Philip and the Deadly Curse (9781619500426)

by Paulits, John

  “I want to know: how come you mixed them up yesterday but they came out right today?”

  Mr. Ware’s voice interrupted. “Keep your voice down, Philip.”

  “You did this on purpose so you could win,” Philip whispered fiercely.

  “How could I do it on purpose?” Emery responded with a dismissive wave of his hand. “How could I know Mr. Ware would pick the word excellent? You heard what he said. The word’s not even on our list. Maybe I just had better luck than you.” Emery reached into his pocket and with a satisfied grin pulled the head of his troll out where Philip could see it.

  Philip spun his head away, refusing to look at the awful troll. He hated admitting Emery was right. Emery couldn’t have known what word Mr. Ware would pick, but his Moon Charm should have prevented him from picking the word excellent. The Moon Charm should have seen to it the teacher gave him a word he could spell. The Moon Charm should have made Emery spell excellent the right way yesterday, or the wrong way today.

  Philip felt like taking out his Moon Charm and bouncing it off of Emery’s head. What kind of stupid good luck piece would let a stupid old troll have more good luck than it did? This spelling bee with Emery’s mixed up Es and As was another gigantic dose of bad luck in his bad luck life.

  Philip took a deep breath and thought a moment. Could there be something about the Moon Charm he didn’t understand? Could there be something he had to say or do to make the Moon Charm work right? He didn’t know, but his father should. His father would have to know, since he used the Moon Charm first. Philip decided he’d be waiting in the living room for his father when he got home from work that night.

  Chapter Seven

  Philip’s father got home at his usual time and placed his briefcase in the usual spot inside the hall closet before going to say hello to his wife. When he fell into his favorite living room chair and opened his newspaper, Philip approached.

  “Hi, Flipper,” Philip’s father greeted him. “Have a good day?”

  Philip tossed the Moon Charm into his father’s lap and said, “This thing doesn’t work.”

  Philip’s father folded his newspaper and put it aside. He picked up the Moon Charm and said, “What do you mean?”

  “Emery has a good luck troll he found, and now he keeps having good luck. I wanted a good luck charm, too, and you gave me this Moon Charm, but it doesn’t work. I still have bad luck. Emery found money on the ground; he found a new ball lying in the street; he won the checker game; and today he beat everybody in the whole class in the spelling bee, including Susan the brain. His troll works and this thing you gave me doesn’t. It stinks.”

  Philip’s father nodded and said, “Stinks, eh? Well, Flipper, I didn’t tell you the entire story. I guess I better. When I was about your age, all the kids I played with had one of these. I seem to remember someone’s father had a zillion of them, and he gave everybody one. I think the kid’s father used them in his job and had a bunch left over. Anyway, we all got one, and everyone agreed it looked a lot like a tiny sun, the way it sparkles and shimmers.”

  “You called it a Moon Charm.”

  “I’m getting to that. So everyone called it their Sun Charm and went off and had some good luck with it, I guess. I don’t remember anyone complaining. Except me. For some reason, I insisted on calling it a Moon Charm. I think I was having a big argument with my best friend Tommy Kelly over something. Anyway, if he said one thing, I’d insist on the opposite, and he kept calling his disc a Sun Charm.

  “I stubbornly insisted on calling it a Moon Charm, and that’s when it started. My bad luck. I didn’t get picked for teams until nearly last. I got into a fight with Tommy and got punished for ripping his shirt. I don’t remember what all happened, but I remember nothing going right for a while. Didn’t matter. I still refused to call the disc a Sun Charm like all the other kids.”

  Philip’s father paused long enough for Philip to interject, “So you let me take it and use it? Thanks a lot, Dad. It’s not a good luck charm. It’s a deadly curse.”

  “You wanted it, so I let you have it. I kept on trying to get some good luck out of it, but before I could really test it, everybody got interested in other things, and somehow my charm ended up in the box where you found it.”

  “So you don’t know whether it ever turned out to be good luck or not?” Philip asked in disappointment.

  “I made a decision, Flipper. I realized I would have to make my own good luck and my own bad luck. I knew if I played well in games, I’d get picked for a team sooner. If I did my homework neatly, the teacher wouldn’t yell me at. We can use all the good luck we can get, Flipper, but we can make a lot of good things happen ourselves if we just pay attention, work hard, and take care of the things we should take care of.”

  Pay attention? Take care of things? Work hard? Philip didn’t like the sound of that.

  “But good luck helps, doesn’t it?” Philip asked, unwilling to give up on an easier pathway to success.

  “Yes, I suppose it does.”

  “And you never really found out whether this Moon Charm ever changed to a good luck charm?”

  “No, I can’t say I ever did.”

  Philip weighed the two possibilities; hard work or being lucky. He had no trouble making a choice. He took the Moon Charm from his father and slid it back into his pocket.

  “Maybe this thing starts slow and gets better,” Philip suggested. “Maybe it needs to warm up.”

  “Looks like stubbornness runs deep on the male side of this family,” Mr. Felton said with a smile.

  Philip started across the room, but stopped and turned back to his father. “I’ll let you know how it does.”

  “Philip, watch where you’re going,” said his mother, stepping around the corner from the kitchen carrying Becky in one arm and a bottle of milk in the other hand. “Pay attention. You almost knocked me over.”

  Philip looked at his father, who shrugged and said, “Might be a long wait.”

  Philip sighed and went up to his room.

  Chapter Eight

  “Everyone will be given a responsibility of some kind,” Mr. Ware explained the next day in class. “And I know when we do our play for the rest of the school and for your parents, you’ll all be wonderful.”

  Philip and Emery turned to look at one another. When, earlier that morning, Mr. Ware said he had a special announcement to make, each boy rubbed his pocket where his good luck charm rested and hoped it would be a class trip to someplace exciting. But a class play? Philip and Emery hated class plays. Making your costume; memorizing your lines; the teasing you got when you made a mistake; the embarrassment of standing on stage in the auditorium and having everyone look at you. Philip saw Emery take his troll out and hold onto it with both hands.

  “I’m wishing I’ll only have to make scenery or something easy,” Emery whispered, and Philip noticed Emery’s fists tighten around the troll.

  Philip decided to wish for exactly the same thing—a nice easy job offstage. Philip quickly dug into his pocket and pulled out his Moon Charm. His stomach jumped when Mr. Ware took a paper off his desk and started to announce jobs. He squeezed his fist tight around his Moon Charm.

  “The name of the play,” Mr. Ware said, “is The Seven Chinese Brothers. You all know the story of how the Emperor tries to punish the brothers, but one brother takes another’s place and each has a special talent that protects him from the punishment.”

  Philip moaned. He could just see himself in a long black wig with two ponytails hanging down his back. He might even have to put on makeup and wear one of those little red upside-down bowl hats. Please not me, he thought. Not me! Not me! Not me!

  “Jason will play the Emperor.” Philip had noticed how Mr. Ware had been very nice to Jason ever since wrongly accusing him of stealing some class money. “Annie will be the mother of the seven brothers. Beverly will be the princess the seven brothers like.”

  Philip grimaced. Beverly looked so weird he wondered how s
he’d get even one brother, Chinese or not, to like her, let alone seven.

  “The seven brothers will be . . .” Philip rubbed his charm and closed his eyes.

  “. . . Philip, whose power will be he can cry an ocean.”

  Philip’s stomach dove to the floor, and he tuned out the rest of Mr. Ware’s assignment of roles. Cry an ocean? He could cry an ocean all right, and do it right then and there. No self-respecting good luck charm would ever have let him be the first one—the very first—to be chosen to play a brother. He slipped the Moon Charm back into his pocket. Mr. Ware had stopped talking. Philip looked over at Emery, sitting and smiling happily. Emery turned to him and made an okay sign with his fingers.

  Mr. Ware said, “Anyone who wasn’t called will still have an important job making the scenery and decorations and will be on the top of the list to act in a future play we do.”

  From the corner of his eye Philip saw Emery turn and waggled his troll at him, but he refused to respond and stared stubbornly at the front of the room.

  ****

  Philip was in a foul mood when his father got home from work.

  “Hi, Flipper. How . . . ? Uh oh. Why such a long face? Not more bad luck, I hope?”

  “Bad luck!” Philip burst out. “The worst bad luck ever. Mr. Ware announced a play today. The Seven Chinese Brothers. Then he announced what everybody had to do. I took out the Moon Charm and begged it for something to do off the stage. I didn’t want a part in the play, and I most of all didn’t want to be a Chinese brother.”

  “Don’t tell me.”

  “I’m the Chinese brother who can cry an ocean—the first one he picked.”

  “How many lines do you have to memorize?” Philip’s father had gone through this before when Philip had to act in a third grade play. He’d hoped then he’d never have to go through it again.

  Philip shrugged.

  “A whole lot?”

  “Not so many.”

  “Well, Flipper, let’s consider. You didn’t want to get a big part, and you lucked out and got a small part. Sounds like good luck to me.”

  “I didn’t want any part.”

  “Other kids have bigger parts than yours, right?”

  Philip nodded. “The Emperor. The Princess.”

  “Okay. See, you’re not the Emperor and you’re not the Princess.”

  Philip shot a dark look at his father.

  “More good luck,” his father went on.

  “Not being the Emperor’s not enough good luck,” Philip grumped. “Emery took out his troll and made the same wish as me. He got a job making scenery. That’s what good luck is, getting what you want. His troll works. Your Moon Charm doesn’t.”

  “Philip . . .”

  The doorbell rang and Philip’s mother went to open it. Emery entered the living room and Philip’s mother continued upstairs.

  Philip and his father looked at Emery.

  In an uncomfortable voice Emery said, “Why are you both staring at me?”

  Philip’s father laughed. “Sorry, Emery. Philip told me about the school play. You’re in charge of scenery, I hear.”

  “Not in charge. Just helping make it.” Emery looked at Philip’s unhappy face.

  “I can’t help it if the teacher picked me for scenery. He said there would be another play later. I’ll probably have to be something on stage then.”

  “There, Philip,” said Mr. Felton. “Emery is behaving very philosophically. His turn to be miserable will come later, and then it will be your turn to be happy.”

  “I want to be happy all the time,” Philip grumbled.

  Philip’s father laughed. “Don’t we all.”

  Emery went to the sofa and sat next to Philip. “I came over to help you learn your part.”

  “Very kind of you, Emery,” Mr. Felton said. “Philip, you’re lucky to have a good friend like Emery.”

  Philip scowled and said nothing.

  “Cheer up, Flipper. With both Emery and me helping you learn your lines, you’ll be a hit. You got through the play last year, and you’ll get through this one. Do you have your script?”

  “It’s in my schoolbag.”

  “Go get it and let’s take a look. And bring your Moon Charm, too.”

  Philip got his script and handed it to his father, who took the Moon Charm and leaned it against the lamp on the end table.

  “It will watch over us from there, casting its good luck beams on all we do,” said Mr. Felton. “Ready, Flipper?”

  “I guess.”

  “Ready, Emery?”

  Emery nodded.

  “Let’s get cracking. Your mother will have dinner ready soon.”

  Chapter Nine

  Philip found he only had four lines in the play so by the time his mother called everyone for dinner, he had his part memorized.

  “Well done. See, not so bad, eh? Since you know your part already,” Philip’s father said as they got up from the sofa, “I’ll have time after dinner to give you some acting tips. It’ll make you the star of the show. Want to stay for dinner, Emery?”

  “What are you having?” Emery wanted to be sure he liked it. He ate dinner at Philip’s house once when they had some kind of cabbagy thing he could hardly bring himself to look at, let alone eat. Luckily, he managed to pick out some pieces of ham sprinkled through the cabbage and didn’t go home starving. If the cabbagy thing was on the menu tonight, Emery would head home fast.

  “I’m not sure,” Philip’s father responded. “We’ll find out soon.”

  Philip didn’t care much about his father’s promise to make him the star of the show. He could only think about how to make the Moon Charm into a dependable good luck piece. When he heard Emery ask about dinner, he thought of his own favorite food—spaghetti. He closed his eyes and rubbed his pocket. Suddenly, the aroma of spaghetti sauce tickled his nose!

  “Come and get it,” Mrs. Felton called. “Are you staying, Emery? I hope you like spaghetti.”

  Emery nodded and took a seat at the table across from Philip. “I do. As soon as I got invited, I hoped it was spaghetti.” He leaned over and whispered to Philip. “With my troll.”

  Philip’s spirits dropped. Emery’s wish got them the spaghetti dinner, not his. But Philip refused to give up. His favorite dessert was mint chocolate chip ice cream. He snuck his hand under the table and rubbed his Moon Charm in his pocket.

  “What’s for dessert, Mom?” he asked.

  “We have a special dessert today,” Mrs. Felton said with a smile as she put the spaghetti on the table.

  Philip noticed Emery slip his hand beneath the dining table.

  “I hope it’s mint chocolate chip ice cream,” Emery said. “I love mint chocolate chip ice cream!”

  “Well, you are in luck. It’s Philip’s favorite, too, and I bought a gallon of it.” Philip slapped the table in frustration. As long as he and Emery kept wishing for the same things, he would never know whose wish came true. As his mother spooned some sauce over his spaghetti, he tried to think of something Emery could not possibly wish for.

  Ah! He had it! He closed his eyes, rubbed his Moon Charm, and wished his mother would go and visit one of her girlfriends after dinner. Whenever she went visiting, it left his father in charge, and he always got to stay up half-an-hour past his usual bedtime.

  Emery went home after dinner, and Philip went up to his room to do his homework. When he finished, he came back downstairs. His father sat on the sofa giving Becky a bottle of milk.

  “Where’s Mom?” Philip asked. He crossed his fingers behind his back.

  “She went over to Sally’s house,” his father answered, as he concentrated on feeding the baby.

  Philip felt goose bumps pop out on his arms. The Moon Charm obeyed! That meant it could have been responsible for the spaghetti dinner and the mint chocolate chip ice cream. His Moon Charm was warming up!

  Philip went to the kitchen and brought back the big bag of popcorn his mother’d bought at the supermarket. He
sat down in front of the television to enjoy the evening.

  Eventually, his father announced, “Time for bed, Flipper.”

  Philip looked at the clock. Whoa! A whole hour past his bedtime! More good luck. The Moon Charm was really cooking now! He went upstairs without an argument and cleaned himself up. Before slipping into his pajamas, he heard the phone ring.

  “It’s for you, Philip,” came his father’s voice from downstairs. “Emery.”

  Philip went into his parents’ bedroom and picked up the extension.

  “Hi, Emery. Why are you calling so late?”

  “Hi, Philip. It’s the homework. I didn’t write down what math page we had to do, and my sisters have been crying all night. They fell asleep at last, and I can finally do my homework, but now I don’t know what page to do.”

  Philip told Emery the page.

  “Thanks, Philip. I was afraid you already went to bed so I wished on my troll you were still awake. See you tomorrow.”

  Emery hung up, but Philip stood like a statue, the phone against his ear. Emery wished for him to stay up late? Could Emery’s troll be so powerful it knew ahead of time what wishes Emery would make? Could the troll have made his mother go out tonight? This could have been Emery’s good luck again and not his.

  Philip slowly lowered the phone to the cradle and went back into the bathroom to brush his teeth. After he got into his pajamas and climbed into bed, he stared at the Moon Charm leaning against a picture frame on his bureau. The moonlight coming through his window made the charm a swirl of colors.

  It sure looks magical, Philip thought. All those wishes coming true tonight—Emery’s troll, or his Moon Charm? He couldn’t be sure, but he had to find out—he absolutely had to. How, though. How?

  Chapter Ten

  Philip’s school scheduled Mr. Ware’s play for a week from Thursday in the evening so parents who worked during the day could attend. Another class planned to sing some songs, and a third class would present a play about Thanksgiving. Philip’s class began working on their play the next day. Mr. Ware assigned chores to the children who were not in the play, and he took the actors to the back of the room to see whether they knew their lines. Philip knew his, but some of the other children didn’t seem to know anything. Philip rolled his eyes as Larry, the fourth Chinese brother, stood there opening and closing his mouth like a fish.