Philip and the Loser (9781619501522) (8 page)

“
Open them all,” Emery said.

Each of the other four papers had a drawing.
One showed Philip’s house; another, his garage. One showed Philip
and Emery at the picnic table, and the final one had the word
KLEEBIS in big letters, each letter decorated in a different
way.

“
Leon did this?” said
Philip.

“
I didn’t know he could draw,” said
Emery.

Philip jumped up. “Hey! You remember when we
went to get your new sneakers at the mall? Some lady was drawing
people’s faces.”

“
Yeah. For money!”

“
For money! You think Leon . . .
?”

“
I don’t know. I don’t know,” said
Emery excitedly. He jumped up, too.

“
You don’t think we made him mad at us,
do you?” Philip wondered.

Emery made a face as if he’d heard something
very painful. “It’s possible.”

“
It’s twenty after eleven. Leon can
save us. We have to ask him.”

“
He’s with his friends.”

“
We’re
his friends, too,
aren’t we?”

“
Are we?”

“
Of course we are! Practically. Let’s
go find him,” said Philip. He and Emery ran as fast as they could
out to the sidewalk and down the street toward the
schoolyard.

Philip and Emery dashed across the
next-to-last street before their school and stopped short. Halfway
up the block Leon walked slowly toward them, head down and kicking
at imaginary stones on the sidewalk. Philip and Emery went to meet
him.

“
What happened to you?” Emery asked.
“You’re all wet!” Leon’s dripping hair hung over his forehead and
beads of water covered his face. His clothes had a few dry spots,
but not many.

Leon gave a loud sniff. “No kidding.” Philip
saw a tear roll down Leon’s right cheek and bump into a water drop
sitting motionless there. Leon brushed them both away.

Leon turned and looked back toward the empty
schoolyard.

“
What happened?” asked
Philip.

“
They said they wanted me to play with
them,” Leon explained. “But when I got there and ran up to them,
they started throwing water balloons at me. They didn’t really want
to play with me. They just wanted me to come to the schoolyard so
they could wet me.” Leon started walking. “No one wants to play
with me.”

Philip and Emery exchanged a quick look and
hurried after Leon.

“
Uh, why don’t you come to the fair
with us, Leon?” Philip asked.

Leon didn’t answer. He simply walked
faster.

“
We have something neat you can do.
It’ll be fun,” Philip said louder as Leon got further away. Philip
speeded up, but Leon walked even faster.

“
Come on, Leon,” Philip pleaded. “We
really need you for this.”

Leon stopped. “You don’t mean it. You want to
trick me, too.”

“
No, no! We mean it, Leon,” said
Philip.

Emery added, “We won’t trick you. We really
need you.”

Leon stared at the boys. “You
two
always
tease me and trick me. You don’t
let me do anything with you. You tell me to stand over there or go
away.”

“
Well,” Philip said slowly, “you do
have a lot of accidents, you know.”

“
And you did crunch our two games,”
Emery pointed out.

Leon looked down and shrugged. “Sometimes I’m
not lucky.”

“
You can do this with us, Leon, and
we’ll all be lucky,” Philip argued. “It’s a game we want to do at
the fair, and we need you to do it. We told you we were making a
game, right? If you help us, we’ll play Kleebis with you.” Philip
heard Emery moan.

Leon’s head snapped up. “Kleebis? Really? Can
I make some of the rules?”

“
Help us at the fair, and you can
make
all
the rules, right
Emery?” said Philip.

“
Yeah, all the rules,” Emery repeated
with little enthusiasm.

“
And you’ll play with me when I want?”
Leon’s eyes were wide.

“
Unless there’s something else we have
to do,” said Philip.

Philip could hear Emery mutter under his
breath, “He’ll want us to play Kleebis the rest of his life.”
Philip gave Emery a secret kick with his heel.

Leon laughed his goofy
yuk
yuk.
“What game are you doing at the fair?”

“
Come on,” said Philip. “We only have .
. .” He looked at his watch “. . . twenty minutes. And we need
drawing paper and pencils.”

“
I have a lot of drawing stuff at home.
Did you know I like to draw?” said Leon.

“
We know!” said Philip. “Hurry up and
get them. My dad will drive us.”

~ * ~

At ten minutes after twelve Leon sat
contentedly at the fair, drawing the face of a little girl as the
little girl’s mother watched. People wandered over to watch Leon
work. Philip and Emery stood nearby, calling for people to come and
see the artist who could draw anyone’s face. When Leon finished
drawing the first little girl, Philip watched the girl’s mother
take a five-dollar bill out of her wallet. Philip’s eyes bulged,
and he rushed over to help.

“
Thank you, ma’am.” Philip grabbed the
five dollars.

“
It’s for a good cause,” Emery put in.
He turned to Philip and smiled. Then he called out, “Only five
dollars. Get your picture drawn only five dollars.”

Philip followed suit and people lined up.

By the time five o’clock rolled around and
the fair drew to a close, Leon had drawn thirty-two faces, and when
Philip handed Mrs. Moriarty the profits, she stared at him,
momentarily speechless. When she found her voice, she said,
“Philip, one-hundred-sixty dollars! Amazing! You made more money
for us than any other booth in the fair.”

“
Well, Leon was the real star,” said
Philip.

“
Leon, thank you ever so much,” said
Mrs. Moriarty. “Please come with Philip and Emery sometime and
visit me. Do you like candy?”

“
Yeah, I like candy a lot,
yuk yuk,”
Leon answered, giving one of his big,
goofy laughs and showing off his broken tooth.

A few moments later Leon tucked his drawing
paper under his arm and he, Philip, and Emery started home.

“
I did good, didn’t I?” Leon giggled.
“How did you know I like to draw?”

Philip knew his brotherhood report on Monday
would be super. Mrs. M. had promised to write a note for Emery and
him to attach to their reports telling Mr. Sagsman how much help
they had been to the women’s club fair. Philip thought he might
even put something in the report about being friends with Leon.
Philip felt so relieved at how things turned out he didn’t even
mind walking with Leon. “I knew you liked to draw because all
Kleebises like to draw,” Philip said, aiming a big smile at
Leon.

“
Kleebis forever,
woo
hoo,”
yelled Leon.

“
On, no,” Emery mumbled. “Not this
again.”

But Philip could only laugh. Maybe his
father was right about hidden talents. And maybe Mr. Sagsman was
right, too. If you gave people a chance and tried to get to know
them, they were mostly all right. And Leon
was
kind of funny. And he did have an awful lot of bad
luck.

“
Hey, Leon,” said Philip. “Remember
when you crashed over the desk outside our classroom?”

“
Yeah,” Leon laughed.
“
Boom!
And you fell down in the
garbage?”

Philip laughed. It seemed funny now. He said,
“And I was shaking garbage off so you and Emery started shaking,
too, and the three of us were jumping around like hyenas when Mr.
Sagsman saw us?”

Even Emery had to smile and say, “And
remember when Leon ate the cookies off the floor?”

All three boys had to stop walking, they were
laughing so hard.

Leon took a breath and said, “And I didn’t
have shoes in your house and couldn’t find them?” The boys laughed
like crazy.

Emery sputtered, “And the chair, the chair on
the lawn bit him.”

The three boys held their sides in glee.

“
And . . . and . . .” Leon could barely
speak. “. . . and I busted up both your games.”

Philip stopped laughing. “That wasn’t so
funny,” he said. He remembered how angry and desperate he’d felt.
“But I guess it’s funny now it’s over. Right, Emery?”

“
Yeah. I guess. Maybe.”

“
Kleebis forever,
woo
hoo,”
Philip shouted.

“
Kleebis forever,
woo
hoo,”
Leon shouted.

Emery gave a roll of his eyes and
muttered, “Oh, what the heck. Kleebis forever,
woo
hoo.”

The three boys walked down the street
laughing and shouting out the Kleebis song.

“
Kleebis forever,
woo
hoo.”

The End

John Paulits has published numerous books of
fiction both for children and adults. This is his ninth PHILIP AND
EMERY novel for Gypsy Shadow. See John’s website for more
information.

WEBSITE: www.johnpaulits.com

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