Philip and the Loser (9781619501522) Read Free

floor’s dirty.” Emery bent to
pick up the cookies, and Philip helped him. Leon grabbed the three
cookies nearest him and wiped them across his shirt.
    “ Leon, don’t! What did I tell you?”
Emery said angrily.
    “ Dey’re good,” said Leon, his mouth
newly stuffed with the three cookies.
    Emery and Philip tossed the remaining cookies
into the garbage can.
    “ And don’t you go into the garbage can
after them, Leon. He would,” Emery explained to Philip.
    Leon started
yuk
yuk
ing. “Garbage cookies. I don’t eat garbage cookies. I
only eat floor cookies. Your friend likes garbage, though. Maybe
he’ll eat them.” He continued to laugh as if he’d said the funniest
thing.
    Philip glared at Leon.
Poor
Emery,
he thought,
to be related to a bingo
chip like Leon.
    Leon skipped over to where the two other boys
stood staring at him.
    “ Come on,” said Emery in disgust. They
went into the living room. Emery and Philip sat on the sofa, and
Leon sat on a big soft chair facing them. He began humming to
himself and bouncing up and down on the chair. Little by little he
hummed louder and bounced higher, until it looked as if he were
about to break himself into pieces every time he landed back in the
chair.
    “
Leon, cut it out,”
Emery
shouted.
    Leon settled into the chair a little at a
time like a bouncing ball running out of bounce. “Fun!” he
reported. “Wanna see me do it again?” He bounced once.
    “ No, no, no, no, no,” said Philip. “We
have a game to play.”
    “ We do?” Emery asked.
    “ Yes, yes we do.” Philip leaned over to
Emery and whispered, “Say yes to everything I say.”
    “ A game? Good,” said Leon, sitting
still. “I like games.” He started to bounce again.
    “ You can’t play if you bounce,” said
Philip.
    “ No,” Emery agreed. “You can never play
again in your whole life if you bounce. Not in this life or the
next life if you start bouncing again.”
    Leon stopped. “This game has hard rules,” he
said. “What’s the name of the game?”
    Emery looked at Philip.
    “ Uh, the uh, name of the game?”
stammered Philip.
    “ Yeah, what’s the name of the game? I
want to know if I played it before,” said Leon.
    “ No, you never played this game
before,” said Philip. “It’s a new game. It’s only played in our
neighborhood. Kids other places don’t even know about
it.”
    “ What’s it called?” asked Emery with
interest.
    Philip fired him a hot look.
    “ Oh, yeah. Only around here we play it,
Leon. It is so cool. Tell him about it, Philip.”
    “ Well, it’s called Kleebis.”
    Emery turned to Philip. “Kleebis?”
    Philip tossed him another fiery look.
    “ Kleebis. Yep, good old Kleebis,” said
Emery. “You’ll like it, Leon. Tell him the rules,
Philip.”
    “ Well, you see we take one person’s
shoes—the newest person in the game—
his
shoes.”
    “ The newest person,” Leon pondered.
“Hey, that’s me! You take my shoes?”
    “ We take your shoes, and we hide them,”
Philip went on.
    “ Yeah,” said Emery. “We hide them real
good.”
    “ Then what?” asked Leon, looking at
Emery.
    “ Then . . .” said Emery. “Then . . .
tell him what then, Philip.”
    “ Uh, then you have to find your shoes.
After you find your shoes, you hide yourself.”
    “ Yeah,” said Emery with enthusiasm.
“Hide yourself real good where nobody can ever find
you.”
    Leon nodded. “Not in this life or the
next life, right?
Yuk yuk.
What do you two
do?”
    “ What do we do?” said Emery, whose
anticipation of the game increased the more Philip described it.
“Why, we . . . we . . . tell him what we do, Philip.”
    “ Well, after we hide your shoes, then
we hide, too, and we all stay hidden until we find each
other.”
    Leon clapped his hands. “
Yuk
yuk,
yeah. We all stay hidden until we . . .” Leon’s
eyes got a faraway look in them. “We all stay hidden until we find
each other? How can we find each other if we’re