“How wonderful,” Philip’s mother said. She covered the mouthpiece of the phone and called to her husband, who lay on the sofa looking at other parts of the newspaper. “It’s Mrs. Faraday. She says they found Mrs. Healy’s missing jewels. At the circus, no less.”
“I know,” Philip’s father answered. “I’m just reading about it.”
Philip nearly gagged. The newspaper had the story! He bent his head over the comics so his eyes wouldn’t meet his parents’ gaze. They could usually tell when something bothered him. He kept listening to his mother’s conversation, but all she kept saying was, “Really” and “Oh my” and “I see.” He knew she’d report the conversation to his father as soon as she hung up, so he waited, staring at the comics page, but reading nothing.
“Mrs. Faraday seems to have the whole story,” his mother said after she’d hung up the phone. “You’ll never guess.”
“I bet I can,” Mr. Felton said. “It’s all here in the paper. Gypsies and pharaohs and mysterious phone calls. Mrs. Healy must be happy.”
“I’m sure she is, but she won’t be back in her house for a while.”
“Why not?”
“Mrs. Faraday says she has two sons, and she’s going to live with one of them while the other tries to do something about her house. Clean it out so she can go back there and live. It must really be filled with junk.”
“Junk to you; valuables to her.”
“I guess, but still . . . Oh, well. Another neighborhood adventure comes to a successful end.”
Philip’s father raised the newspaper in front of his face, and the house grew quiet.
Philip knew he had to read the newspaper article, but his father didn’t look like he’d be done with the paper anytime soon. Emery’s two baby sisters always kept Emery’s house disorganized. Maybe he and Emery could get the newspaper section they needed from his newspaper.
Philip rose and announced, “I’m going over Emery’s awhile. Okay?”
“Sure,” came his father’s voice from behind the newspaper.
Philip headed out the door.
~ * ~
Fifteen minutes later Philip lay on his stomach in Mrs. Logan’s bushes trying to get the speckles of light coming though the leaves to fall properly on his newspaper so he could read.
“Lemme see, too,” Emery insisted.
“Oww! Watch your elbow. Stop pushing. Go over there. I’ll read it to you, if you let me get the light on it.”
Emery scuttled out of the way. “I saw the headline. Jewel Robbery Thwarted. What’s thwarted? Somebody had warts?”
“Your brain has warts. Quiet and listen.
“Police have thwarted a daring jewel robbery—thwarted has to mean they caught the bad guys—thwarted a daring jewel robbery yesterday afternoon. Aided by two mysterious phone calls—that’s us, Emery—uh, phone calls, the police arrested two circus performers, Frankie Fried who posed as a gypsy . . .”
“Posed!” Emery cried.
“That’s what it says.
“But he made wishes come true. No way he was posing.”
Philip frowned at Emery and continued “. . . posed as a gypsy and Karim Tugash, who posed as an Egyptian.”
“Why’d you stop?” Emery asked.
Philip thought of the initials K-T he’d seen on the jewelry box. Not King Tut after all. He continued with the newspaper story.
“Both men operated booths in the circus sideshow on the midway. According to Police Captain Tim Auld, the two circus employees enlisted the help of two unwary young boys—that’s us again, Emery—to steal a box of jewels, which they had pawned the year before when the circus came to town. They’d meant to reclaim the jewels themselves, but found out that someone else, Mrs. Healy from Van Kirk Street, had gotten them first.
“The two men, accomplished pickpockets, had managed to steal the jewelry from women who visited their sideshow acts. The police received their first clue when a mysterious phone call mentioned that a gypsy and a pharaoh had stolen the jewels, but no details were given by the caller, and the police considered the call a prank.”
“You see, Emery. Your call was stupid. A prank. You didn’t tell them anything.”
“I said the gypsy and the pharaoh had the jewels, didn’t I? How many gypsies and pharaohs we have in town, you think?”
Philip read on.
“A second phone call received later provided the necessary information for the police to locate the jewels and arrest the perpetrators. Perpetrators must mean the bad guys. The jewels have been returned to Mrs. Healy, and the circus will have to do without its gypsy and pharaoh for a long time to come. The police believe the mysterious phone calls may have come from the two misguided children, who believed they would receive three wishes from the gypsy for helping them retrieve a magical, sacred scarab in the jewel box, a tale straight from The Monkey’s Paw.”
“Why do they keep talking about monkeys?” Emery wondered. “The computer said something about monkeys, too. The circus doesn’t have any monkeys. And I’m not misguided.”
“Maybe they mean you were as dumb as a monkey for believing you’d get three wishes, and being dumb as a monkey makes you misguided.”
“Monkeys aren’t dumb, and you believed it, too, didn’t you? So you must be a misguided monkey, same as me.”
Philip finished reading the article.
“The children may have finally caught on and were trying to correct their mistake. Captain Auld said the police were not seeking the children. On a final note, the box of jewelry did not contain a magical, sacred scarab.”
“They’re not looking for us?” Emery cried.
“That’s what it says.”
“Whew! Thank goodness. Hey, the magical scarab wasn’t in the box. You think maybe it fell out in the lady’s garage and is still there. Philip, if we had a magical scarab . . .”
“Right, we’d both be able to become witches.”
Emery frowned. “I don’t want to be a witch.”
“Forget the scarab. I think the newspaper was making fun of us. There probably never was a scarab to begin with.” Philip refolded the paper and said, “We better take this back to your house so your father doesn’t wonder why we needed it.”
The boys wriggled their way out of their bush hideout. They’d gone no more than a few steps before Emery stopped short and grabbed Philip by the arm.
“What?” Philip said, puzzling by the strange look on Emery’s face.
“Our wishes.”
Philip rolled his eyes.
“What wishes? There were no wishes.”
Emery turned to his friend and shook his head slowly. “I don’t know, Philip. I wished the old lady would get her jewels back and the gypsy and pharaoh would get arrested. Remember? Remember? And it came true. Both wishes came true. No, I think the gypsy is really a gypsy and has powers. You see both wishes came true, Philip. We still have a wish left. We can’t waste it. We gotta try it.”
“No, we don’t.”
“Yes, we do gotta try it.”
“I mean we don’t have a wish left. You wished for hamburgers and baked beans.”
“What? Argghh! I wished for dinner at your house. I wasted our wish on chopped meat!”
“I don’t think there really were any wishes, Emery.”
“But three came true! I just showed you. What are you talking about? No, four came true! I wished for a circus ticket and got it.”
“You said you didn’t really wish. The gypsy told you you wished it.”
“I did want to see the circus. I told you he read my mind. No, five! You wished for a circus ticket, and you got one!”
“You didn’t hear me wish anything, did you? You were standing right next to me.”
“You wished it before we went there. You know you did. When you found out I had a ticket. Right? Remember?”
Philip knew he did, so he only shrugged.
Emery began walking again, moaning over and over, “We wasted our wishes.”
The End
About the Author
John Paulits is a former teacher who lives in New York City and Brigantine, New Jersey. He has published numerous other novels both for adults (THE MYSTERY OF CHARLES DICKENS; HOBSON'S PLANET; LANYON FOR HIRE) and children. PHILIP AND THE FORTUNE TELLER is John's eighth Philip novel for Gypsy Shadow. Information about all of John's books can be found at his website.
WEBSITE: http://www.johnpaulits.com/
FACEBOOK: http://www.facebook.com/john.paulits
Philip and the Fortune Teller (9781619501317) Page 6
