Philip and the Sneaky Trashmen (9781619502185) (4 page)

Leon jammed the bill back into this
pocket. “Yeah, but it would still be broken if he didn’t fix it.
You can take back any good stuff. He already said so, didn’t
he?”

Emery interrupted. “And Mr. Sorino gave
you a dollar just for bringing him broken junk?”

“
Yup.”

Philip’s and Emery’s eyes
met.

“
You have broken stuff,
don’t you Emery?”

“
Tons of it. My sisters
break things all the time.” Emery had two baby sisters only a year
apart.

“
Look,” said Philip, “get
all your broken junk together, and when we go to Mr. Sorino’s
tomorrow to get my stuff back, we’ll give him yours. Maybe he’ll
give
us
money.”

“
Us?”
said Emery.

“
Yeah, us.”

“
My
broken stuff is
‘us’?”

“
You wouldn’t know about it
if it wasn’t for my broken stuff.”

Emery’s eyebrows came together. “I
guess.”

Leon gave one of his
yuk yuk
laughs. “Both of
you wouldn’t know if it wasn’t for me.”

The boys turned slowly toward Leon, who
wilted under their gaze. He shuffled his feet and said, “Uh, well.
I guess I’ll go home. Time for dinner. Want me to come with you
tomorrow?”

“
No,” said Philip and Emery
together.

“
Well, bye.” Leon continued
on, pulling his red wagon along behind him, and the boys watched
him depart.

Finally, Philip said, “Emery, we can
get lots of broken stuff.”

“
How?”

“
We can go knock on
people’s doors and ask them for their broken stuff. Then we take it
to Mr. Sorino and get money. We can do that all summer. We’ll be
rich.”

“
You think so?”

“
Why not? Hey,
look.”

Emery turned. Two houses away a man
rolled a plastic trash can to the sidewalk. He set it at the curb
and went back inside the house.

“
Emery, tonight’s the night
people put out their trash. We can find stuff in the
trash.”

“
You mean go through trash
cans?”

“
They gotta be
full
of broken
stuff.”

“
If I had an idea like
that, you’d call it stupid. Who wants to look through people’s
trash? Your trash had that yellowy, gooey stuff . . .”

“
We’ll wear
gloves.”

Emery frowned.

Philip tried again. “Well
then, how about we only
look?
We don’t have to touch anything unless we see
something good.”

Emery thought it over. “All right. All
right. Maybe they’ll put something out separately. You know, all by
itself and not in a bag. I guess it can’t hurt to look
around.”

“
Right. We gotta do it
before Leon thinks of it.”

“
Just
look,
remember. Not open up bags and
empty them out.”

“
Of course not. We’d get in
trouble if we did that.
Hmmm.
If my father knows we’re looking through trash,
he’ll figure out we looked through the trash in the garage. Maybe
we better not mention anything.”

“
Right. So we’ll just walk
around the neighborhood and see what people put out? That’s it? No
yellow gooey stuff.”

“
Right. No
any
color gooey stuff.
That’s easy to do, isn’t it?”

Emery nodded slowly. “I guess we can do
that.”

Philip started off. “First, let’s go to
your house and find all of your broken stuff. When we finish that,
we can walk around the neighborhood.”

Emery followed along.

The next morning Philip and Emery were
on their way to Mr. Sorino’s, each carrying a plastic supermarket
bag half filled with broken things they’d found at Emery’s
house.

“
I can’t believe anybody’d
give us money for this junk,” said Emery.

Philip swung his bag in front of him.
“You saw what he gave Leon. What about the big stuff we saw sitting
outside last night?”

“
We can’t carry a TV, a
sofa, a big table.”

Philip pointed. “There he
is.”

Mr. Sorino stood on his porch talking
to another man. When the second man drove away in a small truck
with an open deck in the back, the boys crossed the street and
waved.

“
Oh, hello, boys. You come
to check over your things?”

“
Yeah,” answered Philip.
“And we brought you these two bags.” Philip handed Mr. Sorino his
bag.

Mr. Sorino looked inside the bag and
then glanced at Emery.

“
You have a bag,
too?”

“
Yeah, here. We got all the
broken stuff from my house. Maybe you can use it?”

Mr. Sorino took the bag from Emery.
“You’ve been talking to your friend Leon, I’ll bet.”

The boys didn’t answer.

“
Okay. I can use this. I
try to make a little money fixing things and selling them to the
recycle store in the mall . . .”

“
Pete’s Repeat shop,” said
Philip.

“
Right. Come look over your
stuff.”

Mr. Sorino carried the two plastic bags
with him as he led the boys into the former garage. Someone had
already emptied Philip’s bag out onto the table. Philip and Emery
began their inspection, as Mr. Sorino put the new bags on a table,
stood back, and watched.

“
You want this Furby?”
asked Emery.

“
No, it doesn’t
work.”

“
How about these two
trains?”

“
No, my mother threw the
tracks out long ago.”

“
How about this peanut
butter and jelly sandwich? It’s got ants on it.”

Philip tossed Emery a scornful look and
finished his search in silence.

Philip held up a few toys before
sliding them into his pockets. “Just these couple things, Mr.
Sorino. You can have the rest.”

“
Thanks, boys . . . I don’t
even know your names.”

“
Philip.”

“
Emery.”

“
Thanks, Philip. Thanks,
Emery. This is very nice of you.”

“
Glad to help,” said
Philip. He and Emery exchanged a rapid glance, and Philip knew they
were thinking the same thing. Where were their dollar
bills?

Mr. Sorino continued to talk to them.
“If you want to—you don’t have to, of course, but if you want to—if
you find out that anyone threw away a TV or something big like
that, I can fix that stuff up and get a pretty good payment for
it—if I can get it to work.”

“
We know where a TV’s
thrown out,” Emery blurted.

Philip followed suit. “Yeah, and a sofa
and a big table—the kind you put in the dining room.”

Mr. Sorino’s eyes opened wide. “Now,
that would be helpful.”

“
You have to get the stuff
quick,” said Philip said. “It’s trash day. They’ll take it away
today.”

“
Don’t worry about that.
Can you get me the addresses where you saw that? Make a list of
what’s thrown away and put the address next to it. Can you do
that?”

“
Sure,” said
Philip.

“
Easy,” Emery
agreed.

Mr. Sorino reached into his pocket and
pulled out some bills. “Here’s a dollar for each of you. You bring
me that list, and I’ll give you each another dollar.
Okay?”

“
You bet,” said Philip. The
boys took the money and left.

As they walked, Emery said, “You think
he told Leon to do what he told us? Make a list like
that?”

“
I don’t know, but we
better go make ours fast, in case he did. My Aunt Louise is coming
to stay for a couple days, so I gotta stay out of the way. I’ll
have lots of time.”

“
And since we only have to
write down addresses and what we saw, we can go all over the
neighborhood to look for stuff.”

“
We gotta do it before the
trash truck comes. Let’s get a pen and some paper at your house.
We’re gonna be rich!”

The boys gave a whoop and charged down
the street.

About half an hour into their search,
Emery cried, “Look! There’s Leon.”

At the far end of the block, Leon
pulled his red wagon and turned the corner.

“
What do you think he’s
doing?” asked Philip.

“
If he’s got his wagon,
he’s probably looking for stuff for Mr. Sorino.”

“
Let’s go see.”

Philip and Emery tore down the street.
When they turned the corner, they saw the red wagon, but no
Leon.

“
Where’d he go?” asked
Emery.

The boys stood and waited. A moment
later, Leon walked into view, leaving the porch of the house where
his wagon stood. He carried something. Philip and Emery exchanged a
glance.

“
Hey, Leon,” Emery
called.

Leon put what he carried into his wagon
and waved. “Hi, guys.”

“
What are you doing, Leon?”
asked Emery.

“
Asking people for broken
stuff. Look at this neat clock the lady gave me.” The wooden clock
had cracked glass on its face and only one hand. “I’m gonna give it
to Mr. Sorino.”

“
We’re . . .” Emery
began.

Philip poked him. “Good idea, Leon.
Well, we gotta go. Bye.”

Leon pulled his wagon along the
sidewalk, whistling as he went.

“
What’d you poke me for?”
Emery asked, rubbing his ribs. “That hurt.”

“
You were gonna tell him
about what we were doing. Look, now we know what
he’s
doing. We can do
it, too, if we want. He
doesn’t
know what we’re doing, so he won’t bother us or
find stuff outside houses before we do. We already have three
houses written down. The TV house, the big table house, and the
sofa house. Let’s go find some more.”

The boys had to give up their search an
hour later, when the trash truck arrived and cleaned out the
neighborhood.

“
We got six places on the
list, right?” asked Emery.

“
Six, right. Let’s take the
list to Mr. Sorino.”

The boys ran the whole way. The same
truck they had seen earlier stood in the driveway of Mr. Sorino’s
house. The back-up lights on the truck flashed, and the boys
watched the truck slowly move into the street, straighten out, and
drive away. They ran up to Mr. Sorino, who still stood in the
driveway.

“
Here’s the list,” Philip
said, handing him the paper.

Mr. Sorino studied the list, and Philip
felt good when he saw a smile creep across the man’s
face.

“
Very nice, boys.” He dug
into his pocket. “This list is absolutely worth another dollar.
Here you go.”

After handing the boys their money, Mr.
Sorino started toward his porch. “I have to make a few phone calls.
Thanks.” He waved the list. “Keep looking. Come on,
Gordon.”

“
We will,” Philip called
after him. Gordon scooted through the dog door, and Mr. Sorino
followed him inside.

Emery tapped Philip on the shoulder.
“Hey, look.”

Philip turned. A decrepit wooden clock
sat on top of the trash in a big, black, plastic trash can. They
walked over and inspected it.

“
It’s Leon’s clock,” said
Emery. “Gotta be.”

“
I guess Mr. Sorino
couldn’t fix it.”

“
Guess not.” Emery lifted
the clock up. “Hey, is this your stuff under it?”

Philip poked around in the ripped open
side of the white bag on top. “Looks like. Yeah. There’s the ant
sandwich.”

“
I guess he couldn’t fix
any of your stuff either.”

“
It
was
pretty junky stuff. I gotta go
home. Aunt Louise is coming, and I’m supposed to be there to say
hello.”

“
Is she the crazy one you
told me about?”

The boys began walking. “Totally crazy.
That’s why my mother went nuts looking for that pin and cleaned the
house like the President was coming to visit. The worst part is
boys and girls.”

“
Boys and girls? What’s
that mean?”

“
She thinks boys and
girls—there shouldn’t be a difference. Everything equal. Pink
shouldn’t be girls; blue shouldn’t be boys. They should get the
same toys—no girl toys or boy toys.”

“
You said she always brings
presents, though.”

“
Gaaaa!
The dumbest presents ever. She gave me a doll for Christmas
when I was five, a girl doll, and a big dollhouse the Christmas
after that. My dad tells me I cried when I got the doll. By the
time I got the dollhouse, I was used to it. Her last visit she gave
me two T-shirts; a pink one with my baby picture on it and a blue
one with Becky’s baby picture. I won’t wear them.”