“Climb up on the boxes and get behind the rocking chair.”
The boys scrambled awkwardly over boxes and chairs and tables and crammed themselves behind an old wooden rocking chair. The old woman entered the garage, and the boys stared down at her, hoping she wouldn’t turn their way. They watched as the old woman unloaded a brown shopping bag. She pulled out two small statues which she unwrapped from the paper protecting them and squeezed them onto a shelf she could barely reach. She pulled out two big piles of magazines and tossed them over some boxes onto a pile of other magazines that peeked out over the boxes.
“Ahhh,” the old woman began in her creaky voice, “there you are my little pretty.”
Philip stomach danced. He hoped he wasn’t the little pretty she had discovered. He watched her take a small round mirror, very decorated and with a short handle, and lay it gently inside an open box at her right shoulder. The old woman looked over her stash, and Philip scrooched down. The woman gave a satisfied chuckle and left the garage, closing the door behind her.
“She’s gone,” Philip whispered. “Let’s get down before we start knocking things over.”
The boys made their careful way back to the floor.
“At least we didn’t have to break any windows,” Emery whispered.
“We better be able to get out of here,” Philip said nervously.
“Go try the door.”
Philip slid between boxes and things to the door. Terror shot through him when the doorknob refused to turn. “We’re locked in!” he cried.
Emery peeked over his shoulder.
“Try the little button. Turn the button.”
Philip gave the button in the center of the doorknob a small turn. When he tried the doorknob this time, it worked.
“There, see. We can get out.”
Philip breathed a long sigh of relief, eager for this part of the plan to be over with. “Let’s look for the box. I don’t like being in here.”
“In all this junk? Where will we look?”
Philip thought a moment.
“It probably won’t be with all the magazines and newspapers. It’s not on the tables or chairs or shelves we can see. Look in those boxes where she put the mirror. Maybe that’s where she puts her fancy stuff.”
Emery slid around Philip and started looking through the box where the woman had put the mirror.
“There’s a big box over there,” said Philip. “I’ll climb up on these magazines . . .”
“I see a couple boxes on the bottom,” Emery interrupted over his shoulder.
“You see any numbers on them?”
“I see a tag, but it’s tucked in between other boxes. Come help me.”
Philip jumped down from the stack of magazines. The pile wobbled as he jumped, and Philip held his breath until the magazine pile steadied.
“What do you want me to do?” Philip asked.
“I can’t reach down far enough. Let me on your shoulders.”
Philip didn’t much like the idea of Emery stepping on him. “Why don’t you get one of those chairs?”
“We pull out a chair, and everything’ll fall down. Come on. You want to see the circus or what? We’re wasting time.”
Philip did want to see the circus, so he bent down, and Emery stood on his back.
“Okay, stand up slow now,” Emery ordered.
Philip staggered to his feet with Emery telling him to go right and left and stand up and bend over.
“Stop telling me what to do,” Philip puffed, out of breath from moving Emery around.
“Be still. I can reach now.”
“Tell me what you’re doing.”
“There’s a tag on the string. I’m trying to pull it . . . I got it. 6482! It’s the box.”
“Can you get it out?”
“Let me get . . . wait . . . here hold this.”
Emery reached a box down to Philip. Philip could only move his eyes since Emery’s ankles were clamped tightly against his ears.
“What am I supposed to do with this?” Philip asked, impatient with Emery’s giving him so many orders.
“It was in the way. Here, hold this one, too.”
“Another one?”
“Here, one more.”
“I can’t hold so many!”
“Take it,” Emery ordered.
Philip balanced the two boxes Emery had already passed him against his chest and took the third one.
“I got it!” Emery cried. “I got it. Kneel down again.”
“It’s hard to kneel down without my hands.”
“Don’t use your hands, just use your knees.”
“I gotta balance. You’re making me wobble.”
“Hey, come on. Easy. Now you’re making me wobble.”
Philip managed to get one knee on the floor, and when he did, Emery hopped off. He stood in front of Philip and held out the tag. It said Riley’s Pawnshop and had the number 6482 clearly printed on it.
“We got it,” said Emery triumphantly. “Let’s get out of here.”
Philip indicated the three boxes he still held. “What about these?”
Emery frowned. “I guess we better put them back where they were so the old lady doesn’t get suspicious.” Emery put the box he held on the ground. “Kneel down again.”
“How about you kneel down this time?” Philip said hotly.
“I know where the boxes go. You don’t. Kneel down. Don’t always be arguing.”
Philip had a hundred reasons why Emery should do the kneeling down this time, but it would take forever, he knew, to convince his friend, and he didn’t want to take the time.
Finally, Philip grumbled, “Do it fast.”
“Fast as you can kneel down.”
Emery replaced the boxes the boys didn’t want and climbed down. Philip picked up the box they did want.
“Let’s look inside,” he said.
Emery nodded, and Philip lifted the lid.
“Wow!” Philip said softly. All kinds of jewelry filled the box. Lots of colored stones, red, blue, yellow, green, white, decorated the jewelry.
“Where’s the magic scarab? See it?” Emery asked.
“How do I know which one’s a scarab? Anyway, we have no time for looking. Open the door.”
Emery opened the door and reset the little knob before he closed it again.
“Uh oh,” Emery said and pointed. “Get back.” The old woman sat on her porch rocking.
“Here, you take it,” said Philip, handing Emery the box.
“You keep it.”
“We can’t walk out there carrying the box. She’ll see and do her pointing thing, and we’ll both end up down the sewer. Look, let’s hide the box in the bushes. If we take it now, one of her neighbors may see us with the box and tell her about it. We were going to come back here tonight anyway after we broke the window. We’ll come back when it’s dark and get the box. We’ll have time. Then we can hide it someplace closer to the circus, and tomorrow we can deliver it to the gypsy.”
“Okay. Shove it in there.”
Philip got on his knees.
“Shove it in as far as it can go. We don’t want anybody to find it before we come back.”
Philip got to his feet.
“Let’s go through the bushes and come out further down,” Philip suggested. “And look out for nosy neighbors.”
Emery peeked around the garage. “She’s still there. Let’s climb through.”
The boys pushed their way through the bushes and came back onto the sidewalk well down the block. A man dragging his trash can to the curb waved to them, and they returned the wave. They looked back and saw the old lady still rocking. They glanced nervously at one another and headed off to see the circus.
Chapter Six
The boys enjoyed the circus, especially the motorcycles that roared around inside a giant ball, just missing each other as they zipped in and out and up and down in wild circles. When, at the end of the show, the man flew out of the cannon and
sailed across the whole circus tent into a big net, Philip and Emery scooted. They knew they needed to beat the crowd leaving the tent. They had only twenty-four minutes before they had to meet Philip’s father.
“Make sure we don’t run into your father as we leave,” Emery said, trying to keep up. An elephant walked in front of them, and the boys paused outside the tent of the gypsy. They watched a woman step outside, pause, and pat the front of her dress. She spun in a circle, looking around on the ground. The elephant passed, and the boys hurried on to Van Kirk Street.
“Oh, no,” Philip said. “Look, she’s on her porch.”
“Yeah, but it’s dark. We can get the box without her seeing. Go ahead.”
Philip turned to his friend.
“We can get it. I should go ahead?”
“Yeah. You know where you put the box, not me.”
Philip looked for a way to argue, but Emery had him again.
Emery went on, “I’ll keep an eye on the old lady.”
“If she comes, you say, ‘Here comes the witch.’ Okay?” Philip got down on his knees.
“Right. Here comes the witch.”
Philip leaped up.
“What are you doing?” Emery asked. “Get back down there.”
“You said, ‘Here comes the witch.’ Is she coming?”
“No, I was just practicing. She’s still rocking.”
“Well, why did you say, ‘Here comes the witch’ then?”
“Will you get the box, for Pete’s sake?”
“Don’t say anything unless she’s really coming.”
“I won’t. Go.”
Philip got back onto his knees and crawled forward. He took out his little flashlight and shot its beam into the bushes. He found the box and pulled it out.
“Philip, she stood up,” Emery whispered.
Philip got to his feet, and together they peeked around the garage.
“She’s lifting her arm,” Philip said with a shaky voice. “She can feel we have the box! She knows! She knows! She’s gonna put us down the sewer!”
“Listen!”
In the distance, the boys heard a siren.
“You think she can call the police by lifting her arm?” Emery asked softly.
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
Headlights and sirens turned onto Van Kirk Street. The boys stood frozen in fear as two police cars raced by.
“They missed us,” Emery said. “Maybe the old lady’s arm is crooked and her aim is off. Run before they come back.”
Philip hurried away, Emery at his shoulder.
Two blocks later they slowed, and Emery asked, “Where’ll we put the box this time? In Mrs. Logan’s bushes?”
“We don’t have time. We better find a place around here where it’s dark. Near the circus there’ll be lots of lights and lots of people. How about there?”
Philip indicated a corner store, closed at the moment, but which had an unlit outdoor staircase along the side wall. He walked to the staircase and put the box under the first step. Then he pulled two trashcans under the staircase to block the view of anyone going by.
“I guess it’s okay there,” said Emery. “But we better come by first thing in the morning when the store opens and get it.”
“Come get me as early as you can.”
“I will, but the circus doesn’t open until noon.”
“We’ll get the box and take it with us. At noon we’ll go and give it to the gypsy.”
“Okay. Let’s go meet your father. How much time we got?”
Philip checked his watch. “Seven minutes.”
The boys ran back toward the circus grounds.
~ * ~
The next morning, Philip and Emery found the box exactly where they’d left it, and Philip put the box inside a plastic bag he’d thought to bring along.
“People will think we went to the supermarket,” he reasoned with Emery.
“Now what?”
“Now we can hide in Mrs. Logan’s bushes until it’s time to leave for the circus.”
“Good. We can’t be too careful. Three wishes! This will be so great.”
The boys slipped into their hideout and sat down, the valuable plastic bag between them.
“Did you think more about what you’ll do with your wish?” Emery asked dreamily.
“What do you mean my wish? We have three wishes.”
“Yeah, but you can’t divide three in half.”
“So you get two wishes?”
“I found the wishes, didn’t I? The gypsy gave them to me first.”
“So what? I did everything you did. I did more. You got to stand on me; I didn’t stand on you. I crawled under the bush to hide the box, not you; I got the box back out, not you; I brought the plastic bag, not you. I did everything!”
“Yeah, but the gypsy gave me the wishes first, not you,” Emery repeated. “Anyway, a plastic bag’s nothing.”
“But you were afraid to do it yourself. You wouldn’t have any wishes if I didn’t do everything.”
“And you wouldn’t have any wishes if I didn’t let you know about it. Besides, you didn’t do everything,” Emery replied. “I found the box in the garage, didn’t I?”
“Because you were standing on me! If you didn’t stand on me, you wouldn’t have found the box. Let’s split one wish.”
“Split it? How?”
“Let’s ask for something we can share. Like let’s ask for a million dollars. Then you can take half, and I can take half.”
Emery considered. “How can we carry half of a million dollars into the house?”
Philip didn’t respond.
“Well?” Emery insisted.
“I don’t know. Let me think.” A few quiet minutes went by. “How about we wish that when we’re twenty-one years old, a million dollars shows up in each of our bank accounts. We should have bank accounts of our own by then, don’t you think?”
“Yeah. Yeah! Great idea. How about your other wish?”
More quiet minutes went by as the two boys thought things over.
“How about you?” Philip asked. “And don’t waste it on something dumb like getting good marks in school.”
“I am going to wish that I never hear my sisters cry again. Or even talk to me when they learn to talk. That would be great! That would keep me happy until I was twenty-one, and then the money will show up in my bank account to keep me happy after that.”
Philip nodded. It made sense to him.
“Now you,” said Emery.
“I think I’ll wish that I never even get a brother or sister. That way there’ll be nobody to bother me the way your sisters bother you. Then I’ll be happy until the money shows up.”
“Great idea,” Emery agreed. The boys lapsed into dreamy silence as they contemplated their glorious futures, and the minutes slipped by.
~ * ~
The gypsy and the pharaoh sat talking outside the gypsy’s tent when Philip and Emery arrived. The two men rose in anticipation.
Philip held out the plastic bag. “We got it,” he said proudly.
“Shhhh!” the gypsy counseled. “Come inside.”
The boys followed the men into the tent. Philip handed over the box. The gypsy took it out of the plastic bag and shared a smile with the pharaoh. He opened the box and ran his fingers over the jewelry. He took another piece of jewelry from somewhere in his sleeve and put it into the box before closing the lid and sliding the box under his cot.
“You did well,” said the gypsy, pronouncing well as vell.
“Very well,” the pharaoh agreed.
“Can we have our wishes now?” Emery asked.
“Your wishes? Ah, yes of course,” said the gypsy. He stepped outside and came back in holding his creamy glass ball. “Place your hands on the crystal ball,” he said slowly. “Close your eyes.”
Philip and Emery obeyed. Philip thought he heard a snort and a gurgle from the two men, but he didn’t dare open his eyes. He listened to the gyps
y say words in a strange language.
“There you are,” said the gypsy. “You may open your eyes. The three wishes are yours. But you had better listen to Achmed. He has a story to tell you.”
“A story?” Philip repeated.
“I had better take the boys to my tent,” said Achmed softly.
“They would be safer that way,” Bela agreed.
“S . . . safer?” Emery sputtered.
“Come with me.” Achmed rose, and the boys followed him across the midway to his tent. He lifted the flap, and the boys entered. Achmed followed them inside, dropping the flap behind him. The tent was dark with the flap closed, so Achmed put two tall candles on a small square table and lit them. The candle flames sent wriggling shadows dancing across the tent walls and along the floor.
“Sit,” Achmed ordered. “Sit and listen carefully.”
Chapter Seven
“What do we have to listen to?” Philip asked in a hushed voice.
The pharaoh stared briefly at Philip with his large, round eyes before pulling a chair up near the boys.
“A wish is a powerful thing. It cannot be taken lightly. You and you now have three wishes. Before you do anything with them I must tell you of people I once knew. They, like you, performed an important service for the gypsy. They, like you, received three wishes in return. They were a poor couple who could not survive without the help of their grown son, who worked in a factory and always gave them some money to help them pay their bills and buy food. The old couple talked for days about what they should do with their three wishes, and do you know what they decided?”
The pharaoh stared at the boys, waiting for an answer.
“No,” Philip squeaked.
The pharaoh’s eyes widened. “They . . . chose . . . money! They wanted to relieve their son of the burden of supporting them, so they wished for a lot of money. One minute after the man spoke their wish aloud, the telephone rang. The old man answered it. The president of the company for which his son worked was on the line telling him that his son had fallen into the machinery and was no more. He was gone forever.” The pharaoh’s voice had risen steadily as he related the fate of the young man. “Do you know what that means?” he asked.
Philip and the Fortune Teller (9781619501317) Page 3
