Philip and the Fortune Teller (9781619501317) by John Paulits

after the circus starts and then go see.”
    Emery nodded, too tense to speak.
    The time passed until Philip tapped his
watch, and the boys crossed the street.
    “Not many people walking around,” Philip
said. He looked toward the pharaoh’s tent. “I don’t see the
pharaoh.”
    The pharaoh played some kind of card game
with people who bet they could find the card with a picture of a
pyramid on it after the pharaoh moved the cards around a table. If
they found the pyramid, they would win a stuffed Egyptian snake. If
they lost, they lost the money they paid to play. Philip thought
the snake was cheap looking and wondered why anyone would want to
win it. At the moment, the table the pharaoh set outside his tent
to play the game on was missing, his tent flap closed.
    “I don’t think he’s there,” Emery answered.
“Let’s check on the gypsy.”
    They walked a few steps further and saw that
the gypsy’s tent looked empty too, with the flap closed and the
table the gypsy used to tell fortunes nowhere in sight.
    “Go see if he’s home,” Emery said.
    “Suppose he is?”
    “Then say we came to say hello.”
    The boys approached the gypsy tent. Philip
cleared his throat and called, “Hello. Mr. Gypsy. Anybody in
there?”
    Nothing happened.
    “Go peek,” Emery said.
    Philip, his heart pounding, pushed open the
flap of the tent. He pushed it further.
    “Nobody here,” he reported.
    “Go in. I’ll watch,” Emery encouraged.
    Philip entered the tent and looked around.
The gypsy’s crystal ball sat on its usual table. Some gypsy
clothing was tossed over a chair. A pair of gypsy shoes lay on the
cot. The same handful of change and paperback book sat on the small
table at the head of the cot. Philip moved his gaze below the cot.
He didn’t see the box. He moved in a slow circle, checking
everywhere he could see. No box. Philip fell onto his knees and
looked way under the cot. There it was! The box of jewelry sat
pushed against the bottom of the tent wall. Philip heard the flap
of the tent behind him and nearly screamed in horror. It was only
Emery.
    “I see them coming! The gypsy and the
pharaoh. Hurry up!”
    Philip knew he couldn’t let the gypsy see him
carrying the box out of his tent, so he pushed the box as hard as
he could. The bottom of the tent was very tight against the ground,
but using all the power he could call up, Philip managed to get the
box under the tent and outside. A few pieces of straw came inside
the tent when he pushed the box outside. Philip wriggled backwards
from under the cot and paused to grab two quarters from the gypsy’s
spread of change on the side table. Then he rushed through the tent
flaps to join Emery.
    “They saw me,” Emery reported. “Here they
come.”
    Philip saw the gypsy and pharaoh coming their
way. They’d seen him come out of the gypsy’s tent.
    “What are you two kids doing here?” the gypsy
demanded.
    “We . . . we . . .” Emery sputtered.
    Philip saved him. “We came to see if you had
anything else for us to do so we could get more wishes?”
    “Yeah,” Emery rapidly agreed. “Do you?”
    “Three is all you get,” said the pharaoh.
    “Yeah, that’s all,” the gypsy chimed in. “Now
get.”
    Philip and Emery obeyed gladly. They hurried
out of the midway and across the street.
    “Where’s the box?” Emery asked. “You didn’t
get it?”
    “I did. I pushed it out of the tent . . .
look can you see . . . there. See the gigantic pile of straw?”
    Emery looked and saw an elephant picking up
batches of straw with its trunk and munching on it.
    “Where the elephant is?”
    “Yeah, I think the box is in the elephant
straw.”
    “We can’t get it there. We’ll get stepped on
by an elephant.”
    Philip shot Emery a don’t-be-stupid look.
    “ We don’t get it. We call the police
again and tell them exactly where it is.”
    “We used up our money.”
    Philip pulled the gypsy’s two quarters from
his pocket.
    “I took these from the