Philip and the Case of Mistaken Identity and Philip and the Baby (9781597051095)

by Paulits, John

  “Let’s wait down there,” Emery pointed. “Fix your ear.”

  Philip felt for his ear. It had slipped sideways. He gave it a twist and looked into the big front window of the supermarket to check on it. It seemed straight.

  “Here they come,” said Emery.

  The girl and the old woman, each carrying two bags, crossed into the parking lot. As the boys watched, the woman opened the trunk of a blue, medium-sized car and put the bags into the trunk. Then she and the girl got into the car.

  Philip and Emery moved through the parking lot until they were right behind where the car was backing out of its parking space.

  “Let’s try to follow them as far as we can,” said Emery.

  The car rolled slowly to the parking lot entrance. Emery and Philip moved after it.

  “Get ready to run,” said Emery, and Philip nodded. “Let’s go!”

  The car left the lot and turned right. When it came to the end of the street, which was only ten yards away from the entrance, it turned right again and pulled into the driveway of the second house on the block across the street from the mall.

  “We didn’t have to run very far,” said Philip.

  “Let’s see what they do,” said Emery.

  The woman and girl got the bags from the trunk and walked toward the house.

  “That’s suspicious,” said Emery.

  “What is?”

  “Driving such a short way to go to the supermarket. Look, they went in and left the front door of the house open. That’s suspicious, too.”

  The girl came back out of the house and closed the door behind her. Then she walked off down the block.

  “Let’s follow her,” said Emery, adjusting his hat and glasses.

  The boys set out. “Use the other side of the street,” said Emery. “It’s more clever and she’ll never notice us.”

  Philip nodded. The girl turned left at the corner and walked another block. She crossed the street and, halfway up the block, turned and entered the library.

  “That’s where you saw her before,” said Emery. “Very suspicious. Want to follow her in?”

  “Sure,” said Philip.

  “Okay. You go. I have to go home.”

  “What?”

  “My mother said to be home by two to do some chores. So you follow her and then report back to headquarters.”

  “Where’s headquarters?”

  “My house.”

  “All right, I guess.”

  “You should undisguise yourself, though.”

  “Why?”

  “She’ll see you in the library but you can just act like you’re looking for books. When we follow her again, we’ll be back in disguise and then when she sees you in the library she won’t know you when you’re in disguise. It’s like that thing you said before. She won’t know you when she sees you because you won’t look like you unless...”

  “All right. All right,” said Philip loudly. “Don’t start that again. Here, take my hat and ear. What about my freckles and eyebrows?”

  “Wet your finger and rub,” Emery suggested.

  Philip wet his finger and rubbed.

  “Good, it’s going away,” Emery reported, looking studiously at Philip’s face.

  “I’m running out of spit.”

  “What some of mine?”

  Philip stopped rubbing and looked at Emery. “No, I don’t want any of your spit.”

  “Here, there’s still a freckle.”

  Philip called up his last little bit of spit and scrubbed his face clean.

  “How’s that?” he asked.

  “Good, you look normal.”

  “Take my jacket with you. If she saw us in the supermarket she might recognize the jacket.” He handed his jacket to Emery.

  “What about your pants? She might recognize them.”

  “You want me to go into the library without my pants?” Philip said, his voice rising again.

  “Well, no, I guess that wouldn’t work.”

  “No, I guess not. Okay, I’m going and I’ll see you back at... headquarters.”

  The two boys separated and Philip went into the library.

  Five

  The children’s room was crowded. Many of the children were moving off into a separate room that had chairs lined up as if a meeting of some sort was going to be held there. Philip walked slowly around the librarian’s square workplace, trying to find that girl among all the other children. He slowly ran his eye along the walls of bookcases, but he couldn’t spot her.

  From over his shoulder he heard, “Hi, Emery.”

  He turned quickly. It was the girl. She was wearing a baby blue T-shirt that said “Little Angel” on it, long blue pants and white sneakers.

  “Uh, hi.”

  The girl giggled. “You didn’t know that I knew your name, did you?”

  Philip shook his head rapidly back and forth. What kind of a detective was he, he wondered, when the person he was following found him instead of the other way around?

  “Remember me? I was here when you brought your late books back. I heard the librarian say your name. Not a mystery, right?” She smiled.

  What made this girl smile so much? Philip wondered. But at least he’d found her, and she didn’t know who he really was.

  “Are you here for the program?” she asked.

  “Uh, well, yeah, sure,” Philip nodded.

  “I didn’t see you at any of the other programs.”

  “I just heard about it.” Philip was calming down. It was his chance to show Emery what a real detective could do.

  “Oh, I can’t wait for next week when they give us our own seeds.”

  Seeds? Philip nodded and looked toward the meeting room. He saw a poster standing on an easel. Gardening Club: Three O’Clock Today.

  Seeds. Philip nodded. “Yeah, that’ll be neat.”

  “Come on. Let’s go in. My name is Joanie, by the way.”

  “Do you live around here?” Philip asked.

  “Not really. My sister and I are staying with my grandmother this week. School vacation.”

  Her sister. There was something to report.

  The girl went on. “We spend most weekends at my grandmother’s. My mother works a lot. That’s why I’ve been coming to this library and the gardening club. This is the sixth week. Next week is the last meeting.”

  Philip nodded. They’d reached the room and one of the librarians was recording information. Philip listened carefully when the girl said, “Joanie Henderson. 3420 Allengrove Street. 243-0566.”

  Joanie took a few steps into the room, turned, and waited for Philip.

  The librarian looked at Philip. “Name,” she smiled.

  “Phil—mery.”

  The librarian looked puzzled. “Can you spell that?”

  Stupid, Philip said to himself. “E-m-e-r-y.”

  “E-m-e-r-y is Philmery?”

  “No, no, no. Emery. Just Emery.” How could the librarian be so dumb to think his mother would call him Philmery?

  “Last name.”

  “Wyatt.”

  “Address.”

  “1176 Tumblejack Drive.”

  “Phone?”

  “743-8833.”

  Philip walked past the librarian’s table, glad that was over. It was like getting captured and being questioned by the enemy.

  “Follow me, Emery,” said Joanie.

  For an hour Philip sat through a talk on the parts of plants, how they grow, and the names of different flowers. Once he felt his eyes closing and his head rolling around. But a sharp bounce of his head woke him up. When the hour was finally over, the crowd of children moved out of the room.

  “It’s four o’clock,” Joanie said. “I have to go home. Will you be here next week when they give out the seeds?”

  Philip nodded.

  Joanie waved at another girl. Then she turned back to Philip. “Good-bye, Emery.”

  “Bye,” said Philip. He watched Joanie walk through the door tha
t led to the stairway. Philip went over to the stairway and looked down. Joanie was just going through the front doors and out onto the sidewalk. Philip ran down the stairs. He waited a moment and then opened the library door slowly. He stepped outside and saw Joanie crossing the street, going in the direction of the supermarket and home. He watched her until she was out of sight and then went back up the stairs to the children’s room, thinking over all the things he had to tell Emery—her name, where she lived, her sister, her grandmother. Philip felt pretty good about the job he’d done spying on her. And she hadn’t mentioned anything about him and Emery in their disguises.

  Philip felt in his pocket for his library card. Yes, he had it. He went to the Cs—he remembered that Eleanor Cameron wrote one of the books he’d returned for Emery—and found Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet. Emery usually knew about good books. Philip checked the book out and headed home.

  There was no car in Emery’s driveway so he didn’t bother to stop.

  At home he read Stowaway to the Mushroom Planet until his mother called him for dinner. After dinner he went up to his room. He looked out his window to see whether Emery’s car was back, but it wasn’t. He played in his room, looking for Emery’s car every once in a while, and when it was finally there, he went downstairs to the phone and called Emery.

  “Emery, is that you?”

  “Yeah. And I have news.”

  “What?” Philip asked.

  “I saw that girl when I was shopping with my mother. She’s visiting her grandmother and her grandmother knows my mother a little. The grandmother came over to say hello to my mother, and I had to talk to the girl. She usually lives in Juniata. You know where that is?”

  “How could you meet her? She was in the library with me. I talked to her and she knew my name.”

  “She knew you were Philip?”

  “No, no. She called me you.”

  “Emery?”

  “That’s your name, isn’t it?”

  “How’d she know?”

  “She said she heard the library lady say it when I returned your books. And you still owe me twenty cents.”

  “I know. I know. Wow! She asked me my name. Good thing I told her I was you.”

  “You said your name was Philip?”

  “That’s your name, isn’t it?” Emery answered, putting some attitude into his voice. “I thought it would be trickier. I couldn’t slip into my disguise, so I told her a fake name. Good thing, too. She wouldn’t believe she could meet two Emerys in a row, would she?”

  “No, I guess not.”

  “She said her name was Janie and that she has a sister.”

  “Joanie.”

  “She told you her sister’s name?”

  “No.”

  “So who’s Joanie?”

  “That’s the girl’s name.”

  “No, she told me her name was Janie.”

  “Joanie!”

  “Janie!” Emery insisted.

  “You sure?”

  “I’m sure. Are you sure? You didn’t have your big ear on, did you? Maybe you didn’t hear right.”

  “No, I didn’t have my big ear on. I gave it back to you, remember? But how could she be where you were when she was where I was? I don’t get it. We both went to some talk about gardening in the library. She said...”

  “She said she was on school vacation and she was going back to her grandmother’s to meet her sister.”

  Philip took the phone away from his ear and stared at it. Everything he was planning to tell Emery, Emery was telling him.

  “When did you see her?” Philip asked.

  “When my mother was shopping. I told you that.”

  “But what time?”

  “Mmm, about four-thirty.”

  “Four-thirty! She was at the library until four. You sure it was the same girl?”

  “I’m sure. She was dressed the same and looked the same.”

  “Blue T-shirt?”

  “Yes. It said ‘Little Angel’ on it, right?”

  “Right. But she couldn’t get all the way where you were by four-thirty, could she?”

  “Did her grandmother pick her up with the car at the library?”

  “No, I followed her outside and watched her walk away,” Philip said, hoping Emery would notice what a thorough job he’d done spying on the girl. “There was no car.”

  “She and her grandmother must both be able to fly then,” said Emery. “Maybe they’re both witches. She wasn’t carrying a broomstick, was she?”

  “No!” Philip said loudly into the phone.

  “I guess we picked the right person to follow. She is mega-suspicious.”

  Philip silently agreed. “We better keep after her and find out more.”

  “Good idea.”

  “Shall we do it tomorrow?”

  “Can’t. It’s Easter. I have to go over my aunt’s.”

  “Oh, yeah. I forgot it’s Easter. My aunt is coming here.”

  “Janie is probably busy, too, tomorrow.”

  “Joanie,” Philip insisted.

  “She said ‘Janie’.”

  ‘“Joanie’ to me.”

  “We’ll investigate that.”

  “Right. Monday morning then?”

  “Yeah. We’ll get into our disguises and track her down. What time?”

  “I’ll come to your house at nine.”

  “My mother says not until ten.”

  “All right then. Ten. See you Monday.”

  “See you.”

  Philip hung up. Janie? Joanie? A girl and a grandmother who could fly? And the girl thought Emery was him and he was Emery. Philip ran upstairs. He couldn’t wait for Monday.

  Six

  “Now let’s look at the facts,” said Emery. He and Philip were sitting in Philip’s living room Monday morning a little past ten o’clock. Emery’s sisters were having a bad day—that meant a noisy day—and Emery had called Philip to tell him that. The boys decided Philip’s house would be the better headquarters for the time being.

  “Emery, do you have to wear that hat in the house?” Philip asked. Emery was wearing what he had since learned was called his “deerstalker” cap. Emery loved the name. “Deerstalker.” It made him feel like a great hunter.

  “My deerstalker is my trademark,” said Emery. “I hunt down the most suspicious people. You should have on your derby hat.”

  Emery had also learned that Philip’s round hat was called a derby. Philip wasn’t impressed. Again Emery got the better thing. Having a “deerstalker”—a cool name—was way better than having a “derby”. How dumb was the word “derby”?

  Philip tried his derby on once more. Just then Philip’s mother walked through the living room and looked at the two boys. She stopped a moment. She shook her head, rolled her eyes, and continued on. Philip took off his derby.

  “Why did she do that?” Emery asked.

  “She probably thinks you look funny.”

  “Me?”

  Philip glared at Emery and both boys decided to change the subject.

  “So what are the facts?” Philip asked impatiently.

  “Okay. We tracked this girl. She told you her name was Joanie. She told me her name was Janie. We have to figure out her game.”

  “Her game?”

  Now Emery rolled his eyes. “That’s how we spying detectives talk.”

  Philip nodded, but he told himself if one more person rolled his eyes his way, there’d be trouble.

  “So how can we find out what her real name is?” Emery continued.

  Both boys thought.

  Philip could hear his own baby sister, Becky, crying upstairs.

  “I know what we could do,” said Philip. “We could ask your mother. You said she knows the grandmother.”

  “I did ask. She only knows the grandmother a little. She said she didn’t know anything about any granddaughters.”

  Philip snapped his fingers. “Let’s call on the phone. You call and ask for Janie. If she answers,
then we know her name is Janie.”

  “Why do I have to call? Why can’t you call and ask for Joanie?”

  “You wanted to learn her game, didn’t you?”

  “I guess. But we don’t have her phone number.”

  “What’s the grandmother’s name?”

  “My mother called her Mrs. Dykans.”

  Philip ran to the hall closet and returned with a big phone directory. He riffled through the pages. “No luck. There’s no D-i-k-a-n-s.”

  “Y,” said Emery.

  “I don’t know. There just is none. I looked. You want to look?”

  “No, no. ‘Y’,” Emery repeated.

  Emery was making his stomach clench up again. Philip raised his voice. “Because it’s not there. They didn’t print it. Maybe she doesn’t have a phone.”

  “Y, Y, Y,” Emery insisted.

  Philip banged his hand on top of the page he had searched. “I don’t know why. It’s not here, that’s all. There’s no Dikans. Are you deaf or what?”

  Emery shook his head and took the directory. He turned forward a few pages and said, “243-6885.”

  “What!”

  “Y.”

  “Why what? Why do you keep asking me why?”

  “I’m not asking you why. I’m telling you. ‘Y’,” Emery explained.

  “You’re telling me why? You’re telling me why about what?”

  “I’m telling you ‘Y’ about ‘d-y’.”

  “Dewhy? What’s a dewhy?”

  Emery sighed in exasperation. “She doesn’t have any ‘I’s,” he explained.

  “Who doesn’t have any eyes?”

  “The grandmother.”

  “She doesn’t have any eyes! How did she drive her car that day if she can’t see?”

  “Who can’t see?”

  “The grandmother can’t see!”

  “Why not?”

  “You said she doesn’t have any eyes. You just said it.”

  “What are you talking about? Of course she has eyes. She has eyes to see, but no ‘I’s’ to spell.”

  “What! Why would she spell with her eyes?”

  “You’re confusing me.”

  “I’m confusing you?” Philip took a deep breath, his stomach in a giant knot. Very slowly he said, “Did you find the phone number of the grandmother?”