Philip and the Case of Mistaken Identity and Philip and the Baby (9781597051095) by John Paulits Page A

she walked past him, gave a final snort, and
said, “Good-bye, hollow pollen.”
    Philip gave her the nastiest look he could
manage.
    Philip, Emery, Joanie, and Janie paused
outside the front door of the library to say good-bye.
    “Well, Janie and I leave tomorrow morning for
home and then back to school,” said Joanie.
    “Thanks for the pizza,” said Emery.
    “That’s okay, Philip,” Joanie smiled. “I had
fun at the park yesterday. Maybe we’ll see you the next time we
come. Oh, do you know all the kids around here?” She looked at
Philip.
    Philip shrugged. “Not all. A lot of them go
to our school. We know them.”
    Joanie went on. “There were two weird looking
kids hanging around my grandmother’s house. They were dressed funny
and wore these weird hats. One of them... I don’t want to be mean,
but one of them had a deformed ear. Do you know them? I don’t know
why they were around my house so much.”
    “They looked like dopes,” said Janie.
    Philip and Emery refused to look at each
other.
    “Deformed ear?” said Philip in a high,
nervous voice. “No, nobody like that in our school is there,
Emery?”
    “Nope. Nobody like that.”
    “Oh well,” said Joanie. “I just thought I’d
ask.”
    The boys nodded.
    “Well, good-bye,” said Joanie.
    “Bye,” said both boys.
    Janie looked at Philip and said, “Dope.”
    And the two girls and the two boys went in
separate directions.

 
     
     
     
Eleven
    Except for a trip with his father to the big
mall a couple miles away, Philip stayed indoors the next day,
Sunday, dreading Monday and school. None of his good friends had
been at the Garden Club meeting in the library, but he did
recognize a couple of faces from his school. He was certain that by
the time school started, the whole school would have heard how dumb
he’d been and be laughing at him.
    Monday morning he met Emery as usual in front
of Emery’s house and they walked to school. Emery didn’t mention
anything about the Garden Club, and for that Philip was grateful.
Since Emery was being nice enough not to mention the Garden Club,
Philip felt a little guilty about how hard he’d worked to play
those tricks on Emery.
    But at least Emery didn’t know about the
second one.
    The schoolyard was crowded when the two boys
arrived. Philip watched everyone. A few times he thought he caught
sight of people looking at him, talking, and then laughing. But he
couldn’t be certain. Thank goodness that snorting girl didn’t go to
his school, Philip told himself. If she did, he’d be known as
“hollow pollen” to everyone by three o’clock.
    But the day went by with nothing
extraordinary happening, and Philip walked home with Emery as
always.
    “Want to go to the park?” Emery asked.
    “Sure, let me go home first. I have to change
my clothes or my mother’ll yell.”
    “Okay. Come back when you’re ready. Oh, come
on in a minute. I have something for you.”
    Philip followed Emery inside his house. Emery
dropped his book bag and ran into the kitchen. He returned with a
plastic shopping bag in his hand. He handed the bag to Philip.
    Philip looked inside. There were four large
empty plastic soda bottles.
    “What’s this for?” Philip asked.
    “You can get a nickel for each one. That’s
the twenty cents I owe you.”
    “I don’t want a bag of bottles. I want two
dimes.”
    “Same thing.”
    “No, it’s not. I have to take these to the
supermarket and redeem them. Why can’t you just give me the
money?”
    “I don’t have the money. Anyway, didn’t you
have to go to the library to spend the twenty cents? So it’s the
same thing. You have to go to the supermarket to get the twenty
cents back. You didn’t just give me twenty cents in my hand.”
    “It is not the same thing.”
    “Then give me back if you don’t want
them.”
    “No, no, I’ll take them.” Philip decided this
was probably the best chance he had of getting twenty cents out of
Emery.
    Philip lugged his bag of