Philip and the Sneaky Trashmen (9781619502185) (6 page)

“
Find the old plates,”
whispered Leon.

Pete sat at the front counter and eyed
the boys. “Help you?”

Emery gave Philip a push forward.
Philip tossed an uncomfortable glare over his shoulder at his
friend and said, “Leon, tell him.”

“
Me? Uh, hi,
sir.”

Pete puffed out his cheeks. “Yeah, hi.
May I help you, young man?”

“
You got
plates?”

“
No, they’re my own teeth.”
Pete made a face like he was growling.

The boys looked at each other,
perplexed.

“
Never mind,” said Pete. “A
joke. Plates, dishes, glassware over there. And be careful. You
break it, you bought it.”

“
We won’t break nothing,”
Leon assured Pete.

“
Be sure.” Pete went back
to his newspaper.

The boys maneuvered their way through
the aisles until they reached a table covered with glasses of all
sizes and shapes.

“
Can you find it?” asked
Emery. He pointed to a case with glass doors. “How about
there?”

Leon studied the case and suddenly did
a little dance. “Oh! That’s it. See it? In there. See
it?”

“
Which one?” asked
Philip.

“
There. That one. The one
with the big red rose on it.”

Philip and Emery knelt in front of the
case and studied the plate.

“
I don’t see any crack,”
said Philip.

“
The thing coming out of
the rose at the bottom.” Leon touched the case. “There.”

“
That black line?” asked
Emery.

“
Yeah.”

He turned to his cousin. “That’s the
stem of the rose.”

Leon pressed his nose to the glass. He
shrugged. “Looked like a crack to me.”

“
Your head has a crack,”
said Emery. “What’s the tag say?”

“
Eiiiii
,” Leon moaned. “Eighteen dollars. I don’t have eighteen
dollars. I only have five dollars.”

“
Emery and I each have
two.”

“
That’s only nine dollars.
I’m sunk. I’m really sunk.”

“
Stop with the sunk stuff,”
said Emery. “You talk like you’re a boat with a hole in the
bottom.”

“
I am. I don’t even have a
bottom. I’m underwater. I’m drowned. I’m . . .”

“
Will you shut up, Leon?
Look, do this.” Philip explained and the boys went back to the
front of the store.

“
Mr. Pete,” Leon
began.

Pete lowered his newspaper.
“Yeah?”

“
The plate back there. Ya
gotta help me, or I’m sunk.”

Philip poked Leon, and Emery whispered,
“No sinking, Leon.”

Leon explained to Pete the
circumstances surrounding the plate.

“
I can’t
give
you the plate,”
said Pete. “I gave the guy who gave it to me eight bucks for
it.”

“
We’ll give you nine,” said
Philip, and he put his hand on Leon’s shoulder. “He’s going to get
beaten if he doesn’t get the plate back for his mother.”

“
Yeah,” Emery added. “His
mother’s gonna lock him in his room all summer if he doesn’t get
that plate back. It was her favorite plate ever.”

“
I gotta get it or I’m
sunk,” Leon said gloomily, throwing his saddest look at
Pete.

Pete cast his weary eyes toward the
ceiling for a moment. “Lemme see your money.”

The boys dug in their pockets and
produced a five-dollar bill and four ones.

Pete took the money and said, “Stay
here.” He walked around from his counter and a few moments later
reappeared with the dish in his hand. “Since I’m making a whole
dollar on the deal, I’ll wrap it up real pretty for ya.”

“
Gee thanks,” Leon gushed.
“You’re nice. We’ve been helping Mr. Sorino.”

“
Who’s Mr. Sorino?” Pete
asked as he wrapped old newspapers around the plate.

“
The man who gave you that
dish,” Leon explained.

“
That his name?” Pete
asked, reaching for another sheet of newspaper.

“
You don’t know his name?”
asked Philip. “He gives you a lot of stuff, right?”

“
Who? The guy who gave me
this?”

“
Yeah,” said Philip. “He
gives us money to find old stuff he can give to you.”

Pete taped the newspaper
closed. “He don’t give me
that
much stuff. Been in a few times with a few
things. Usually pretty good things.”

“
He doesn’t give you a lot
of old, fixed-up stuff?” Philip repeated, wanting to be sure he
heard correctly.

“
Look around. Ain’t I got
enough junk already? Here, kid. Be careful what you give away next
time.”

“
But Mr. Sorino?” Philip
insisted, as two people walked up to the counter, one holding a
lamp, the other holding four old books.

“
What about
him?”

“
He doesn’t give you fixed
up stuff?”

“
No, now get going. I got
work to do.”

The boys left the store.

“
That’s funny,” Philip said
as they walked. “He hardly knows Mr. Sorino.”

“
Maybe he knows Mr.
Sorino’s first name and not his last name,” Emery
suggested.

“
I don’t think so. You
heard what he said. He hardly sees him.”

“
This is great. So great,”
Leon bubbled, clutching his package tightly. “Thanks, guys. Thanks.
I’m gonna get you that four dollars back real fast. I’m gonna knock
on doors and take Mr. Sorino lots of stuff. You’ll see.” Leon
started singing. “I’m gonna pay you ba-ack. I’m gonna pay you
ba-ack.”

“
Leon, just shut up,” Emery
pleaded.

Leon happily obeyed, and the boys
walked back to their neighborhood.

When Philip approached his house a
little before dinner time, he could hear his Aunt Louise’s voice
all the way to the sidewalk. He stepped inside the front door and
listened.

“
They’re gone,” Aunt Louise
cried. “Who would steal a person’s pants? Who, I ask
you?”

Philip tiptoed into the living room
where he saw his father slumped in his favorite chair. Aunt
Louise’s voice came from the kitchen.

“
What happened?” asked
Philip.

Mr. Felton gave his son a weak smile
and shook his head. “Your Aunt Louise rinsed out her slacks—the
ones like she gave your mother and me. She hung them out on the
line in the backyard. When she went to get them a few minutes ago,
they weren’t there.”

“
Somebody stole her
pants?”

Philip’s father spread his hands.
“They’re not there.”

“
Who would want a pair of
pants like those?”

“
Good question . . .
oh.”

Philip’s mother walked into the room
followed by a very unhappy Aunt Louise.

“
Those pants were
expensive,” Aunt Louise went on. “I don’t understand it. What kind
of a neighborhood do you live in?”

Philip’s mother looked at him. “Philip,
do you know anything about Aunt Louise’s missing pants?”

“
Me! How would I know
anything about them?”

Aunt Louise stared daggers at him. “Are
there boys in the neighborhood would do an awful thing like
that?”

“
An awful thing like steal
your pants? I don’t think so.” Philip felt a strong urge to laugh,
but he fought it.

“
Louise,” Philip’s father
said, “I don’t want you to suffer such a loss. You can have mine.
Yours were black; the ones you gave me were black. I would hate for
your visit to us to be spoiled.”

Aunt Louis suddenly calmed down. “Well,
that’s very kind of you, I must say.”

“
These things happen,
Louise,” Philip’s mother added. “And the pants may turn up. You
never know. Until they do, you’ll have a new pair of slacks just
like the ones you lost.”

“
Well . . .”

Philip’s mother turned to Philip.
“We’re going out to dinner tonight. I already took Becky to Mrs.
Moriarty’s.” Mrs. Moriarty was Philip’s favorite neighbor. She
always had candy available and loved to share. “You can go over to
Emery’s.”

“
I just
was
at Emery’s. He didn’t say
anything.”

“
I only now called.
Go.”

Philip didn’t wait.

~ * ~

“
Ha! She lost her
pants.”

“
You should’ve seen how
fast my father gave her
his
new pants.”

A siren and the flash of red lights
through the window caught the boys’ attention.

“
Mom,” Emery called.
“When’s dinner?”

“
Not for another hour,”
came a voice.

“
The siren stopped,” said
Emery. “Want to go see?”

“
Might as well.”

The boys went outside and ran to the
corner. Two police cars, their roof lights spinning, sat parked two
blocks ahead.

The boys joined a growing crowd in
front of a house where three policemen stood outside the front door
talking to a very excited woman.

Emery turned to a man with a white
mustache. “What happened, mister?”

“
Best I can tell it seems
they were away for a day or two, and somebody got in and stole
their new television and a few other things. Lady doesn’t like it
much, does she?” The man said something to the woman with him, and
they walked closer to the house.

Philip looked at Emery. “Isn’t this the
house that threw away the old TV—the house we had on our list for
Mr. Sorino?”

“
Yeah.”

“
Weird.”

“
Hey, you think Mr. Sorino
might give them back their old TV?”

Philip watched the woman in the doorway
still talking to the policeman, her hands waving all over the
place. “I don’t know. Not if it was broken, and he already fixed
it. He’d want money. These people probably aren’t going to want to
buy back the TV they already threw away.”

“
No, I guess not, but we
could ask. We have time before dinner.”

“
He wants us to
bring
him things, not
get him to give stuff away.”

“
Yeah, I suppose. Want to
walk around and look for stuff then?”

“
Sure. The lady went inside
anyway. What’s your mother making for dinner?”

“
Spaghetti. She makes that
a lot.”

The boys set out.

When Philip went downstairs next
morning, his father greeted him with, “Emery’s called four times
already. Here, have some cereal and then call him back.”

“
Where’s Mom?”

“
She and your aunt are out
shopping already. I have to go pick up Becky in a few
minutes.”

Philip rushed through his breakfast and
went to the phone. Emery answered on the first ring.

“
Philip, come to my house
right away.”

“
What’s so . .
.”

“
Just come!” Emery hung
up.

Puzzled, Philip ran down the block.
Before he could rap on Emery’s front door a second time, it opened,
and Emery pulled him inside.

“
I saw him.”

“
Saw who?” asked
Philip.

“
The man in the truck. Mr.
Sorino’s friend.”

“
So?”

“
He had satin
pants!”

Philip frowned at his friend. “Was he
wearing pants?”

“
Of course he was. I just
said he was.”

“
What else is he supposed
to sit in then?”

Emery gave Philip a puzzled
stare. “No, no.
He had satin
pants!”

“
So what? I’ve sat in
pants. You’ve sat in pants. We go to school; we wear pants; we sit
in pants.”

“
What are you talking
about?”

“
What are
you
talking about? I
have sat in pants. You have sat in pants. In school. At home.
Everywhere.”

“
I don’t have satin
pants.”

“
You don’t have sat in . .
. there you go not talking English again. Anybody who has pants has
sat in them unless they never saw a chair in their
life.”

“
No, no, no. The truck man
had satin pants. Don’t you understand?”

“
Okay. So what did he sit
on?”

“
What did he sit on? He
didn’t sit on anything. He had satin pants,” Emery
shouted.

Philip’s voice went up to match
Emery’s. “If he had sat in pants, didn’t he have to sit on
something?”

“
No! He stood in the yard,
all by himself.”