Two excerpts (See below)

by

John Paulits

~ Philip And The Case Of Mistaken Identity ~

“Who shall we follow?” Philip whispered back.

“I don’t know. Let’s keep looking.”

Up and down the aisles Philip and Emery searched. They rejected a man carrying a quart of milk and a box of diapers. He was moving too quickly. Then they rejected an older woman pushing a cart, who stopped in front of practically every item in the store. She was too slow. Suddenly, Philip grabbed Emery by the arm and stopped.

“There’s that girl,” said Philip.

“What girl?”

“The one from the library. Her, with the blonde hair. See her? She’s the one who smiled at me.”

“That girl smiled at you? Why?”

“I don’t know. Because I was in the library.”

“No girl ever smiled at me because I was in the library. Thank goodness.”

“She was in front of me when I returned your book. Hey, you still owe me twenty cents.”

“I know. I know. Don’t worry. Want to follow her? It’s a pretty suspicious thing she did.”

“What?”

“Smile at you. Why would any girl want to smile at you? Don’t you want to find out whether she lives in an institution or not?”

“Lives where?”

“In an institution. You know, where they put crazy people. That would explain why she smiled at you.”

“Because she’s crazy?”

“Maybe she’s crazy about you.” Emery smiled, jiggling his black-pencil eyebrows.

Philip felt his stomach tighten up again. “She’s not crazy about me,” Philip said slowly, pronouncing each word carefully. He wondered why Emery always made him either want to talk loud or talk slowly to him. “But she did act suspicious.”

As Philip and Emery watched, the girl took two cans of soup off the shelf and looked around. Just then the older woman who had slowly been inspecting everything on the shelves came around the corner and into the aisle with her cart. The girl walked over to her and dropped the two cans into the cart. The girl and the woman spoke a moment, then turned around, and moved toward the checkout line.

“Okay, okay,” said Emery. “Follow them.”

~ Phillip And The Baby ~

Philip was lying on his bed face down a few evenings later when he heard his father’s car pulling into the driveway. He felt terrible. Mommy and Daddy were mad at him. His teacher was unhappy with him and had sent a note home about him. Emery still wouldn’t talk to him because of the chess pieces he’d kicked over. A new baby was coming, and he couldn’t understand why. Maybe his mother and father always wanted a girl instead of him. Maybe when he was born they were disappointed he was a boy. Or maybe they were tired of scolding him so much they wanted someone better than him. Or maybe they just didn’t like him anymore. He wished he could do something about this. But what could he do?

Nothing.

Just be miserable.

There was a knock on his bedroom door, and his father walked in.

“Philip, Mommy and I visited school at lunchtime today. You don’t seem any happier there lately than you are here. Is it because of the new baby?”

“No.”

“The teacher said you took a bottle of germs to school for show and tell. Do you still have the bottle?”

“Yes.”

“I don’t see it. Is it in your shoe box?”

Philip nodded.

“What are you going to do with those germs?”

“They’re for the baby,” Philip grumbled softly.

“You’re saving them to hurt the new baby?” Philip’s father asked in surprise.

Philip didn’t answer.

“The new baby didn’t do anything to hurt you. I don’t think the baby will ever do anything to hurt you. You will be the older brother. The baby will love you, Philip. Love you a lot.”

“I don’t want to be a brother.”

“I see. Well, don’t get angry before you have to, Flipper. Nothing happened yet to make you so angry, did it?”

Yes, it did, Philip wanted to say. You and Mommy want somebody else. But he didn’t answer.

“Think about it, Philip. We’ll talk later. A little at a time. There’s no hurry.”

Philip said nothing.

“Come down for dinner in a while. You can go out to play after dinner. Maybe that will make you feel better. And think things over. It won’t be as bad as you imagine.”

Philip didn’t believe that at all.