip’s back.

“
Harder,” said Philip. “Get the junk
off me.”

Emery rubbed harder than Philip
expected, and he tumbled forward. “
Yaahh!”

He put out his hands to stop his fall,
but one hand landed on a black and brown banana peel and slid
forward. Philip tried to jump up, but his quick move only made him
slip further, and his right knee went
splat!
into a ketchup-covered half a hamburger.

“
This is . . . oh smelly . . . get this
. . .” sputtered Philip, and he finally scrambled to his
feet.

“
Get down,” said Emery. “Here comes
Leon.”

Philip didn’t care who was coming. He was
covered with garbage, and he felt like he wanted to throw up. He
began shaking himself as hard he could and rubbing his back against
the wall, hoping the attached garbage would fall off.

Leon noticed a boy covered with garbage
jumping around doing some wild new dance. “Oh, hi, Emery. Who’s
this?”

“
He’s my friend, Philip.”

Leon studied Philip, now busy scraping his
hands against the top of one of the garbage cans.

“
Why is he playing with garbage?” Leon
wondered. “Nobody in my old school did. Does he like it? Tell him
the swings are empty.”

“
No, I
don’t
like
playing with garbage!” Philip shouted. “I fell down, all right? I
fell down. Is that all right with you?”

Leon gave a
yuk yuk
and began to shake himself the way he’d seen Philip
shake.

Philip stopped cleaning himself and watched.
He turned to look at Emery, who frowned and shrugged his
shoulders.

“
What are you doing?” Philip asked
slowly.

Leon stopped shaking. “I thought it would
make you feel better if I helped you out. And it looks like
fun!”

Philip flicked a green bean from his elbow
and growled, “How could your shaking make me feel better?”

“
Well, if two people are shaking, you
won’t look so stupid. You looked kinda stupid.” Leon gave another
loud
yuk yuk.
“Ask Emery. Come on, Emery. You
shake, too. Three people shaking, everybody will think we’re
playing some kind of game.”

Leon started shaking again. Philip felt
something soft and juicy slide down under his shirt collar along
his neck. He bent over and shook his shoulders trying to get the
juicy, slippery thing to slide the other way.

Emery looked at the two boys dancing
wildly.
Oh, well,
he thought. He began
hopping on one leg and shaking his arms. Then he hopped on the
other leg and shook his head around.

“
Excuse me,” came a voice. All three
boys froze. Mr. Sagsman stood staring at them, a strange look on
his face, his eyes wide, his bushy eyebrows pushed close together,
his mouth hanging open. “May I ask what you three are
doing?”