John Paulits
John Paulits is a former teacher in New York City. He
has published five other children’s novels, four about Philip and Emery,
as well as two adult science fiction novels, HOBSON’S PLANET and
BECKONING ETERNITY. His previous Gyspy Shadow book, PHILIP AND THE
SUPERSTITION KID, was voted best children’s novel of 2010 in the
Preditors and Editors readers poll.
Learn more about John here:
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Website
Congratulations, John, for Winning first place in
the 2010 Preditors and Editors Readers Poll for Children's Novel with
Philip and the Superstition Kid!
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Emery’s clumsy and monumentally unlucky cousin Leon
is coming to visit for a whole week! Philip and Emery, best
friends, are desperate to find ways to keep Leon out of their way, but
Leon’s bad luck―and
disaster―follows
them everywhere. Rabbits’ feet don’t work. Homemade remedies
don’t work. And when Emery and Philip have an extraordinary spell
of bad luck themselves, they’re certain that Leon’s bad luck is
contagious. They plot and plan to convince Leon that the safest
place for him is in his own home. In a panic, Leon gets his mother
to end his visit early but promises to return for a night a week from
Friday, when he hopes he’ll be over his bad luck.
Triumphant, Philip and Emery laughingly decide to
circle that unlucky date on Emery’s calendar, but when they do they get
a shock. The thirteenth of the month. Friday the thirteenth!
And they have to spend it with Leon!
Excerpt
Word Count:
20,000
Pages to Print:
85
File Format: PDF
Price:
$3.99
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How is Philip ever going to get a pet, the
one thing he wants most in the world, when his parents say no to
his every request? Angel, a very smart neighborhood girl, gives
Philip a plan to change his parents’ mind, but the plan ends in
disaster, and Philip’s parents say no louder than ever. With
Angel’s help Philip tries again. Philip knows it’s his last
chance. How will this plan turn out? Will Philip’s wish come
true, or will he meet with disappointment again?
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Excerpt
Word Count:
12,250
Pages to Print:
53
File Format: PDF
Price:
$3.99 |
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Philip and Emery are scared out of their
wits when they learn their community service assignment involves
dealing with a haunted house, but it gets worse! Circumstances
force the boys to sneak inside the haunted house, and when they
do, they receive the shock of their lives!
Excerpt
Word Count: 13650
Pages to Print: 62
File Format: PDF
Price: $3.99 |
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Could the Frankenstein monster, Dracula and
the Wolfman actually move into someone’s respectable
neighborhood? Philip and his best friend Emery are convinced it
has happened when a suspicious new family moves in down the
block. The boys have seen the vampire bat; they’ve heard the
werewolf’s growl; they’ve witnessed the coffin delivery to the
house. When Emery’s mother invites the new family to dinner,
Philip and Emery have no choice but to prepare for the worst.
Excerpt
Word Count: 16100
Pages to Print: 67
File Format: PDF
Price: $3.99 |
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Philip runs into an awful streak of bad luck
at the same time as his best buddy Emery runs into a streak of
good luck. When Emery reveals that he's been using a newly
acquired luck charm, Philip sets out to find one of his own, but
what he finds turns out to be more deadly curse than good luck
charm.
Excerpt
Word Count: 12,500
Pages to Print: 54
File Format: PDF
Price: $3.99 |
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EXCERPTS
Philip and the Superstition Kid
Philip looked out his bedroom window and smiled. Splashes of sunshine
glinted off the windows of the houses across the street. The summer
breeze blew gently through the window screen, just strong enough that
his hair tickled his neck a little as the breeze ruffled it. Philip
usually associated good smells with chocolate and bakeries, but right
now the sweet aroma of somebody’s newly mown lawn made Philip inhale
deeply. Today was the first official day of summer vacation; fourth
grade was a thing of the past; and the long, beautiful,
wonderful-smelling summer lay ahead, day after endless joyful day.
Below and to his right Philip saw his best friend Emery
step out of his front door. Philip hurried from his room, dashed down
the stairs, and bolted outside. He waved to Emery and crossed the
street. Emery walked toward him.
“Emery.” Philip smiled and opened his arms wide.
“Welcome to summer vacation.”
Emery glared at him unresponsively.
Philip lowered his arms. Now what? he wondered. “Summer vacation,
Emery,” he reminded his friend.
“I dreamed a dream last night,” Emery said gloomily.
“So what? Everybody does that.”
“Not like this they don’t. There goes the summer.”
Emery moved his hand like he was shooing away a fly.
Mrs. Logan lived at the corner, and there was an empty
space inside the thick bushes near the back of her house Philip and
Emery used as a hidden clubhouse. Mrs. Logan rarely left her house—Emery
insisted she was a hundred and four years old, but Philip said that was
impossible—so no one bothered them when they sat in the shady coolness,
unknown to the world. They were on their way there now out of habit.
“Emery, vacation just started,” Philip said
impatiently. “How could a dream spoil the summer? It’s only the first
day for Pete’s sake.”
“You know those stupid rabbits’ feet we all got at
Kevin’s party last week?”
“Yeah.”
“They’re not good luck.”
“Whoever said they were?”
Emery looked at Philip sadly. “Everybody knows that a
rabbit’s foot is supposed to bring luck. That’s why people chop off the
rabbit’s foot—to get good luck.”
Philip winced at Emery’s description.
“That’s just make believe,” Philip argued.
“It’s not. Look it up. Why would people keep chopping
off rabbits’ feet just for make-believe?”
“Stop talking about chopping off feet, okay?” Philip
said, his voice rising.
“I carried my rabbit’s foot around since the party, and
I didn’t have any bad luck.”
Philip waited. Then he asked, “Did you have any good luck?”
Emery shrugged. “I got promoted,” he offered.
Philip could feel his exasperation beginning to build
as it always did when Emery started acting weird. “I got promoted, too,
and I don’t even know where my stupid rabbit’s foot got to. And I didn’t
have any bad luck this week either. And everybody got promoted.”
“The babies didn’t cry as much this week,” Emery
argued. Emery had two infant sisters.
“They’re getting older. They’ll cry less anyway. What
about the dream?”
“I figured that if I got good luck during the day
carrying the rabbit’s foot, then I was wasting it at night just leaving
it on my bureau, so last night I decided to put it under my pillow to
get good luck when I was sleeping.”
Philip shook his head and in a loud voice cried, “What
kind of good luck can you have when you’re asleep? Nothing happens when
you’re asleep.”
“I didn’t fall out of bed,” Emery said.
“Did you ever fall out of bed before?”
Emery thought a minute. “I don’t remember that I did.”
“So there. You wouldn’t fall out of bed anyway. I
didn’t fall out of bed. My mother and father didn’t fall out of bed. A
zillion million people didn’t fall out of bed. What did the rabbit’s
foot have to do with it?”
Emery shrugged.
“The dream?” Philip said impatiently.
The boys had reached the corner and, with a quick look
around to assure themselves that no one was watching, ducked alongside
Mrs. Logan’s house and crawled into their hideaway.
“It was weird,” Emery said reluctantly, looking at
Philip. The boys sprawled on the sparse grass in the deep shade.
Philip pressed his lips together as if he was going to
burst. When Emery saw Philip’s eyes widening, he said, “Okay, I’ll tell
you. I dreamed that me and you . . .”
“I was in the dream?”
Emery nodded. “I told you it was awful.”
Philip frowned. “What does that mean?”
“Me and you were somehow on a bouncing boat. I don’t
know how we got there. But we were going up and down and up and down.”
Emery moved his hand in time with his description.
Philip grabbed Emery’s hand and lowered it. “Up and down, yeah?”
Back to Philip and
the Superstition Kid
Philip and the Angel
Chapter One
“Philip, why don’t you go out and play? The rain
stopped half an hour ago.”
Philip lay on the sofa reading The Sorcerer’s Stone. He
looked over to the window then up at his mother. “Do I have to? Harry
Potter’s in trouble.”
“Yes, yes, yes. You have to or pretty soon you’ll be in
trouble. Here.” She took his book and spread it open upside down on the
coffee table to save his page. “Get some air. You haven’t been out of
the house all week except to go to school.”
“It’s been raining all week. Are you trying to get rid
of me?”
“I have to clean and you’re always in the room I’m
cleaning next.”
Philip sighed. Emery, his best friend, had called
earlier to say he had a secret to show him. He couldn’t simply tell him
about it so Philip shouldn’t even ask.
Philip did ask but no matter how many times Philip
begged his friend to stop being so mysterious, Emery wouldn’t. He kept a
secret better than anybody Philip knew.
“I’ll go see what Emery’s doing. He’s got something to
show me.”
“Good idea,” said his mother as she bustled out of the
living room.
Philip swung his feet to the floor and put on his
sneakers while he listened to his mother doing the housework. It didn’t
look like much fun being a grown-up, but then fourth grade wasn’t all
that much fun, either. School would be over in another month, though,
and then summer. He finished tying his sneakers and left.
The wet grass glistened and puddles shimmered
everywhere. The sun felt good. Plus a rainbow arced across the sky!
Philip walked along toward Emery’s house and studied the rainbow, a
really colorful one, a rainbow better than any Philip remembered ever
seeing. He followed it across the sky until it disappeared behind the
house in front of him. He noticed someone in the window of the house
waving to him. Philip waved back before realizing it was that girl
again.
The girl’s forehead pressed against the living room
window screen.
“Hi,” she called.
Philip stopped walking. Who was this girl? She’d moved
to the neighborhood a while ago, yet he never saw her in school. He’d
only seen her at different windows of her house staring out at the
neighborhood. She’d begun waving to him, and he waved back. Now, she
wanted to talk to him.
“Wait,” she called and disappeared from the window. A
moment later she came out the front door. She looked about the same age
as Philip and had long blonde hair pulled back into a ponytail. As she
stood there in her jeans and pink T-shirt looking at him, Philip felt
nervous.
“I’m allowed out a little today,” the girl said.
“Because the rain stopped?” Philip asked.
“No. No. I feel better today.”
“Were you sick?”
“I’m always sick.”
This confused Philip.
“Where do you go to school? I never see you at my
school.”
“I don’t go to school. I have a teacher who comes to my
house on mornings when I feel all right.”
“You never go to school?”
The girl shook her head, and the ponytail waggled
behind her. “What’s your name? I know where you live. The white house
down there. Your father drives the blue car.”
“Philip. I’m Philip Felton.”
“Hi, I’m Angel.”
“Angel?”
The girl shrugged. “It’s what my parents named me.
Angel. We moved here a little while ago.”
“I know,” said Philip. He remembered being awakened one
Saturday morning by the noise of a giant truck unloading furniture.
A woman appeared at the front door. “Angel. Don’t stay
out too long. Come on back now.”
“My mom. Thinks I’m made of glass or something. Gotta
go. I’ll watch you from the window,” said Angel, and she turned and
walked back inside the house.
Philip continued on to Emery’s house. She didn’t go to
school because she was always sick? She doesn’t look sick, Philip
thought. And her mother lets her out for five minutes at a time? Weird.
Emery’s voice interrupted Philip’s thoughts. “Philip,
don’t turn around. Don’t turn. Don’t turn.”
Philip froze. “Why can’t I turn, Emery?”
“I have my surprise with me.”
There was a small noise. “Erf.”
“Okay, you can look.”
Philip turned and saw Emery walking a tiny black and
brown dog with a long body and short legs.
“What’s this?” Philip asked in surprise.
“It’s a dog.”
“I know it’s a dog.”
“A dachshund.”
“Why do you have it?”
“That’s my surprise. My dad got it for me. It’s my new
dog.”
Back to Philip and the Angel
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| Philip and the Haunted House |
The rumble of a heavy truck caused
Philip to turn in his bed and open his eyes. He felt his heart
pounding. He had been trapped in some dark, awful house. He
immediately recognized his own bedroom and sighed in relief.
Only a dream! The sound of the truck stopped briefly and started
up again. Turning a corner, thought Philip. As he listened, the
truck noise ended suddenly, instead of fading little by little.
Philip guessed the truck had stopped somewhere in his
neighborhood.
He sat up in bed, turned, put his feet on the floor, and
stretched. A long Saturday loomed ahead of him. No school. What
a great feeling! Philip thought of his dream again. Yesterday,
his teacher Mr. Ware read the class the part of The Adventures
of Tom Sawyer where Tom and Huck look for treasure in the
haunted house. While they’re looking, they hear someone coming
and run upstairs to hide. One of the two men who enter the
haunted house turns out to be Injun Joe, who wants to kill Tom
for identifying him as Doc Robinson’s murderer at Muff Potter’s
trial. Injun Joe gets suspicious, takes out his knife, and
starts to climb the stairs. Tom and Huck lie frozen in fear on
the floor, peeking through a chink in the wood as Injun Joe,
step by step, gets nearer and nearer. Then, CRASH! The old,
rotten stairway collapses and tumbles Injun Joe to the floor.
When Mr. Ware read it, he’d shouted the word “crash” as loud as
he could. Everyone, including Philip, jumped out of their
chairs. For once he’d been paying close attention, and the
teacher rewarded him by almost giving him a heart attack. Philip
blamed Mr. Ware for his frightful dream.
How could Tom and Huck even want to go inside a haunted house,
Philip wondered, even if they thought they’d find some buried
treasure? Buried treasure. Philip thought he might go into a
haunted house to get rich, but not for fun. No way. He decided
he’d go back to daydreaming in school next week and stop
listening to the teacher’s heart-attack reading lessons.
Philip dressed and went downstairs. His father lay on the sofa
reading the newspaper.
“Well, look who’s awake,” his father said, sitting up. “Your
mother went to the supermarket. Becky’s still sleeping.” Becky
was Philip’s baby sister. “Emery called twice already.”
“What time is it, Dad?”
“A little after ten.”
He had slept a long time. Maybe if he’d gotten up earlier he
wouldn’t have had the dream about the haunted house. Stupid
reading lesson.
“Give Emery a call, and I’ll get your cereal.”
Philip called Emery, who said he’d be right over.
As Philip dropped his cereal bowl into the sink, Emery walked
into the kitchen.
“Are you sick?” said Emery.
“No, I’m not sick. Why?”
“You slept so long. I only sleep long if I’m sick. My two baby
sisters cry so much I can’t sleep late anyway.”
“No, I’m not sick. I had this weird dream, though.” Philip led
Emery into the living room.
“You, too, eh?”
“Me, too? You had a dream?” Philip asked in alarm. Maybe
something’s going around, he thought.
“No, I mean putting the dishes in the sink.”
“Oh. Yeah, something new.”
“My mother, too. She must have talked to your mother. They do
these things together sometimes. What did you dream about?”
“The haunted house Mr. Ware read about yesterday.”
“Oh, yeah. When the stairs crashed, and he made everybody jump.
Cool!”
“I didn’t jump,” Philip lied.
“Well, everybody else did. Haunted houses are spooky.”
“Only around Halloween,” Philip said boldly.
“All the time,” Emery replied with a sharp nod.
Philip felt he’d established his bravery, so he dropped the
topic.
“Weird, though,” said Emery.
“What’s weird?”
“A big truck pulled up around the corner, and they’re taking
everything out of the junky, empty house.”
“The one with all the grass growing around it?”
“Yeah. It’s still got a “Sale” sign on it so I guess nobody
bought it yet. That’ll be an empty house now and look even more
haunted.”
Philip pictured the house—dark, empty, and surrounded by tall
weeds. It could be haunted for all he and Emery knew; and there
it sat—right around the corner from where they lived.
“Want to go watch them take stuff out?” Emery asked.
“They’re still there?”
“Yeah. They only got there a little while ago.”
Philip thought of the truck that woke him up.
“Okay,” Philip said. He’d go now, but once they’d emptied the
house and left it empty and lonely and scary looking, he planned
to stay away from it. Far away.
Back to
Philip and the Haunted House
The rumble of a heavy truck caused Philip to turn in his bed and
open his eyes. He felt his heart pounding. He had been trapped
in some dark, awful house. He immediately recognized his own
bedroom and sighed in relief. Only a dream! The sound of the
truck stopped briefly and started up again. Turning a corner,
thought Philip. As he listened, the truck noise ended suddenly,
instead of fading little by little. Philip guessed the truck had
stopped somewhere in his neighborhood.
He sat up in bed, turned, put his feet on
the floor, and stretched. A long Saturday loomed ahead of him.
No school. What a great feeling! Philip thought of his dream
again. Yesterday, his teacher Mr. Ware read the class the part
of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer where Tom and Huck look for
treasure in the haunted house. While they’re looking, they hear
someone coming and run upstairs to hide. One of the two men who
enter the haunted house turns out to be Injun Joe, who wants to
kill Tom for identifying him as Doc Robinson’s murderer at Muff
Potter’s trial. Injun Joe gets suspicious, takes out his knife,
and starts to climb the stairs. Tom and Huck lie frozen in fear
on the floor, peeking through a chink in the wood as Injun Joe,
step by step, gets nearer and nearer. Then, CRASH! The old,
rotten stairway collapses and tumbles Injun Joe to the floor.
When Mr. Ware read it, he’d shouted the
word “crash” as loud as he could. Everyone, including Philip,
jumped out of their chairs. For once he’d been paying close
attention, and the teacher rewarded him by almost giving him a
heart attack. Philip blamed Mr. Ware for his frightful dream.
How could Tom and Huck even want to go
inside a haunted house, Philip wondered, even if they thought
they’d find some buried treasure? Buried treasure. Philip
thought he might go into a haunted house to get rich, but not
for fun. No way. He decided he’d go back to daydreaming in
school next week and stop listening to the teacher’s
heart-attack reading lessons.
Philip dressed and went downstairs. His
father lay on the sofa reading the newspaper.
“Well, look who’s awake,” his father said,
sitting up. “Your mother went to the supermarket. Becky’s still
sleeping.” Becky was Philip’s baby sister. “Emery called twice
already.”
“What time is it, Dad?”
“A little after ten.”
He had slept a long time. Maybe if he’d
gotten up earlier he wouldn’t have had the dream about the
haunted house. Stupid reading lesson.
“Give Emery a call, and I’ll get your
cereal.”
Philip called Emery, who said he’d be
right over.
As Philip dropped his cereal bowl into the
sink, Emery walked into the kitchen.
“Are you sick?” said Emery.
“No, I’m not sick. Why?”
“You slept so long. I only sleep long if
I’m sick. My two baby sisters cry so much I can’t sleep late
anyway.”
“No, I’m not sick. I had this weird dream,
though.” Philip led Emery into the living room.
“You, too, eh?”
“Me, too? You had a dream?” Philip asked
in alarm. Maybe something’s going around, he thought.
“No, I mean putting the dishes in the
sink.”
“Oh. Yeah, something new.”
“My mother, too. She must have talked to
your mother. They do these things together sometimes. What did
you dream about?”
“The haunted house Mr. Ware read about
yesterday.”
“Oh, yeah. When the stairs crashed, and he
made everybody jump. Cool!”
“I didn’t jump,” Philip lied.
“Well, everybody else did. Haunted houses
are spooky.”
“Only around Halloween,” Philip said
boldly.
“All the time,” Emery replied with a sharp
nod.
Philip felt he’d established his bravery,
so he dropped the topic.
“Weird, though,” said Emery.
“What’s weird?”
“A big truck pulled up around the corner,
and they’re taking everything out of the junky, empty house.”
“The one with all the grass growing around
it?”
“Yeah. It’s still got a “Sale” sign on it
so I guess nobody bought it yet. That’ll be an empty house now
and look even more haunted.”
Philip pictured the house—dark, empty, and
surrounded by tall weeds. It could be haunted for all he and
Emery knew; and there it sat—right around the corner from where
they lived.
“Want to go watch them take stuff out?”
Emery asked.
“They’re still there?”
“Yeah. They only got there a little while
ago.”
Philip thought of the truck that woke him
up.
“Okay,” Philip said. He’d go now, but once
they’d emptied the house and left it empty and lonely and scary
looking, he planned to stay away from it. Far away.
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Back to
Philip and the Haunted House |
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Philip and
the Monsters |
Chapter One
“Boo!” shouted Emery. Philip’s
heart shot up, and his stomach tumbled. He spun to face his
friend.
“Are you crazy? Are you really crazy? Why did you do that? I
walk into your house and you jump out like a maniac? You almost
gave me a heart attack.”
Emery laughed and waved a hand at Philip. “Get out. We’re too
young to have heart attacks. Unless,” said Emery in a spooky
voice, “your arteries are clogged with the cholesterol of fear.”
Philip stared at Emery.
“What?” Emery asked.
Philip continued to stare.
Emery smiled nervously and shrugged.
Philip didn’t move a muscle.
Emery blinked and blinked again.
Philip continued to stare and refused to blink.
“Say something, please,” said Emery in a small voice. He waited.
Philip said nothing. “Come on, you’re scaring me.”
Philip kept on staring and counted to himself. When he reached
three, he threw his arms in the air and shouted, “BOOOO!”
“Ahhh!” Emery burst out. “Why did you do that? Are you crazy,
too? You were scaring me and then you scared me. Why’d you scare
me?”
“Can we go back to the beginning?” Philip asked slowly, still
giving Emery his coldest stare.
“The beginning?”
“Did you ask me to come over so we could do our homework
together?”
“Yes, I did,” said Emery, paying very close attention to
Philip’s questions. He didn’t want Philip to start staring and
BOO-ing him again.
“Did you tell me you would leave the front door open, and I
should just walk in?”
“Yes, I did.”
“Why?”
“So I could jump out and scare you.”
“Then you admit it!” Philip cried. He tried to stay calm. “Why
did you want to scare me?”
“Uh, because you said I could.”
Philip stared at Emery again.
“Are you going to do the staring Boo! thing again, because . . .
?” Emery stepped back, arms out, hands waving slowly.
“No, stand still,” Philip said softly. “When did I say you could
jump out at me and try to give me a heart attack? When? When did
I say it?”
“You said we would do our homework together, didn’t you?”
“Yeah, so? Is giving me a heart attack doing our homework
together?” Philip shouted.
“No, but scaring you is. I’m doing my report on how people act
when they get scared. You have to do a report too, you know. The
class report we have to do about a feeling. Remember?”
“What was the stuff you said before?”
“Before? When?”
“Before. About the arteries and the clogging.”
Emery laughed. “Did you like it? I made it up. I read this
newspaper article about good heart health, and I read a
different article about how peoples’ hearts beat faster when
they get scared.”
“You didn’t have to read about it. I could have told you.”
“Yeah well, I put the two things together and I said . . .”
“I know what you said. What does cholesterol have to do with
your report?”
“Nothing. I made a joke, for Pete’s sake.”
“Some dumb joke. Next time, save it for Pete.”
“Never mind the joke. Tell me what you felt when you got
scared.” Emery scrambled to the floor and lay on his stomach,
pencil in hand and notebook open. “Go on.”
Philip tried the best he could to remember everything he felt
when Emery jumped out at him. As Philip talked, Emery wrote
fast.
“Good,” said Emery, his pencil zipping across the paper. “Good.
Now let me write what I felt when you scared me.”
When Emery finished writing, Philip said, “Lemme see.” Emery
handed him the notebook.
Philip read, “When Philip first scared me by staring, I got
scared because I didn’t know what he was doing. I felt scared
because I didn’t know what would happen next. When Philip jumped
at me, I felt really scared, heart-beating scared.”
Philip looked at Emery, impressed. “Pretty neat. You got scared
a different way each time.”
“Yeah, it’s great for my report. Now I need you to add things to
my list.”
“What list?”
“My list of things people get scared by. Tell me what things
scare you. You know, to see or think about. Know what my mother
said? She said hairy people scare her. You know with hairy hands
and arms and eyebrows and nose hairs and hair where it shouldn’t
be, like on warts and stuff.”
“Disgusting!”
“Yeah, but scary. Go on, what scares you?”
“What did you put for yourself?”
Emery flipped back a few pages. “I put waking up in the dark in
a strange place.” Philip agreed. No argument there. It happened
to him. “Watching scary movies in the dark when my parents are
out.” Philip agreed again. Still no argument. “Being alone in
the house. Sometimes. Like at night. That’s all.”
“They’re all good ones.”
“Your turn.”
“You took all the good ones.”
“You have to give me something different. Come on.”
“The haunted house scared us. Going inside it, remember?”
Emery wrote it down.
“Somebody finally moved in there, you know,” Emery said, when he
finished writing.
“I heard. My dad told me. At least we won’t have to mow their
lawn anymore. The new people can mow their own lawn.” He and
Emery had beautified the deserted house by mowing its lawn as
part of a community service project.
“Give me one more. A good one. How about monsters? Are you
afraid of monsters?”
“What kind of monsters?”
“Regular monsters. You know. Frankenstein, Dracula, Wolfman.”
“Everybody’s supposed to be afraid of them, but they’re not
real.”
“I’ll put it anyway.”
“Under my name?”
“Sure.”
“No, no,” Philip scoffed. “I don’t want everybody in the class
to think I’m afraid of Dracula. Put your cousin Leon’s name
instead of mine. He’s afraid of everything.”
“All right. All right. So there. Only one more person to
interview and I’m done making a list. I’ll ask Mrs. Moriarty
later what she’s scared of.” Mrs. Moriarty was their favorite
neighbor. “Fourth grade projects aren’t so bad. You pick yours
yet?” Emery closed his notebook and tossed it on the sofa.
“No,” said Philip.
“You better hurry up. Want to go see what the new haunted house
family looks like?”
Philip looked out the window. It was early December and darkness
arrived early. Philip checked his watch, hoping Emery got the
message and would suggest a time with more daylight available. |
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Back to Philip and the Monsters |
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Philip and the Deadly
Curse |
Chapter One
Where is it? Philip wondered in exasperation as he moved every
book in his school desk from one side to the other. He’d lost
another Jolly Rancher, the second this week. No one could have
taken it because he hadn’t been away from his desk all morning.
Philip looked over his classmates to see whether anyone looked
suspicious. His eyes finally settled on his best friend Emery,
who sat directly across the aisle from him.
“Did you see my Jolly Rancher?” Philip whispered.
Emery shook his head and pointed to the front of the room.
“Did you lose something, Philip?” asked Mr. Ware, Philip’s
fourth grade teacher. “I haven’t seen your head above the top of
your desk for some time now.”
“I thought I left something here, but I can’t find it,” Philip
answered.
“May I ask what is so important it takes you away from what
we’re doing?”
“My Jolly Rancher.”
Mr. Ware scrunched up his face. “You lost a happy farmer?”
The class giggled.
“No, no. It’s candy.”
“Candy. Well, if anyone sees Philip’s candy, please return it to
him. Now if you can return your attention to me, Philip, I’ll be
a jolly teacher.”
Reluctantly, Philip sat up wondering if this bad luck of his
would ever stop. Mr. Ware spoke to him nicely, but Philip knew
when he’d been scolded; and he’d just been scolded. Where could
his candy be? Philip began to slide down in his seat to look
through his desk again, but caught himself. He’d already
searched twice, and the next time Mr. Ware caught him, he would
probably scold him with the louder voice the class never giggled
at, and Philip had no desire to add more bad luck to his growing
mountain of bad luck so he sat up and tried to pay attention. He
couldn’t, though. The only thing interesting his brain at the
moment was the bad luck following him everywhere lately.
When Philip met Emery for their usual walk to school that
morning, Emery said hello and immediately bent over to pick up a
quarter from the grass right near Philip’s left foot. Philip
watched, astounded. Who knew how long the quarter had been lying
there and how many times he had walked past it and not seen it?
Emery shows up and one second later, he’s a quarter richer. He
considered telling Emery he had a hole in his pocket and the
quarter slipped through and fell out, but Emery might ask to see
the hole. Philip had no choice but to congratulate Emery on his
lucky find and silently bemoan his own bad luck.
Now his candy had disappeared, and Philip was fed up with one
piece of bad luck following another and another and another.
What could he do about it? Nothing. He sat back dejectedly and
listened to Mr. Ware drone on about common denominators.
Walking home with Emery later, Philip decided to share his
problem with his friend.
“Emery,” Philip began.
“Hold it,” Emery cried and ran across the street. He bent down
and picked up something, then ran back to Philip. A big smile on
his face, Emery held up a hard, pink air ball. “Here, catch.”
Philip grabbed the ball. “This is what you ran over there to
get?” He bounced the ball and found it in very good shape.
“Didn’t you see it laying right along the curb?”
Philip shook his head and handed the ball back to Emery, who
shoved it into his coat pocket.
Philip looked at him in sad wonder and said, “You found a
quarter this morning and a good ball this afternoon.”
Emery shrugged and smiled. “Lucky, I guess.”
“Yeah, but why? Today I lost my Jolly Rancher. Mr. Ware yelled
at me. I lost another Jolly Rancher Monday. I didn’t find the
quarter, and I didn’t find the ball. All I have is bad luck.
Why?”
“Maybe you need a good luck charm, like mine,” Emery said.
Philip stopped walking. “A good luck charm? You have one?”
Emery nodded. “Sure. Come on. It’s cold.”
“Show me,” Philip said.
“I’ll show you at my house. It’s in my pocket. I don’t want to
undo my coat out here.”
Philip wondered what could possibly be giving Emery all of this
good luck. |
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