Philip and the Superstition Kid (9781452430423) (6 page)

“
Uh, well it’s dinner
time,” said Emery. “Maybe tomorrow. Why won’t you eat in the
kitchen anymore? ”

Leon’s face dropped. “I didn’t have anything
to do when I was sitting on the table. Do you know how many floor
tiles there are going that way? I counted them.” Leon pointed.

“
No,” said Emery
impatiently.

“
Thirteen! That’s why I
can’t eat in the kitchen anymore. Something will happen. Something
bad. Because of my triskaidekaphobia.” He looked at Mrs. Wyatt.
“It’s not me, Aunt Shirley. It’s my triskaidekaphobia.”

Emery looked at Philip, and Philip knew just
what he was thinking. Watching Leon eat was enough to make you
sick. He dropped food, sang with his mouth full, burped, smooshed
his food all together on his plate into a disgusting mess and then
asked you to watch him eat the mess. Afterwards he’d laugh his “yuk
yuk” and the food would be all over his teeth. Emery’s mother spent
half the previous night’s meal telling Leon to eat with his mouth
closed and the other half of the meal muttering and rolling her
eyes. The prospect of eating dinner without having Leon to look at
was a favorable one.

“
He can just eat out
there, Mom,” said Emery.

Even though she didn’t want to give in to
Leon’s strange demands, Mrs. Wyatt knew this demand would be an
improvement in her life.

“
Yes, and you won’t be
waiting until tomorrow to go out to play. You’re going out to play
tonight,” said Mrs. Wyatt. “Right now. Dinner won’t be for an hour.
And it stays light until eight-thirty. You can play ’til then.
Leon, go fix yourself.”

“
Yuk yuk. Yay, guys!” Leon
ran out of the kitchen and up the stairs singing, “Going out to
play-ay. Going out to play-ay.”

Philip and Emery watched him.

“
Take him outside and play
with him. You hear me?” Mrs. Wyatt ordered, pointing a deadly
finger at Emery.

Emery nodded glumly and he walked Philip to
the front door to await the return of Leon.

Chapter Eight

Philip sat in the bushes outside of Mrs.
Logan’s house the next day, waiting for Emery to get back from the
dentist. What an awful night he and Emery had spent watching Leon
run up and down the sidewalk screaming, “I’m a kleebis. I’m a
kleebis.” They begged him to stop, but he was having too much fun,
he said, and why didn’t they join in since it was a game they had
taught him.

Once when he and Emery were trying to get
rid of Leon, they’d made up the kleebis game with ridiculous rules
and convinced Leon that hiding as a kleebis was a good thing and
that they would try hard to find him. Leon, glad that anybody would
play with him, joined the game enthusiastically and hid himself all
afternoon while Philip and Emery went to the playground and forgot
about him. Emery’s mother almost had a heart attack when she opened
her closet door and Leon jumped out and shouted, “I’m a kleebis.”
Emery had gotten punished for that little trick, a whole weekend
indoors locked up with Leon, for whom his mother was
babysitting.

Last night was so embarrassing. People came
out of their front doors to see who was screaming that he was a
kleebis. Finally, Philip told Leon that he’d screamed he was a
kleebis thirteen times even though it had been more like fifty
times. That gave Leon pause and so he stopped.

Suddenly, the bushes rattled and Leon
crawled into the hidden space. He sat across from Philip, who
stared at him.

Oh, no,
Philip thought,
a whole
morning alone with Leon.

“
What do you want?” Philip
snapped. “And what did you do to your sneakers?”

Leon’s sneakers had no laces and the long
tongues flopped outside.

“
This was bad,” Leon
warned. “I’m lucky I figured it out.”

“
Figured what
out?”

“
You better take the laces
out of your sneakers, too.”

“
Why would I do that?”
Philip asked in disdain.

“
I took one of mine out
and measured it. You know what?”

“
What?”

“
They’re thirteen inches
long. I threw them away. You better throw yours away. And I ate in
the living room away from the tiles,” he continued as if he were
checking off a list of dangerous things to avoid. “And I didn’t use
the thirteen stairs. I jumped. Yuk yuk. I like jumping. I broke my
tooth jumping.” Leon bared his teeth and pointed at his
disfigurement.

Philip sighed.

“
Well, why don’t you go
jump back in Emery’s house until he gets home?”

Leon’s face turned serious. “He may not get
home. Not safe anyway.” Leon stared waiting for Philip to ask what
he meant.

Philip tried to hold out. He didn’t want to
encourage Leon, but finally he gave in.

“
Why won’t he get home
safe?”

“
Remember yesterday when
he hurt his knee?”

“
I
remember, but how could you? You weren’t there. You were
sitting on the kitchen table playing Egyptian,
remember
?”

Leon nodded. “I wasn’t there but Aunt
Shirley asked Emery why he was limping, and he told her and I
listened. That’s how I found out what time it was he got hurt. You
remember what time?”

Philip thought back. They’d stopped running
around for a while until Emery’s knee felt better. It was around
lunchtime because that was when they went to get ice cream. The
lady ahead of them in line at the ice cream truck asked the ice
cream man for the time.

“
It was about one
o’clock,” Philip finally answered.

“
And you know what time
that really is?”

Philip pressed his lips together
impatiently.

“
Yes, Leon. One o’clock is
really one o’clock.”

“
Nope. It’s thirteen
o’clock. I think Emery may be catching my triskaidekaphobia ’cause
we’re sleeping in the same bed.”

Philip was about to call
Leon a freak, but suddenly remembered something his father had
explained to him. His father had been watching a war movie on TV,
and the general had said something about fifteen hundred hours.
That hadn’t made any sense to Philip, so he’d asked his father what
the general meant, and his father explained that in the army, the
clock didn’t go to twelve o’clock twice like clocks did in the real
world. It went all the way to twenty-four once. Fifteen hundred
hours was three hours after twelve—three o’clock. That meant that
Leon was right. One o’clock really
was
thirteen o’clock.

“
Just a coincidence,”
Philip said weakly.

“
Oh, no. No it’s not. Know
where Emery is today?”

“
Yeah, I know where he is
today. The dentist.”

“
What floor in the
building is the dentist on?”

Philip had been to the same dentist, whose
office was in a big building downtown, many times before.

“
It’s on the fourteenth
floor.”

“
And you know what the
fourteenth floor really is?”

“
One o’clock?” Philip
asked sarcastically.

“
Nope. Close, though. It’s
the thirteenth floor.”

“
How can the fourteenth
floor be the thirteenth floor?” Philip cried, catching himself and
lowering his voice so that no one would hear and find out about
their secret spot.

“’
Cause everybody is
scared of thirteen and doesn’t want to get triskaidekaphobia.
Buildings skip the thirteenth floor. They never name a floor
thirteen. So the fourteenth floor comes after the twelfth floor and
that makes it the thirteenth floor. And that’s where Emery is now,
and my disease . . .
our
disease will find him there. I know
it.”

“
But . . . Leon, . . . I
don’t believe it. Grown-ups won’t act so stupid. Only you
do.”

Leon’s eyes widened. “I’m not stupid,” he
mumbled sadly and turned sideways so he wouldn’t have to look at
Philip anymore.

Philip felt a flash of guilt. Then he felt a
wave a guilt when he saw Leon swipe at his eyes.

“
All right. All right,
Leon. You’re not stupid.”

Leon spun back to face Philip and
smiled.

Philip continued, “But you’ll see. When
Emery comes home, he’ll say nothing bad happened. You’re just too
superstitious, Leon. And you have bad luck anyway even without your
triskaphobium.”

“
It’s
not
called triskaphobium,” Leon
insisted softly, shaking his head in resignation at the truth of
Philip’s statement. “But you’ll see,” he went on. “You’ll see.
Emery will have bad luck there today, and so probably will you the
next time
you
go
there.”

Philip sighed deeply.

“
Leon, I don’t have
triskaphobi-whatever.”

“
Neither did Emery ’til I
gave it to him. And you play with us both, so you’ll probably get
it, too. It jumps around like chicken pox.”

Leon put his hands on his drawn-up knees and
lowered his forehead onto his hands as if in mourning.

“
I am real bad luck,” Leon
muttered

Philip didn’t answer, but started thinking
back over everything Leon had said.

Chapter Nine

Emery had promised to meet Philip in the
bushes as soon as he got home from the dentist, but lunchtime came
and Philip got hungry and went home. Emery was still not there when
he got back to the bushes, but ten minutes after Philip had settled
back into their hiding place, Leon returned.

“
What’s wrong with you?”
Philip asked after taking a long look at Leon’s face.

“
Emery’s home.”

Philip was puzzled. “He said he’d meet me
here. Where is he?”

“
In bed.”

“
In bed!”

“
Yeah. He said it was the
worst dentist trip ever. The dentist took out two back big baby
teeth so new teeth had room to grow. He said you can go see him if
you want.”

Five minutes later Philip was standing next
to Emery’s bed. Both sides of Emery’s face were swollen, and Philip
thought he looked like a chipmunk trying to hide an acorn in each
cheek.

“
It’s just these cotton
things,” Emery explained, and he rolled a bloody one to his
lips.

Philip cringed at the pink splotches on it.
Emery rolled it back inside.

“
I have to change them
every half hour till dinner. Like I’m going to eat.”

Philip and Leon exchanged a look.

Philip asked, “Did you go to the same
dentist we always go to? The one on the . . . fourteenth floor in
the building where your father works?”

Emery nodded forlornly.

“
Did you notice . . . did
you notice anything funny about the buttons on the
elevator?”

Emery knitted his brow and shook his
head.

“
Tell him,” Leon
encouraged.

“
Tell me what?” Emery said
in a tiny, pained voice.

“
Well, Leon says that
buildings don’t have a thirteenth floor because everybody is afraid
of the number thirteen . . . ”

Leon butted in. “And I’m giving you my
triskaidekaphobia,” he wailed, shaking his head remorsefully. “I’m
sorry. I’m sorry.”

“
What? Stop it, Leon,”
Emery said, already in enough pain without Leon adding to it.
“What’s that gotta do with the elevator and the fourteenth
floor?”

“
If there’s no thirteenth
floor, then the fourteenth floor is really the thirteenth floor,”
Philip explained, not entirely certain he was making
sense.

Emery thought a minute. “You mean, Leon,
you’re giving me your trissaphobium, and because I was on the
fourteenth floor, which is really the thirteenth floor, I had this
tooth bad luck?”

“
It’s true. It’s true,”
Leon moaned. “I’m just bad luck. Full of bad luck no matter what I
do. And now I’m giving it to you.”

Emery’s mother walked in.

“
Time to change your
cotton, Emery.”

“
Uh, we’ll wait outside,”
Philip said. “Come on, Leon.”

“
What am I gonna do?” Leon
asked sadly when he and Philip were outside in the
hallway.

Philip, though, was thinking about his own
next trip to the dentist. He would have to do something to change
dentists or else he might end up like Emery one day soon—in bed and
toothless with a bloody mouth.

“
You can come back in,”
Mrs. Wyatt called. “Did your mother mention to you,
Philip?”

“
Mention what?”

“
This has been a week . .
. well, never mind that. Your mom and dad and Mr. Wyatt and I are
going out tomorrow night. I’m dropping the babies at my sister’s
overnight, and we’re going to get a babysitter for the three of
you.”

Philip and Emery exchanged a glance. A
Friday night alone with Leon filled their minds.

Mrs. Wyatt left the room.

“
I gotta go to the
bathroom,” Leon said, following her.

Philip turned back to Emery and asked, “Did
you notice whether the elevator had a button for thirteen or did it
just go twelve—fourteen?”

“
No. I don’t know. Wait.
Get the cordless phone from my mother’s bedroom. I can call my
father and ask him.”