Philip and the Loser (9781619501522) (6 page)

“
Look. Look at what you did, Leon. Are
you happy now?” asked Emery.

Leon spoke quietly for once. “No. No. Not so
much. No, I’m not happy.” Philip and Emery continued to study the
mess Leon had made.

“
I gotta go. I have my library books
here. I gotta study . . .” Leon’s voice faded. “. . .
India.”

“
You go study India,” said
Emery.

“
Yeah, why don’t you just
go
to India?” Philip suggested.

Philip and Emery began to clean up the
mess.

“
Well, I’m going now. Uh, bye. I said
I’m going.”

Philip and Emery tossed the pieces of their
second unlucky game into the black plastic trash can as Leon walked
slowly around the corner of the house.

Philip and Emery met again in Philip’s
backyard Sunday afternoon at one o’clock.

“
Now what?” Emery asked
glumly.

“
We’ll try something else, that’s
what,” Philip replied sharply.

“
I know we’ll try something else. But
what something else?”

Philip thought a moment. “You mentioned three
games before, when I asked you. The cats, the ring toss. I forgot
the third one.”

“
Balloons,” he said. “Throwing darts at
balloons.”

“
Oh yeah,” said Philip, perking up.
“Busting balloons. That’s
gotta
be an easy
game to make. Find some darts and blow up some balloons. We should
have thought of balloons first. You know what you have to get,
right?”

Emery gave Philip a puzzled look. “Darts and
balloons?”

“
Right.”

“
Oh, one more thing,” said Emery with a
knowing smile.

“
What?”

“
Darts, balloon,
board.”
Emery emphasized the word
board
because he thought of it first, not
Philip.

“
Bored? What do mean bored? This is no
time to get bored. You better stay interested until we’re
done.”

“
I’m interested,” said Emery, offended
by Philip’s accusation.

“
So, why’d you say you were
bored?”

“
I didn’t say I was bored.”

“
You did,” Philip said, his voice
rising. “You said darts and balloons and then you shouted out you
were bored.

“
I never said I was bored. I said
darts, balloon and
board,”
Emery insisted in
the same voice as before.

“
There! You said it again! You said
bored!”

“
I said
board,
but I’m not bored.”

Philip glared at Emery and in a slow,
patient voice said, “If you’re not bored, then why did you
say
you were bored?”

In an equally slow and patient voice,
Emery said. “I didn’t say I was bored. I said we
needed
a board. We have to have something to put the
balloons on, don’t we?”

Philip continued to stare quietly at his
friend. “Why do you always do that?” he finally asked.

“
Always do what?”

“
Say one thing when you mean something
else.”

“
I didn’t say one thing and mean
something else.”

“
You did. You said bored but you meant
board.”

Emery narrowed his eyes and stared
back. He thought carefully for a moment and then replied. “Right,
when I said board, I meant board. You thought I meant
bored,
but I didn’t mean bored. I meant
board.
See? You get confused because you’re always
yelling and not understanding me.”

“
Me?
Not understanding
you?
You’re the one who . . .” Philip sucked in a
deep breath. He knew he and Emery had important work to do, so he
decided he’d better end the discussion of whether Emery made sense
or not. “Let’s go get some money and walk to the mall and buy some
balloons. Okay?”

“
Sure.”

“
Then we’ll get some darts.”

“
Great. And maybe there’s another board
we can use in your garage.”

“
Right, a
board.
See, Emery, if you talk slow, I can understand
you.”

“
Maybe you should listen
faster.”

“
Just go get some money. I’ll be at
your house in two minutes.”

~ * ~

An hour later, Philip sat at the picnic bench
waiting for Emery to show up. He busily blew up small round
balloons and fought to tie a knot in the flabby end before tossing
the finished balloon into a big brown shopping bag. Once in a while
the knot didn’t work, and the balloon flew across the backyard. But
Philip was determined, and he chased down the balloon and started
over on it.

Emery finally arrived carrying a bulging,
white, plastic supermarket bag.

“
What have you got?” asked
Philip.

“
Balloons, of course,” said Emery,
extending the bag toward Philip. “Lots of colors.”

“
Balloons! I have balloons. You were
supposed to get darts. I told you to get your father’s darts. The
ones in the basement.”

“
They’re my father’s good darts. He’ll
kill me if I take them.”

“
Well, we have to have darts, and I
don’t have any. You’re the only one with darts.”

“
I can’t use them. I’ll get in big
trouble.”

Philip slumped back against the side of the
picnic table. “Now what? We only have balloons. Oh, and I found
something in the garage we can put the balloons on, but you can’t
have a dart game if you only have balloons and no darts.”

“
I know. I know. Let’s think.” After a
quiet moment, Emery asked, “What are you thinking?”

“
I’m thinking
darts
.
You know what I’m
thinking.
Darts, darts, darts.”

“
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Me, too.”

It grew quiet again.

“
What about we make some,” Emery
suggested.

“
Make some? Darts? How?” Philip asked
doubtfully.

“
Straws. Straws and pins. Tape the pin
to the end of the straw.”

Philip imagined this put-together kind of
dart for a moment. “Emery, sometimes you’re a genius. Come on.”

The boys went inside Philip’s house.

“
Let’s not disturb my mother. She might
be taking care of Becky.” Becky was Philip’s baby
sister.

“
Good idea,” Emery whispered back,
realizing as Philip did, there were some things parents didn’t need
to know about.

Philip led the way into the kitchen and found
a box of drinking straws. Then they went to the hall closet, where
Philip got out his mother’s sewing kit.

“
I don’t see any pins. How about
needles?”

“
Needles are good,” said Emery. “Same
thing.”

Philip took a package of needles, replaced
the sewing kit, and led Emery back outside.

“
You forgot Scotch tape,” said Emery.
“We gotta stick the needle onto the straw.”

Philip moaned but got up, went back inside
the house, and returned holding a roll of Scotch tape.

“
Okay,” said Philip. “Let’s make
six.”

Soon, they had six straw-darts.

“
Okay, let’s try them,” said Philip.
“Go hold a balloon over there.”

Emery took a balloon from his plastic bag and
walked onto the grass.

“
Hold your arm out,” said
Philip.

Emery held his arm out a moment before
putting it down.

“
Wait a minute. Are you going to throw
a dart at
me?”

“
No, I’m throwing a dart at the
balloon.”

“
Yeah, but I’m
holding
the balloon. What if you miss?”

“
I won’t miss. Put your arm
out.”

Emery walked back to the picnic table. “Let’s
think this over. Go get the board you said you found.”

“
Chicken,” Philip mumbled as he got to
his feet.

“
You hold the balloon then, and I’ll
throw the dart at you,” Emery called after him.

“
No, no. I’ve seen you throw before.”
Philip disappeared into the garage and reemerged carrying a large
square of cardboard.

“
That’s not a board,” said
Emery.

“
Don’t you think I know that? And I
didn’t say I found a board. I said I found something to put the
balloons on. This is it.”

“
I guess it’ll work, but what can we
stick the balloons to it with?” Emery wondered.

Philip reached into his back pocket and
pulled out a small rectangle covered with tiny round colored
dots.

“
Thumbtacks!” said Emery, impressed.
“Pretty smart.”

Philip carefully pushed a thumbtack through
the tiny, flabby tied-up piece of rubber sticking out from the end
of the balloon.

“
There,” he said, satisfied. “This
should work great. Where’re our darts?”

Emery picked up the six homemade darts from
the picnic table and handed one to Philip.

“
Okay, here I go. Watch me bust the
balloon,” said Philip. He aimed and threw. The dart floated lazily
through the air a short distance, turned over twice and fell to the
ground well short of the balloon and the cardboard.

Philip turned slowly to Emery. Emery
scratched his head and said, “I guess you’re too far away. Move
closer.”

Philip took a step closer. Emery handed him a
second dart. Philip lined up his shot and threw hard. The dart spun
around and fell to the ground before reaching the cardboard.

“
Get closer,” said Emery.

Philip took another step closer. Emery handed
him a third dart. Philip threw it. This time the dart turned
sideways and hit the cardboard under the balloon before it fell to
the ground. The balloon still bobbed tantalizingly in the
breeze.

“
Closer,” said Emery.

“
Closer! One more step and I can reach
out and pop the balloon without even throwing the stupid dart,”
Philip said. He stepped closer, took a dart from Emery, reached his
arm forward and
POP!
The balloon
disappeared.

“
What fun is that?” asked Philip. “Who
wants to play a game where you just reach out and pop a balloon?
Even Leon could win that game.”

“
Maybe we can put some rocks in the
straw and make it heavier,” said Emery.

“
Rocks?”

“
Small ones. Pebbles.”

“
Maybe. Get some. They gotta be real
small, though.”

The two boys scoured the lawn, looking for
pebbles tiny enough to fit inside the open end of the straw.

“
We have enough,” said Philip. “Let’s
try it.” He carefully stuffed the pebbles into the open end of one
straw dart. “Stick up another balloon.”

Emery tacked a blue balloon in place.

“
Okay,” said Philip. “Here we go. One
broken balloon, coming up.” He threw. This time the dart reversed
itself, and the back end of the straw bounced off the balloon. The
balloon survived.

“
Maybe we can put needles on both
ends,” said Emery.

“
We can’t do that. People will be
sticking themselves. We’ll get sued.”

“
Oh. I don’t think my mother wants me
to get sued.”

Leon walked around the corner of the house
into the backyard.

“
Hi, guys,” Leon said. He gave a
quick
yuk yuk.
“What’s goin’ on? Still makin’
up games?”

“
Go away, Leon,” said Philip. “We’re
having enough trouble here.”

“
Yeah, just be quiet, Leon,” Emery
agreed. “Go back to India. Try again, Philip.”

“
Got any more fig bars?” Leon
asked.

Philip retrieved the straw with the pebbles.
“Most of them fell out,” he reported.

“
Put them back in,” said Emery. “Put
some tape over the bottom so they don’t fall out again.”

That done, Philip tried another throw. He and
Emery followed the flight of the dart as it spun backwards same as
the first throw, hit the cardboard next to the balloon, and fell to
the ground. They stared silently at the useless dart.

Leon said, “Here’s what you gotta do.” Before
Emery or Philip could stop him Leon grabbed a new straw and a
needle they’d left lying on the picnic table. “Use it like a
blowgun. Blow the needle out the straw to break the balloon. I saw
this in my India book. Like this.” Leon popped the needle into the
near end of the straw and raised it to his mouth.

“
Don’t do that,” said Emery.

Leon took a deep breath.
“
Arrrgghhh!”
Leon coughed.
“
Arrrghhh. Ummmph.”
Leon began jumping up and
down, grabbing at his mouth.

“
What’d you do? What’d you do?” Philip
shouted.

“
Arrgghh. Ogggeeefffff.”

“
Smack him on the back!” yelled Emery.
“I think he swallowed the needle!”