Philip and the Fortune Teller (9781619501317) (5 page)

The boys jumped as the pharaoh gave another
loud knock on the door.

“The old man wrapped his arms around his wife
and screamed at the top of his lungs, ‘I wish my son back where he
came from. Immediately!’ The old woman began to beat at her
husband, not realizing the wisdom of his choice. They froze as the
scraping sound again began, this time moving away. Soon, the noise
faded into nothingness.”

The pharaoh stared at the boys and nodded his
head slowly.

“Do you know why the man wished his son
away?”

Emery and Philip shook their heads
silently.

“Remember, he had fallen into a machine. He
was terribly hurt. He was dead.
A dreadful dead person had come
back to life and stood knocking on their front door!
The old
man had figured out what happened and wisely sent the son away. So,
my dear children, you must be very careful what you wish for.
Because wishes . . . do . . . come . . . true.”

The pharaoh stood and walked to the tent
entrance. He opened the flap, and sunlight flooded in, making the
boys wince.

“Go now. And I wish you the wisdom of the old
man.”

Philip and Emery stood and, like two people
in trances, stepped out of the tent and onto the midway. They
walked two blocks before Emery broke the silence.

“You want to make your wish first?” he
asked.

“What? Me? No. You can go first.”

“I don’t think I’m ready yet.”

“Let’s go sit in Mrs. Logan’s bushes,” Philip
suggested. “I’m all out of breath, and I didn’t even do
anything.”

“Good idea,” Emery agreed. “We better think
about this.”

The boys hurried back to their hideout in
Mrs. Logan’s bushes. They looked at each other questioningly.
Finally, Philip spoke.

“Maybe we shouldn’t ask for money. You see
what happened to those other people when they asked for money.”

“You don’t think saying the things we wanted
this morning was like really making the wishes, and it counted, do
you?”

“How could it count for real? We didn’t even
have the three wishes yet.”

“I wish we knew about this story before we
gave the box back.”

“Emery!” Philip screamed. “You just made a
wish!”

“I did? No, I didn’t. Oh, no. I did. I take
it back; I take it back,” Emery cried looking up toward the
sky.

The boys waited. They didn’t know for what,
but they waited.

“I don’t think your wish counted,” Philip
said softly. “If it did . . . if it did, we’d already know the
story before the pharaoh told us.”

“But we know the story now. How do we know we
didn’t know it before he told us?”

“Because.”

“Because what?”

“Because I still remember being surprised by
the story. If we knew the story before the pharaoh told it to us, I
wouldn’t have been surprised.”

“Oh, yeah. Me, too. I guess you’re right. We
gotta be careful.” Emery paused. “How do you think the money would
come if we wished for it?”

“I don’t even
want
to think about it.
Let’s forget money until we figure out how to get it safely.”

“We could wish for money and say it has to
come without anybody getting hurt.”

“That would be two wishes.”

“We have three.”

“Yeah, but maybe you can’t make two wishes at
the same time. Maybe if you do, only the first one counts.”

That silenced Emery.

Philip had another thought. “What about your
wish about your sisters? That you wouldn’t hear them crying.
Suppose your wish made you deaf, or you had an accident, and your
ears got chopped off. Then you wouldn’t hear them.”

Emery’s eyes bugged. “My ears got chopped
off!” He reached up and grabbed onto them. “Yeah, well how about
you? Not having any brothers or sisters to bother you? Suppose that
came true because . . .”

“Never mind. Never mind. I don’t want to hear
it.”

The boys fell silent again.

Emery had an idea. “Maybe we should just wish
for a new comic book or something simple.”

“Seems like an awful waste of a wish. We
could
buy
a new comic book. A comic book’s nothing.”

The boys didn’t stay in Mrs. Logan’s bushes
much longer because everything they thought of frightened them.
Every wish they discussed seemed to lead to disaster. When they
exited the bushes, they headed for the playground. They joined in a
game of baseball, but they didn’t enjoy themselves very much.
Afterwards, they stopped into Emery’s house, but the babies were
fussing, so they quickly left and went to Philip’s quiet house.

“Enjoying your summer?” Philip’s mother asked
them. Philip could see she was getting ready to go out.

“Yeah, so much,” Philip responded gloomily.
“Where are you going?”

“Walking over to the library. Want to
come?”

“No, we’ll stay here.”

“Okay. Your father will be home soon. Emery,
would you like to stay for dinner? I’ll make hamburgers if you
do.”

“Stay, Emery,” Philip advised.

“Sure. Thanks,” Emery said without much
enthusiasm.

“I’ll be back soon.” The boys watched
Philip’s mother leave the house.

“Now what?” Emery asked.

“Why don’t we Google ‘wishes’ and see what it
says. Maybe it’ll show how to make a safe wish.”

“Yeah,” Emery said hopefully. “Maybe it’ll
tell us if we can make two wishes at the same time.” They went
upstairs to Philip’s computer and began their research.

Philip’s father came upstairs as the boys
were shutting down the computer.

“Is Mom home yet?” Philip asked.

“She came in right behind me. Where’d she
go?” his father answered.

“She went to the library. We’re having
hamburgers for dinner. Emery’s staying.”

“Ah, that’s nice. How are you Emery?”

“I wish I was better.”

Philip jabbed Emery with his elbow.

“Why what’s wrong?” Philip’s father
asked.

“Nothing. I’m okay.”

“Oh, your mother is paging me. See you at
dinner.”

“You just wasted another wish. You wished you
were better. Don’t be saying ‘I wish’ anything,” Philip scolded.
“Where’s your brain?”

“I wish I knew.”

“Emery!” Philip screamed.

“Oh, sorry, sorry.”

“Uh, do you feel better?”

“No.”

“Good.”

“Good? It’s good I don’t feel better?”

“Yeah. It means the wish didn’t come true, so
it didn’t count.”

“Oh, yeah, right. But I still don’t like what
the computer said about wishes. It was like wishes were always
make-believe and only in stories.”

“I know. I know. Aladdin and Snow White.”

“And why did they mention a monkey’s paw?
What’s a monkey got to do with anything?”

“How do I know,” Philip said in irritation.
An unsettling suspicion had begun to nag at him. “Do you think . .
. you think the gypsy really
can
grant wishes?”

“He could if he was in a story.”

“Well, he’s
not
in a story, Emery.
Maybe we should try an easy wish—an official wish—and we could see
whether it comes true or not. Something safe.”

“Well, I’m hungry.” Emery tilted his head up
and in a haunted house, echo-y voice said, “I wish for dinner
now.”

Philip’s mother’s voice came from
downstairs.

“Come on down, boys. The hamburgers are
cooking.”

Philip and Emery looked at each other.

“It came true,” Emery said softly.

“Maybe not. Why’d you waste a wish on
something that was going to happen anyway? Now we don’t know if it
was the wish or just plain old dinnertime.”

“But I said
now,
and it was
now
.”

“It might have been now, anyway,” Philip
argued, his voice rising. “You shouldn’t have said now then.”

“I didn’t say now then. I only said now.
Something
made
me say now then, though. If I said now now,
it would be too late.”

“You wouldn’t
say
now now after my
mother already said dinner’s ready! What are you talking about! Oh,
never mind. Let’s go eat.”

When Philip and Emery entered the kitchen,
they smelled the hamburgers and heard them sizzling. Philip’s
mother poured a steaming pot of baked beans into a bowl, and
Philip’s dad poured grape juice into four glasses. A plate of
lettuce leaves and sliced tomatoes sat on the kitchen table next to
a bottle of ketchup. A few moments later everyone sat around the
table digging in.

“What till I tell you what I bumped into on
the way back from the library,” Philip’s mom said after dabbing at
her mouth with a napkin. “Over on Van Kirk Street.”

“Don’t you mean ‘who?’” Philip’s father
asked.

“No, I mean what.”

Mid-bite of his hamburger Philip paused and
looked across the table at Emery, who had stopped chewing, even
though his mouth was full. Van Kirk Street.

“Police cars and an hysterical old woman. You
know the one who lives alone in the tan house? Mrs. Healy’s her
name.”

“The one who’s always on her porch?” answered
Philip’s father.

“Yes. Well, she was standing on the lawn by
her garage with two policemen in the middle of a big crowd.
Naturally, I
had
to see what was going on. She claimed she
was robbed. Somebody took a box of jewelry from her. The front door
of her house was open. Good grief. Even from where I stood I could
see there was no room in the house for the police to go in. No
wonder they had to talk on the lawn.”

“What do you mean?” Philip’s father
asked.

Philip and Emery had started chewing again,
but very slowly so they could listen very intently.

“Junk. Junk everywhere. I heard people
talking. They already knew.”

“Knew what?”

“How she hoarded things. One woman, who told
me her name was Mrs. Faraday, said she’d visited Mrs. Healy lots of
times, and there was no room inside the house to move around. Just
the narrowest path from room to room. And Mrs. Healy always moved
her rocking chair indoors to a space by the front door so she could
sleep in it because all the bedrooms were floor to ceiling with
junk.”

Philip swallowed and asked a question.
“What’s a hoarder?”

“I just told you,” his mother answered. “A
pack rat. Somebody who collects things and keeps them and never
gets rid of anything. Finally, the house is so filled up with the
things the person collected, and there’s no room left inside for
the person.”

“Oh, like her garage,” said Emery. Philip
shot him an angry look.

Philip’s father frowned. “You’ve been in her
garage?”

“Oh, no, no,” Philip sputtered. “We were . .
. were bouncing a ball, and it hit something and rolled behind the
garage. We looked in the window. The garage has a window. It’s all
filled up with stuff, too.”

“I’m not surprised,” said Philip’s mother.
“How can anyone live that way?”

“Get back to the story,” Philip’s father
suggested. “What did the police do?”

“I heard one policeman ask how she could tell
something was missing, and she said she knew exactly where she put
everything. Somebody got into her garage, she said, and took a box
with jewelry in it. The policemen started shooing people away, but
Mrs. Faraday told me that she was the first person Mrs. Healy
called when she missed the jewelry, and she advised her to phone
the police. It’s a wonder she could find the phone to make the
call. Seems Mrs. Healy bought things from yard sales, pawn shops,
junk stores, anywhere she could find something for sale. She bought
the box of jewelry somewhere, and somehow somebody made off with
it. So she claims, anyway.”

Philip and Emery exchanged another glance at
the mention of pawn shops, but their stomachs hit the floor at
Philip’s mom’s next sentence.

“The old woman swears she’s seen two young
boys hanging around her house.”

“When did the jewelry go missing?” asked
Philip’s dad.

“Last night, I guess. Seems Mrs. Healy saw
the box yesterday, but it was missing today.”

“Two young boys, eh? Good thing you two were
at the circus last night.” Philip’s father smiled as if he were
making a joke. “No one can suspect you two.”

“Ha, yeah. Right, Dad. Good thing,” Philip
said, trying hard to smile back in a normal manner.

The topic changed, and the boys hurried
through their dinners. They knew from the looks they gave each
other they had to talk.

“Okay if we go over Emery’s a while? Still
lots of daylight left,” Philip said.

“Sure, go ahead. Your mother and I will clean
up here. Maybe we’ll take a nice walk later, honey?”

Philip’s mother smiled in response, and the
boys pushed their chairs back and left the house. They walked and
talked.

Philip grumbled, “A gypsy, a pharaoh, a dead
guy who visits his parents, and now a pack rat hoarder.”

Emery threw his arms out and said, “How could
the old lady know the box was missing? What’d she do? Climb up on
things like a mountain goat and check? She’s gotta be like a
hundred years old.”

“She saw us, too. Does she know you?”

“I don’t think so, but she knows you. She
called your house, right?”

Philip’s stomach spun in great circles.

“Before, yeah. But she didn’t call my house
yet for this.”

“Maybe she saw two boys but couldn’t see who.
We did try to hide, you know.”

“Boy, I hope so.”

“Don’t worry. She would have called your
house already if she knew it was you.”

“Suppose the police ask other houses if they
saw two boys. Other people might have seen us. They might know us.
We weren’t trying to hide from the other people. And our
fingerprints!! Emery, did we touch anything in the garage?”

“Touch anything? We touched
everything
! We both touched the doorknob before we
left.”