Philip and the Sneaky Trashmen
by
John Paulits
All rights reserved
Copyright © April 3, 2014, John Paulits
Cover Art Copyright © 2014, Charlotte Holley
Gypsy Shadow Publishing, LLC.
Lockhart, TX
www.gypsyshadow.com
Names, characters and incidents depicted in this book are products of the author’s imagination, or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.
No part of this book may be reproduced or shared by any electronic or mechanical means, including but not limited to printing, file sharing, and email, without prior written permission from Gypsy Shadow Publishing, LLC.
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ISBN: 978-1-61950-218-5
Published in the United States of America
First eBook Edition: May 1, 2014
Dedication
For Jennifer Eagen
Chapter One
Philip Felton sprawled on the grass in the backyard of his house. What a miserable beginning to summer vacation. He had gotten through fourth grade successfully and now looked forward to almost three months of glorious . . . well, glorious anything he wanted. So why did things have to start out so badly this morning?
~ * ~
“Philip, your room is a disgrace. I want it clean and neat by the end of the day.”
“Mom, I . . .”
“Mom, I nothing. Clean and neat. Or else. Your Aunt Louise will be here tomorrow, and if there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s my sister looking down her nose at my housekeeping.”
Philip tried to look down his nose. “Why don’t you just let her? It only hurts your eyes.” He tried again, and it hurt again.
“By the end of the day!”
He watched his mother stalk away and scratched his head. Why would his aunt even go into his room while she was here? Glumly, he made his way to the backyard lawn.
~ * ~
Philip heard a noise, lifted his head, and saw his best friend Emery Wyatt walking his way.
“What are you doing back here?” asked Emery. “Your mother said you were cleaning your room, but I knew you weren’t. You never do.”
Philip glared. “And you do?”
“No, I don’t clean your room. Why would I clean your room?”
Philip rested his head back on the grass. “Not my room, dummy. Your room. You don’t clean your room.”
“I do when I have to. I know when it gets messy enough to make my mother twitch.”
Philip raised his head again. “Your mother twitches?”
“When my room gets messy she does.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means I clean it before she goes from twitchy to screamy.”
Philip rolled his eyes and lay back. “Twitchy to screamy,” he mumbled. Aloud he said, “I gotta clean my room or else.”
“Or else what? Twitchy to screamy?”
“Something like that.”
“So clean it.”
“I hate cleaning it! After I clean it, I can’t find anything.”
“Hey guys.”
“Don’t tell me that’s Leon,” said Philip.
“Yup. It is,” answered Emery.
Emery’s unlucky, clumsy cousin Leon came into the backyard, his wide smile showing off his chipped front tooth. He had once been jumping up and down on his bed, missed his landing, and went flying off into his bureau, leaving behind a pool of blood and a piece of his tooth.
“I thought I heard you guys talking. No school till September. Ain’t it great?”
“Yeah, great, Leon,” said Emery.
Leon stared at Philip lying on the grass. “What’s wrong with him? Got no bed?”
“His mother said to clean his room.”
“Who’d she say it to?”
Philip lifted his head and looked at Leon. “She said it to me, Leon. To me. Who else would she say it to?”
“My mother never says it to me,” Leon said proudly. “I’m a good cleaner. I heard my teacher tell my mother I can’t do much, but I’m a good cleaner. Mrs. Furfman let me do all the classroom closet cleaning this year.”
Emery gave a snort. “So you got 33% in spelling and 100% in closet cleaning?”
Leon gave his goofy laugh. “Yuk, yuk. They don’t give marks for closet cleaning. The spelling, though . . . Doesn’t matter. Mrs. Furfman passed me, didn’t she? You want me to help you clean your room?”
Philip sat up. “You mean it?”
“Sure. I’m a good cleaner. I already told you, didn’t I?”
Philip got to his feet.
Emery slid next to him and whispered, “I wouldn’t let Leon help me do anything. He’s a jinx, a disaster-maker. You know that.”
“Yeah, but I hate cleaning,” Philip whispered back. “Sure, Leon. You can be my cleaner.”
Leon started toward the back of the house. As he walked, his head went from side to side as he sang, “I’m gonna be Phil-ip’s cleaner. I’m gonna be Phil-ip’s cleaner.”
Philip and Emery shared a glance.
“You’ll be sorry,” said Emery.
Chapter Two
Emery left for home, telling Philip he couldn’t bear to watch. As Philip led Leon into the kitchen, he heard the front door close. He walked into the living room, and through the window he saw his mother carrying his baby sister Becky toward the car. He watched his mother put the baby into the safety seat and drive off.
“Come on upstairs, Leon.”
“roomroomroom”
“What are you doing?”
Philip’s mother had left the vacuum cleaner leaning against the sofa. Leon pushed it across the rug making vacuum cleaner noises.
“I like to play cleaning sometimes, too. It lets you make neat noises. Listen. roomroomroom.”
“Oh, Leon. Stop it! Never mind roomroomroom. Come up and clean my room room room.”
“Yuk yuk. That’s pretty funny. Room room room. I get it.”
Philip felt his stomach clench like it did when Emery acted stupid. Leon would be worse, he knew. Way worse. But if it got his room cleaned, it would be worth it. Leon followed him upstairs repeating roomroomroom all the way.
“Leon, shush. No more room room room. Here’s the real room.” He pushed his bedroom door open, and Leon took a step inside.
“Holy macaroni,” Leon muttered. “I can’t hardly even see the floor floor floor in your room room room. It’s so messy messy messy.”
“Yeah, well the floor’s down there. We’re walking on it, aren’t we? Can you clean this place or not?”
Philip watched Leon tiptoe through the mess to his dresser and pick up something. Philip recognized it as the jacket-thing his mother wore when she did serious cleaning around the house. Leon lifted it with two fingers and held it away from him.
“This what you sleep in? I wear pajamas. This doesn’t have any legs even, and it’s awful short.” He threw Philip a suspicious look.
“Leon, don’t be stupid. That’s my mother’s.” Philip grabbed it ou
t of Leon’s hand, balled it up, and tossed it behind him. “She must have been in here. She always wears that to clean.”
“You wear pajamas, right? Regular pajamas?”
“Of course I wear pajamas. See them over there on the floor in the corner? What about cleaning?”
Leon glanced at the pajamas and then looked over the room. Philip followed his gaze. Two pillows sat on the floor, along with a crumpled up sheet. Socks and shirts were sprinkled around like overgrown snowflakes. Toys lay everywhere. Sneakers and shoes, never a pair together, were tossed sideways and upside down. Crumpled construction paper and some scattered crayons added color to the mess.
“I didn’t feel the earthquake on my block,” Leon said softly.
“What earthquake?”
“The one that shook up this room. Yuk yuk.”
“You’re not funny, Leon. Can you fix it?”
“Sure. I’ll throw the shoes over there; I’ll put the socks over there; the shirts’ll go there. I’ll separate everything first except what looks like junk. You want to save the junk?”
Philip threw his arms up. “No! Why would I want to save the junk?”
“How about food? You want to save the food?”
“Food? What food?”
“I see a half a sandwich over there.”
“No, throw out the food, Leon. Just be sure to get this place neat.”
“I need a trash bag.”
“I’ll get one.” Philip ran downstairs to the kitchen closet and pulled a large white trash bag off the roll. When he got back to his room, Leon had a twelve inch ruler in his hand, one of Philip’s socks dangling from the end of it.
“What are you doing?” asked Philip.
“Your socks stink.”
Philip grabbed the sock off the end of the ruler.
“Just give it here. Any clothes you find I’ll put in the hamper. Start cleaning. Anything that’s junk put in the trash bag.”
“Crumpled paper?”
“Junk.”
“Crayon pieces?”
“Junk.”
“Broken . . .”
“Junk, Leon, junk. The room’s gotta look like nobody lives in it.”
“Gotcha.” Leon made a circle of his thumb and index finger and poked it at Philip. Then he pushed an imaginary vacuum cleaner. “roomroomroom. Yuk yuk.”
Philip moaned. “Get started, Leon.”
“Did I tell you about my new friend? He likes to . . .”
“Never mind your new friend. Take care of me, your old friend.”
Leon shot another OK sign toward Philip. “You do all the socks. They scare me.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah.”
The boys got to work.
Philip bustled in and out of the room, taking any clothing Leon discovered to the bathroom hamper. Leon scoured the room exclaiming “yuck” and “ugh” at finding all kinds of things he never expected.
“Stop making all those noises,” Philip finally shouted.
“I can’t help it. It had ants on it.”
Philip didn’t want to know what had ants on it. He simply grabbed another sock and rushed off to the bathroom with it.
An hour later, the trash bag could stand up by itself, so Philip twisted it closed and put it outside the bedroom door. When he turned back to his room, he stared in amazement. Now, all he could see was floor. Nothing, not socks, shoes, shirts, pillows, broken crayons, crumpled toys, or half-eaten sandwiches spoiled the view.
“You got a nice floor,” Leon said, a wide smile showing off his broken tooth.
Philip heard the front door open and Becky babbling.
“Leon, listen. Make believe you just got here. I’ll tell my mother I did all of this. She probably won’t yell at me all summer if she thinks I cleaned like this.”
Leon shot an OK sign toward Philip.
“That’s my new sign. I just learned it. Did I tell you about my new friend Gordon?”
“You didn’t know about an OK sign? Everybody knows about an OK sign.”
“I didn’t. My new friend Gordon’s . . .”
“Never mind. Quiet. Here comes my mother.”
Philip’s eyes met his mother’s gaze when she reached the top of the stairs.
“Philip, get started on that room. If it’s not . . .” She had continued walking toward Philip and now saw the inside of the room. “What happened here?”
Philip gave Leon a glance. “I just did what you asked, Mom. How’s it look?”
“I can’t believe it.”
Leon spoke up. “Can I take the trash bag?”
Philip’s mother didn’t answer. She walked around the room running her finger over things. Philip wanted Leon out of the way before he said something stupid and gave away the fact that he had been the one, not Philip, who’d cleaned up the room.
“Sure. You go, Leon. I’ll meet you in the yard.”
“I’ll be able to play with Gordon again.”
Philip wondered what Leon meant, but didn’t want to delay him by asking. Leon lugged the trash bag down the stairs, and Philip was happy to see him go.
Chapter Three
Philip could not remember feeling happier. His mother complimented him repeatedly on how well he’d cleaned up his room. Then she told him to invite Emery over for dinner to celebrate. Besides, she said, she still had preparations to make for Aunt Louise’s arrival and needed him entertained and out of the way. When Emery arrived, the two boys went upstairs to Philip’s room.
“Wow! Leon did a good job,” said Emery. “I didn’t know your floor was this color.”
“It was always this color. Blue.”
“It feels funny.”
“What does?”
Emery shrugged. “It doesn’t feel like your room anymore.”
“Well it is.”
“Leon really did this?”
“Yep, and he didn’t make one problem. He acted dumb, but I’m used to that. Who’s Gordon?”
“Gordon who?”
“That’s what I want to know. Who’s Gordon?”
“Tell me Gordon who, and maybe I can tell you who he is.”
Philip’s voice went higher. “If I could tell you Gordon who, I wouldn’t have to ask you Gordon who.”
Emery tilted his head. “What?”
Philip took a deep breath. “Do you know anyone named Gordon? Leon kept mentioning his new friend Gordon.”
“Oh, Leon. No. I don’t know. If he’s got a new friend, maybe he won’t come around here and mess things up this summer.” Emery gazed around Philip’s bedroom. “Where’s all your stuff?”
“What stuff?”
“Toys, games, your rock collection, those stupid plastic dinosaurs your father bought. Those dumb Lego things he got you.”
“They’re not stupid and dumb. He said he played with stuff like that when he was a kid. Besides, when my mother makes me turn off the computer, I gotta do something, don’t I?”
“So, where’s all the stuff? I don’t want to sit around in a clean room. It’s creepy.”
Philip’s mind went blank. He went to his closet and opened the door. His clothes were inside but very little else, other than his rock collection. He thought a moment and then got down on his knees and looked under the bed.
“See anything?” asked Emery.
“I see one bag of Legos.”
“That’s all? Nothing else?”
Philip got off the floor and sat on the edge of his bed. “Nope.”
“Uh oh.”
“Uh oh, what?”
“Leon.”
“What Leon?”
“What did he do with all your stuff that was on the floor?”
“Look in the drawers.”
One by one, Emery pulled out the three drawers of Philip’s dresser. “Nothing but underwear and socks and T-shirts and a small bag of dinosaurs,” he announced.
Philip’s stomach began to dance. “There’s no place else to look.”
“Well, he had to put all y
our stuff somewhere.”
“Ohhhhh. The white bag.”
“What white bag?”
Philip stood up. “Leon filled a white bag with . . . junk. He said it was junk.”
“Where’s the bag?”
“He took it downstairs when my mother showed up. It must be out back.”
“All your stuff’s gonna go in the trash truck if you don’t get it out. I told you not to trust Leon. He’s trouble, trouble, trouble.”
Suddenly, a scream came from downstairs.
“What was that?” asked Emery.
“I don’t know. Let’s go see.”
The boys hurried downstairs in time to see Philip’s father comforting Philip’s mother. “Don’t worry, honey. It has to be here.”
Philip’s mother walked around the room, searching behind and under things while talking excitedly to her husband. “Where? Where? Louise will be here tomorrow. I promised her I’d give it back to her. Where did I put it? Where did I put it?”
“What did she lose, Dad?”
Mr. Felton turned to his son. “Some piece of emerald jewelry—a pin—she planned to give it back to her sister.”
“Give it back?”
“It belongs to your grandmother, and the three of them share it.” Mr. Felton shrugged. “It’s a girl thing.”
Philip’s mother began to wail again. “I had it in the pocket of my jacket, the jacket I wear when I clean. It’s not there now.”
Philip’s stomach plummeted and bounced back. He’d tossed his mother’s cleaning jacket onto the floor after Leon asked him if he slept in it. Then what? He remembered tripping over it while taking dirty socks to the bathroom hamper. He recalled grabbing the jacket and tossing it over the banister out of the way. That was all. He didn’t feel anything in the pocket. He didn’t step on anything in its pocket. He tapped Emery’s arm.
“Emery, come on.” He took Emery into the backyard and told him about the jacket. “Suppose that emerald thing fell out of the pocket when I grabbed it from Leon.”
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