Philip Gets Even (9781597050807) (8 page)

Mr. Conway smiled and nodded. “Yep, the big
day.”

“I said don’t fall asleep and miss
everything,” Emery said louder.

“Sleep? Oh, yes. Slept very well.” Mr. Conway
smiled.

Emery looked at Philip and rolled his eyes.
He tapped himself on the ear then twisted his wrist as if he was
turning something on.

“Eh, oh.” Mr. Conway tapped himself in the
ear. “Dang thing.” He removed his hearing aid, fiddled with it,
then replaced it. “There we go. Works great.”

“Yeah, when you turn it on,” Emery
mumbled.

“Be at school at three today and two
tomorrow,” Philip repeated.

“And don’t take any naps,” said Emery.

“Don’t worry. I’ve set three alarm clocks.
I’ll hear them if I doze off.”

Emery moaned. “We’re going to get mushed. I
know it.”

“What did you say? Dang.” Mr. Conway tapped
himself in the ear twice. “Ah, there it goes. Yep, I’ll hear them.
Don’t worry.”

Philip’s father honked.

“We have to go, Mr. Conway,” said Philip.
“Don’t be late.”

“And don’t take naps!” Emery called.

“That’s exactly right. Great trap,” said Mr.
Conway, smiling and waving goodbye.

“What is he
talking
about? He can’t
hear
anything
.” Emery said in exasperation. “We better call
him right when we get out of school today and make sure he’s awake.
I don’t trust his stupid hearing aid and his alarm clocks. Can you
get a quarter from your dad?”

Philip agreed this was a smart thing to do
and did it.

When they arrived at school, they took the
painting straight to the auditorium on the first floor. The
auditorium was, of course, a very large room. It was as wide as the
whole school and two stories high and had three wide, tall windows
on each side. Ms. Trinetti was taking artwork from the students and
arranging it on the stage. She took
Everyday Things
from
Philip.

“Can you put it here?” said Philip.

Ms. Trinetti, an impatient look on her face,
said, “Why here?”

“The light. The light from that window will
make it look good,” said Philip.

“Remember you taught us about how important
light is,” said Emery, smiling innocently.

“Alleluia. You do listen in class,” Ms.
Trinetti mumbled and put
Everyday Things
on an easel in the
spot Philip indicated. “There. You’re set. Now scoot back
outside.”

Philip nodded his head toward the other side
of the stage. Emery looked. There sat a big blue bowl filled with
the rainbow colors of M & Ms. Six cupcakes surrounded the blue
bowl.

“He’s here,” said Philip softly.

“My stomach just started hurting.”

As they walked back to the schoolyard, Philip
said, “Let me hear you say it.”

“Noooo,” Emery moaned. “Why can’t you say
it?”

“Emery! Come on! I thought of it. That’s why.
This is your part of the plan. Say it.”

Emery looked sadly at Philip and in a soft
voice said, “So did you have a nice visit to the newspaper office
yesterday, Johnny?”

“Yeah, great! And say it like you’re really
teasing him. That should get him super mad.”

“I don’t
want
to get him super mad. I
think he’s mad enough already.”

“No, you have to. Unless he’s real mad, the
plan won’t work. You know that. Don’t worry. He won’t do anything
to us in the schoolyard. The teachers’ll be there.”

“What about not in the schoolyard?”

“Don’t worry. Don’t worry. I’m not
worried.”

“I wouldn’t worry either if you were the one
who had to say it.”

It wasn’t fifteen seconds after they walked
into the bright sunshine in the schoolyard that Johnny Visco saw
them and came stomping over to them.

“Here he comes,” said Philip. “Get ready to
say it.”

“You two,” said Johnny Visco, his teeth
clenched.

Philip nudged Emery.

Emery closed his eyes and said, “So, did you
have a nice newspaper yesterday, Johnny?”

Philip turned and looked at Emery.

“What did he say? What did you say?” Johnny
Visco asked.

“Uh, I said... I said... uh... how was your
afternoon office?”

“What?”

Philip came to the rescue. “He means did you
have a nice afternoon at the newspaper office yesterday?”

“So, it
was
you, wasn’t it? I thought
it was. And I’ll bet it was that old buzzard that called my mother.
Now I’m
really
going to get you. Your painting isn’t even
going to win
last
prize. You’re not even going to
have
a painting.”

Johnny Visco made a fist and stepped closer.
Emery closed his eyes and held his breath.

Then a voice said, “Any trouble here?”

“No, Mr. Ware,” said Philip. “Just
talking.”

Emery opened his eyes. Johnny Visco’s teacher
was standing next to Johnny.

“Time to get into line, Johnny,” said Mr.
Ware.

Johnny Visco gave the boys a fearsome glare,
and Mr. Ware escorted him to his line.

“Wow,” said Philip softly.

“My stomach hurts. My head hurts. I hurt. I
almost
got
hurt.”

“Never mind that. You think he’s mad
enough?”

“
Mad
enough? Is he
mad
enough?
What else you want to do? Dump a can of garbage on his head?”

“Well, we have to be sure,” Philip answered
impatiently. “Asking him whether he had a nice newspaper isn’t
going to make him mad.”

“Well, I got nervous. But he’s mad
enough.”

“I guess. Come on, let’s get in line.”

~ * ~

When Philip called Mr. Conway at three
o’clock, there was no answer.

“He’s asleep,” said Emery. “I know it. The
alarm clocks are ringing. People are waking up all over the
neighborhood. Dogs are barking. But
he’s
asleep.”

“He probably left for school. Maybe he’s here
already.”

“Let’s go see.”

“No, no. We don’t want to give it away. But
we can go to his house and make sure he isn’t there.”

“Yeah, let’s do that at least.”

So the boys went to Mr. Conway’s house and
rang the bell and hammered on the door. No answer. They had no
choice but to go home.

The next morning they stopped at Mr. Conway’s
house on the way to school.

“I called him twice last night but nobody
answered,” said Philip.

Emery just moaned.

They rang Mr. Conway’s bell and pounded on
his door but in vain. They had no choice but to go on to
school.

A few moments after the morning
announcements, Mr. Greif appeared at their classroom door and
summoned the two boys.

“I have some bad news for you,” he said and
led them to the auditorium where Ms. Trinetti and a few other
teachers were standing on the stage.
Everyday Things
was not
on its easel. Then Philip noticed a painting lying on the floor of
the stage.

“What happened?” Philip asked, looking at Ms.
Trinetti.

“I don’t know. I don’t know. Somehow your
painting fell off the easel and got ripped.”

Philip and Emery exchanged a glance.

“Looks like mice chewed on it,” said
Emery.

“Our school does not have mice, Emery,” said
Mr. Greif.

“Hmm,” said Ms. Trinetti. “It does look like
mice chewed on the canvas.”

“Our school does not have mice, Ms.
Trinetti,” said Mr Greif a bit more insistently.

Philip heard the word “mice” pass among the
teachers who were standing on the stage.

“People,” said Mr. Greif, “no mice. The
school does not have mice!”

“So what happened to our painting then?”
asked Emery.

“I don’t know,” said Mr. Greif. “But it
wasn’t mice. Accidents happen. A gust of wind. Somehow it fell off
the easel.”

“And got chewed on by mice,” said Emery. He
knelt and felt one of the holes in the canvas.

“
There are no mice in my school
!” said
Mr. Greif in a voice so loud it made everyone as quiet as mice.
“Now, Ms. Trinetti, please take the painting up to your classroom,
and I’ll ask the maintenance people how this could have happened.
Are you certain everything was all right at three o’clock?”

“I was here until three-thirty, Mr. Greif,”
Ms. Trinetti answered. “Everything was fine when I left.”

“Okay, you two boys go back to class. We’ll
discuss this further when I find out what happened.”

“You think Mr. Conway did it?” Philip
whispered as he and Emery left the auditorium.

“I hope so,” Emery whispered back, “I hope he
wasn’t sitting in his chair snoring. Let’s call him again at
lunchtime. I brought a quarter.”

Philip nodded and the two boys went back to
class, knowing that what Mr. Conway did that afternoon would either
save them or sink them.

When Ms. Louis marched the class into the
auditorium shortly before two o’clock that afternoon, the first
thing Philip and Emery did was to look everywhere for Mr. Conway.
He hadn’t answered his phone at lunch, and everything depended on
his being in school right now.

“I don’t see him,” Emery whispered.

Ms. Louis shushed Emery. “No talking.”

While the other classes filed into their
seats, Philip and Emery kept looking back over their shoulders,
hoping to see Mr. Conway appear. He didn’t.

Philip felt a hard, unhappy feeling growing
in his stomach. Without Mr. Conway they’d lose the contest and
Johnny Visco would probably win. And they’d made Johnny Visco so
mad that he’d probably spend the rest of the school year—maybe even
the rest of his life—trying to get him and Emery.

Mr. Greif tapped the microphone. “Hello, yes.
Boys and girls, welcome to the Donovan School Art Show. We’re going
to announce the winning artwork today, and then next week each
class will have an opportunity to get a long, up-close look at the
work of your fellow students. Ms. Trinetti, I know, has a lot to
tell us.”

Ms. Trinetti stepped to the microphone and
talked about how the contest started, passing quickly over the
“accident” at the Agora Gallery of Fine Art. Philip looked at his
watch. It was two-fifteen. Mr. Conway was fifteen minutes late.
Maybe he wasn’t even coming. Maybe the only part of their plan that
worked was the part where they got Johnny Visco good and mad. It
was the second part of the plan, where Mr. Conway rode to the
rescue, that wasn’t working. Where was he?

“And now,” said Ms. Trinetti, “let me
announce our winning works of art.”

Philip’s stomach filled with a terrible
feeling of defeat. Before Ms. Trinetti could speak, however, a loud
clacking came from the back of the auditorium. Philip turned. There
was Mr. Conway whacking his cane on the back of the empty wooden
chairs of the last row of seats!

“Wait,” he called. “Don’t announce anything.”
Then he banged his cane three more times and started down the
aisle. In his right hand was the cane. In his left he carried a
large, flat, square object wrapped in brown paper.

“Excuse me,” said Mr. Greif. “Who are you?
What is going on here?”

Mr. Conway walked toward him.

“My name is Edward Conway and you and I have
spoken on the phone. I’m here because a piece of art was destroyed
yesterday and my two boys, Philip and Emery, deserve to be entered
in this contest.”

Mr. Conway turned and looked over the
audience. Philip raised his hand and Mr. Conway lifted his cane and
pointed at him.

“There they are. They worked hard on their
painting and then it was destroyed. Yesterday they put this
together and asked me to bring it today, and they should certainly
have an opportunity to show it off.”

“Is this true, Philip, Emery?” Mr. Greif
asked.

It wasn’t
exactly
true but both Philip
and Emery said, “Yes.”

Mr. Greif looked at his watch. “I suppose we
have time. Ms. Trinetti.”

Ms. Trinetti made a deep sigh and then went
behind the curtains and brought out an easel.

Mr. Conway headed toward the six steps on the
side of the stage.

“Can I help you?” Mr. Greif offered.

Mr. Conway gave him a cold look and banged
his cane four times on the floor.

“Oh, well, maybe not, then,” said Mr.
Greif.

Mr. Conway made his slow way up the steps to
the easel. He rested his package on the lip of the easel. Then he
produced a small pocketknife. He turned to the audience.

“What you’re about to see will thrill you,”
Mr. Conway began.

The children giggled.

“It will astonish you and amaze you,” he went
on. “But I don’t think it will surprise you.”

“Could we move it along, sir?” said Mr.
Greif.

Mr. Conway banged his cane twice, and the
auditorium filled with giggles again.

“I will now reveal the truth.” Mr. Conway
carefully sliced open the brown paper and tore it away. On the
easel were what looked like large, shiny, white, blank pieces of
paper.

“Mr. Conway,” said Mr. Greif. “There’s
nothing there.”

“Oh, there’s plenty here.” Mr. Conway threw
his cane to the floor and took the first big, blank paper. He
turned to the audience and pointed the unseen side of the paper
right at Mr. Greif, a few feet below him.

“What!” said Mr. Greif in surprise.

The children in the first few rows
gasped.

“This,” said Mr. Conway, “is a blown-up
photograph, which I took yesterday through that window with my
fancy new camera.”

Everyone in the auditorium turned to get a
look at the window.

“It shows Johnny Visco creeping from the back
of the stage toward these artworks.” Mr. Conway dropped the giant
photo to the floor and took the next one.

“This second one shows Johnny Visco poking
holes in Philip and Emery’s painting.” He dropped that photo and
took the third one. “This photo shows Johnny Visco throwing the
painting on the floor.” He dropped it and grabbed another. “And
this final photograph shows Johnny Visco sneaking off the back of
the stage. And this,” he concluded, removing a large piece of white
paper that was
not
a photograph and revealing a painting
beneath it, “is the original painting
Everyday Things
. The
painting that Johnny Visco destroyed was a fake that I painted very
quickly over the weekend.”