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.
Chapter Ten
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?”
“Yeah,” Emery rapidly agreed. “Do you?”
“Three is all you get,” said the pharaoh.
“Yeah, that’s all,” the gypsy chimed in. “Now get.”
Philip and Emery obeyed gladly. They hurried out of the midway and across the street.
“Where’s the box?” Emery asked. “You didn’t get it?”
“I did. I pushed it out of the tent . . . look can you see . . . there. See the gigantic pile of straw?”
Emery looked and saw an elephant picking up batches of straw with its trunk and munching on it.
“Where the elephant is?”
“Yeah, I think the box is in the elephant straw.”
“We can’t get it there. We’ll get stepped on by an elephant.”
Philip shot Emery a don’t-be-stupid look.
“We don’t get it. We call the police again and tell them exactly where it is.”
“We used up our money.”
Philip pulled the gypsy’s two quarters from his pocket.
“I took these from the gypsy’s tent.”
“Wow! You committed a robbery so we can report a robbery.”
“Never mind that. Let’s get to the phone.”
The boys hurried back to the corner store.
“Stop here. Stop here,” Philip ordered. “We gotta make sure nobody’s watching the phone.”
“Who would watch it?”
“The police, because of the stupid phone call you made.”
Emery scrooched his face, but didn’t argue. He joined Philip in scanning the area.
“See anybody?” Philip asked.
“Nobody,” Emery answered in a sulking voice.
Philip ignored Emery’s discontent and crossed the street.
“Keep watch again,” he ordered as he dropped the two quarters into the slot. He knew it would be useless to try to disguise his voice the way Emery did. He would sound like a kid, no matter what he tried. So in his own voice he answered the operator’s greeting.
“I can tell you where to find the box of jewelry that got stolen from Mrs. Healy on Van Kirk Street.” He thought quickly and decided not to mention that an elephant stood guard over the box. It sounded way too crazy. “It’s hidden at the circus right behind the tent of the gypsy in some straw. The gypsy and the pharaoh at the circus stole the box. Go arrest them. That’s all I can tell you.”
The operator started to ask a question, but Philip hung up the phone.
“Let’s get away from here, Emery.”
Philip walked quickly, Emery at his side. They turned at the first three corners they came to. Philip made the last turn in the direction of the circus.
“Where you taking us? I thought we were going to Mrs. Logan’s bushes.”
“Back to the circus the long way. We have to see what happens.”
“You think they believed you?”
“They better. If they didn’t, we’re sunk.”
“Even if the police show up, they may not find the box.”
“Why not?” Philip asked perplexed.
“Maybe the elephant will eat it.”
Philip stopped and stared at his friend.
“You really think an elephant is going to eat a big box of jewelry?”
“Well, he could pick it up and throw it somewhere when he finds out it isn’t food. My sisters throw food on the floor if they don’t like it. He may throw it someplace the police don’t look.”
“Your sisters aren’t elephants. I don’t know what the elephant’s going to do. Let’s just go watch.”
A few moments later they had entered the midway at the opposite end from the tents of the gypsy and the pharaoh. They stepped lively until they reached a booth where you threw balls and tried to knock down puffy, cloth-covered wooden cats to win a prize. They could hear circus music playing in the big tent off to their left. They stepped behind the cat booth, but could still see the main entrance. They didn’t have to wait long.
“Look, look, look,” Philip cried.
Emery was still in a bad mood, a result of Philip’s description of his phone call, but his at
tention rose quickly when he saw two police officers entering the midway.
“They’re going to the gypsy’s tent,” Philip said softly.
“One’s going behind the tent.”
“He’s talking to the gypsy. Look, the pharaoh is watching from his tent.”
“Boy!” Emery exclaimed. “I wish we could hear what they’re saying.”
“He’s coming back. Look! He’s got the box! He’s got it! He’s putting it in a bag,” Philip squealed. “Look at the gypsy!”
The police officer had showed the box, now safe in the clear plastic bag, to the gypsy. The gypsy’s arms bounced up and down, and his mouth didn’t stop as he tried to explain about the box to the police officer.
One of the officers turned and walked toward the pharaoh’s tent. The pharaoh saw him and ducked back inside, but it didn’t matter. The police officer went in and brought him out.
“They’re taking them both away,” said Philip, nearly jumping up and down.
“We did it!”
“I did it,” Philip pointed out. “You made the dumbest phone call ever.”
“It was my idea to make the phone call, wasn’t it?”
“Yeah, but I made the phone call.”
Emery could see he wasn’t going to get the credit he thought he deserved. He gave up and said, “Let’s go watch the police take them away.”
The boys hurried down the midway and paused at the entrance. The gypsy and the pharaoh were already seated in the back seat of the police car behind the two policemen. The car started up and drove away.
Philip and Emery turned to one another, wide grins on their faces.
“We’re safe,” Emery declared.
“I hope so,” Philip echoed.
Chapter Eleven
Philip and Emery spent the rest of Saturday as nervous wrecks. Twice the telephone rang in Philip’s house, and he was sure the police were calling to ask for him. He watched his mother’s face each time she answered the phone, hoping his stomach wouldn’t explode from the tension he felt. But no calls came from the police. When he went to bed that night, Philip hoped tomorrow would go by fast so the circus could get out of town. There was one last show at two o’clock.
Around ten the next morning Philip looked up from reading the newspaper comics as his mother answered the phone again. His stomach took a roller coaster ride at his mother’s words.
Philip and the Fortune Teller (9781619501317) Page 5
