Philip Gets Even (9781597050807) (5 page)

With their sneakers squeaking on the shiny
tile floor, the boys took slow steps down the corridor.

“There’s 319,” Emery said softly.

The boys approached the slightly open door.
Philip knocked.

There was no response.

“Knock harder,” said Emery.

Philip knocked harder and the door moved
inward a little.

“Mr. Greif?” he called softly. “Mr. Greif.
It’s Philip and Emery.”

Philip pushed the door open a little further
and they walked into the room. It was a windowless room with
shelves of textbooks lining the walls. In a back corner, there were
three televisions on black metal rolling stands.

“Mr. Greif?” Philip said in a louder voice.
“Are you in here?”

“There’s nobody here,” said Emery. “And this
is 319.”

Suddenly, the lights flicked off, the door
slammed, and the room went black.

“Hey!” Philip called.

“I can’t see anything,” said Emery. “Find the
light. How’d it get turned off?”

“Watch!” Philip cried when Emery walked into
him.

“Find the door,” said Emery. “Find the light
switch. Find
something.
”

Philip felt Emery grab his shirt and so, with
his two hands stretched out in front of him, Philip led the way.
When his hand touched wood, he felt around for the doorknob.

“I got it, Emery.”

“Open the door.”

“I’m trying. It won’t turn.”

“Then turn on the light. What am I stepping
on?” A tiny crunching sound came from beneath Emery’s feet.

Philip ran his hand up and down the wall next
to the door until he found the light switch.

“M & Ms!” Emery cried. “Look!”

A handful of M & Ms was scattered on the
floor.

“How’d
they
get there?” Emery cried,
kicking them out of the way.

Suddenly, Philip’s stomach dropped and a
chill crept across his neck and down his arms.

“Emery, that note wasn’t from Mr. Greif.”

“He signed... M & Ms! Johnny Visco!”

The boys were shocked into silence, realizing
they were locked in a book closet after coming to the third floor
without permission. Then they heard the noise of the classes
returning to their rooms.

“Lunch is over. Now what?” said Emery in a
quiet voice.

The two boys listened as the hallway grew
quiet.

“Shall we yell and scream and knock?” said
Emery.

“If we were going to yell and scream and
knock, don’t you think we should have done it when the hallway was
full of people?”

Emery shrugged. “Try the little button on the
doorknob.”

Philip tried to twist the lock button in the
center of the doorknob.

“It won’t. It just won’t. Ewww! And there’s
some junk in there all over the button. Yuck.” Philip wiped his
fingers on his pants.

“I know who put the junk in there, too.”

The thought of Johnny Visco silenced the
boys.

“Well we can’t stay in here all afternoon,”
said Emery. “Try the knob again.”

“You try it. It’s disgusting.”

Emery bent down and looked at the doorknob.
“It
is
full of yuck. Maybe we can hit it with something and
loosen it.”

“Yeah! Get a book. A big one.” He and Emery
walked deeper into the closet.

“There are some big books,” said Emery,
pointing upward. “I can’t reach. Here, let me get on your
shoulders. Bend down.”

Philip looked at him. “Why don’t you bend
down and let me get on your shoulders?”

“I thought of it first,” said Emery. “Come
on.”

Philip didn’t argue. Emery
did
think
of it first. He got on his knees and Emery climbed on his
shoulders.

“Okay,” said Emery. “Get up. And don’t dump
me off.”

Philip staggered to his feet.

“Hey, stop. Hold onto something, will you?
Take two steps. The other way! Okay, I got one.”

The book,
Science for Our Times,
was
very thick and had a hard cover.

Just then the closet door opened. Standing in
the doorway, his face partially in shadow, the bright lights of the
hallway behind him, the boys saw their principal, Mr. Greif.

“I never sent you a note to meet me,” Mr.
Greif was saying. “And I certainly wouldn’t meet you in a book
closet on the third floor, would I? Or expect you to be performing
a circus act when I found you. Look around. Do you know where you
are?”

The boys timidly turned their heads right and
left.

“Well,” said Mr. Greif insistently.

“Your office?” said Philip shyly.

“Exactly. Where I customarily meet people.
How long were you planning to spend in the bookroom anyway?”

Each boy shrugged.

“And you know you weren’t supposed to be on
the third floor.”

Philip wanted to mention the note directing
them there again, but he knew that wouldn’t work. The principal
didn’t believe about the note. But that didn’t stop Emery.

“The note told us to go there,” said Emery.
“A boy gave it to us.”

“And who was this boy?”

Philip and Emery looked at each other. Emery
shrugged.

“He was just a little kid,” said Emery. “I
didn’t look at him much.”

Mr. Greif looked at Philip. “And you?”

Philip shrugged. “I didn’t look at him much
either.”

“Where’s the note now?”

“The boy took it back,” said Emery.

The principal shook his head. “It’s a good
thing somebody heard noises in the closet and let me know. What
were you doing in there?”

“Trying to get out,” Emery said softly.

“Don’t be funny. This is a serious matter.”
Luckily, Mr. Greif’s secretary appeared at his office door and
beckoned him. He stepped outside to talk to her.

“We didn’t make any noises,” said Emery. “How
could anybody hear us?”

“Don’t you get it? Johnny Visco probably sent
one of his friends to say he heard noises. They knew we’d be in
there. They locked us in and then went to tell Mr. Greif they heard
noises so we’d get caught in there.”

“Oh,” said Emery. “Shall we tell on Johnny
Visco?”

Philip gave him a long look. “So he can do
more stuff to us? Mr. Greif wouldn’t believe it anyway. I think we
just better keep quiet until he lets us go.”

Mr. Greif returned. “Okay, you two. For the
next two days come to my office after you eat your lunch. No
playing for either of you. And tomorrow morning I want a full-page
composition from each of you telling me what you did wrong and why
it’s important to follow school rules. And I’ll be expecting a
phone call from one of your parents sometime tomorrow between eight
o’clock and four o’clock. Any questions?”

Neither boy had a question.

“Now go back to your class. And take this
note so your teacher knows where you were.”

Emery took the note and the boys left the
office.

“Doesn’t even look like his signature,” Emery
mumbled after inspecting the note.

Philip looked at him. “It doesn’t look like
his signature? You just saw him sign it.”

“But it doesn’t look like the other
signature.”

“That was Johnny Visco’s, dummy!”

“Oh, yeah. This is not being a good day,”
Emery said glumly.

Their teacher was lining up the class when
the boys reentered the classroom.

“Where were you two?” she asked.

Emery handed her the note.

The teacher made a puzzled face and shook her
head.

“Copy your homework, pack up,” she said, “and
join us in art.”

The class left the room and the boys went to
their desks.

Philip reached inside his desk for his
notebook and pulled out three M & Ms. “Emery.”

Emery looked inside his desk. “Me, too.” He
pulled out three more M & Ms.

“Don’t
eat
them, Emery!”

“Oh,” he said, taking his hand away from his
mouth. He dropped the candy on the floor and followed Philip out of
the room.

Ms. Trinetti glared when they entered her
room.

Emery gave her a little wave of his hand.

“Yes, hello to both of you. You’re just in
time to hear what I have to say.”

Philip and Emery took their seats and looked
down, unwilling to meet Ms. Trinetti’s eyes.

Finally, Ms. Trinetti said, “We had something
of an unsuccessful art show yesterday.”

The class giggled and Philip and Emery
squirmed.

“I had hoped to try again at that art
gallery, but it seems they’re booked for the next ten years, or so
they told me.”

The class laughed again and Philip and Emery
squirmed again.

“So I’m looking into a few things, and I hope
I’ll have something to announce very soon. The art that you boys
and girls submitted was very well done.”

The boy who sat behind Philip leaned forward
and whispered, “And tasty, too.”

The children who heard the whisper
giggled.

Ms. Trinetti frowned and waited for
quiet.

“Until then I want everyone to put his and
her art in a safe place. We’ll try again very soon. Now, today, I
have a slide show about the French Impressionists to present to
you.”

Philip was grateful that slide shows were
presented in the dark because in the dark was exactly where he
wanted to be. He peeked at Emery, who glanced back at him and
rolled his eyes. Then both boys locked their attention on the
screen in the front of the room.

~ * ~

Philip waited for his father to come home
from work so he would have to explain his day in school only once.
He talked as fast as he could so his parents couldn’t question him
and told them how Johnny Visco had tricked him and Emery and gotten
them both into trouble.

When he finished, his parents could only
stare at him.

“That is the wildest story...” said Philip’s
father.

Philip took a breath and said, “And Mr. Greif
wants you to call him tomorrow.”

“I guess he does,” said Philip’s mother. “And
I’ll give him a piece of my mind about this Johnny Visco.”

Philip’s stomach flopped over.

“No, Mom, you can’t do that,” he said. “It
would just make things worse. Anyway, how can I prove it?”

“Let me take care of it, dear,” said Philip’s
father.

Philip’s mother gave a loud sniff and left
the room.

“Don’t mention Johnny Visco when you call,
Dad. Just say I won’t do it anymore.”

“All right. But keep your eyes open. Don’t
get tricked again, okay?”

“Absolutely.”

~ * ~

“How did you do?” Emery asked the next
morning as he and Philip walked to school.

“My mother wanted to call Mr. Greif and tell
him all about Johnny Visco.”

“You didn’t let her, did you?”

“No, no. My dad’s going to call and just say
I won’t do it again.”

“My mom and dad just shook their heads and
said I’d have to take my punishment. You do your composition?”

Philip nodded and the conversation died
out.

Both Philip and Emery were in a quiet mood
when they took their seats in class. They did their work in silence
until nine-thirty when the teacher took the class to gym. That
class put the boys in a better mood as they ran around the
schoolyard and forgot about their problems for a little while.
Their good mood didn’t last long, however. Five minutes after they
returned to class, Mr. Greif walked into the room.

The principal nodded to Ms. Louis and then
looked first at Philip, then at Emery.

“You boys have something for me, I
believe?”

Philip pulled his loose-leaf binder out of
his desk and flipped to the back section, where he’d stored his
composition about following the rules. He stared in shock at
nothing but a blank page with two smashed M & Ms on it. Where
was his composition? He turned through his loose-leaf notebook in a
panic. He looked over at Emery and felt that Johnny Visco chill
start at the back of his neck and trickle down his arms when he saw
Emery fumbling through the pages of his notebook, too.

“Well?” said Mr. Greif.

Philip felt the eyes of the entire class on
him. He pushed his notebook aside and began pulling books out of
his desk. Four more M & Ms clicked to the floor. And so he gave
up.

“I can’t find it,” he said in a small
voice.

“Emery?” said Mr. Greif.

Emery shrugged and didn’t say a thing.

“Come with me, the two of you, please.”

Philip’s stomach crunched itself into the
size of an apple, and an ache the size of a pumpkin throbbed in his
throat, as he and Emery followed the principal down the stairs to
his office. Mr. Greif closed the door and took a seat behind his
desk.

“You didn’t do the composition I asked you to
do?”

“I did, but I can’t find it,” said
Philip.

“Me, too,” Emery added.

Mr. Greif rubbed his hands across his face
and said, “I don’t know what has gotten into you two. Hiding in the
third floor book closet. Defying my request for this composition.
We have rules in this school, and you’re going to have to follow
them. Neither of your parents has called yet. Did you tell them to
call?”

“Yes,” said Philip.

“Yes,” said Emery.

“Well, go back upstairs and get your things
and then wait outside my office. Your parents will have to come and
pick you up. You’ll be suspended from school tomorrow as punishment
for this. The suspension will go on your permanent record. And you
will bring me that composition on Thursday, or you’ll be suspended
for three days instead of one.”

Philip and Emery were shocked. Suspended from
school! Nobody ever got suspended from school. Except Johnny Visco.
Philip remembered that he’d been suspended from school in October
for stuffing rolls of toilet paper into the toilets in the boys’
bathroom on the third floor. Everybody in school knew about it. And
now he and Emery were suspended!