Philip and the Loser (9781619501522) Read Free Page A

all
hiding?”
    “ Uh, the Kleebis looks for us,” said
Philip, thinking fast.
    “ The Kleebis?” said Leon.
    “ Yeah,” said Philip, “we all hide, and
the one whose house is the nearest gets to be the Kleebis, and the
one who found his shoes has to stay hidden until the Kleebis finds
him.”
    “ I think I played this game before,”
said Leon uncertainly. “Is it a game where I hide, and nobody comes
to look for me?”
    “ Oh, no, this game’s way different,”
Emery promised, getting into the spirit of things. “The Kleebis
doesn’t want to stay a Kleebis. He has to find the hidden one who
found the shoes so
that
one can be a Kleebis
forever. Get it?”
    “ I think so. If you find me, I’ll be a
Kleebis forever, right?”
    “ Right,” said Emery. “In this life and
the next life.”
    “ Yeah, great game, right?” said Philip.
“Okay, let’s play.”
    Leon nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah!
Kleebis forever,
woo hoo.
Kleebis
forever,
woo hoo.
Kleebis forever,
woo hoo.”
    “ What are you doing?” Emery
demanded.
    Leon started
yuk
yuk
ing and punching his fist into the air. “Yeah, I want
to be a Kleebis forever,
woo hoo.”
    “ You’re not allowed to go
woo hoo
until you’re the real Kleebis,” said Philip.
“It’s against the rules.”
    “ Oh, those rules again,” said Leon. He
took off his shoes and handed them to Emery. “Here, hide them,
Kleebis.”
    Emery took them, and Philip said, “Now, you
go lie down on the sofa and keep your eyes covered and count to one
hundred. Count real slow. Then you can look for your shoes.”
    Leon laughed. “Yeah, okay.” As he
walked to the end of the sofa, the boys heard him say in a small
voice, “Kleebis forever,
woo hoo.”
Philip and
Emery looked at one another and shook their heads.
    “ Start counting,” said Philip.
“Remember, count slow.”
    “ One . . . two . . . three . .
.”
    Emery waved at Philip, and they ran to the
hallway closet. Emery opened the door and tossed the shoes onto the
topmost shelf. Then he and Philip got their jackets and shut the
closet door softly. They tiptoed to the front door, opened it
quietly, and closed it behind them. As Leon worked his slow way to
one hundred, Philip and Emery ran as fast as they could toward the
park two blocks away to enjoy a quiet afternoon without Leon.
     
     

Chapter Four
     
    Emery waited for Philip on the sidewalk next
morning, and he did not look happy.
    “ What’s wrong?” Philip asked as they
started off toward school.
    “ Stupid Leon is what’s wrong. I’m in
trouble ’cause of him.”
    “ What’d he do?”
    “ He didn’t find his shoes.”
    “ You’re in trouble because Leon lost
his shoes?”
    “ He didn’t
lose
them. We hid them. Remember? We hid them, and then he
couldn’t find them. He walked around my house all afternoon singing
some stupid song about his shoes.”
    “ A song about his shoes?”
    “ Yeah. And singing about being a
Kleebis. What the heck is a Kleebis anyway?”
    Philip shrugged. “I don’t know. I made it up.
So he sang . . . ?”
    “ Yeah. And my mother asked him what he
was doing, and he told her about being a Kleebis—you can guess how
much sense
that
made—and why he didn’t have
any shoes on. That probably didn’t make any sense either. She
helped him look for them, but they couldn’t find them, and when I
got home, I got yelled at for hiding his shoes and going to the
park without him.”
    “ So what did Leon do then?”
    “ He sat on the floor, laughing and
singing about being a Kleebis. He wants to play the game
again.
He
liked
it!”
    They saw Leon skipping up Brill Street in
their direction.
    “ Uh, oh. Here he comes,” said
Philip.
    “ Hi, guys. We gonna play Kleebis again
later? Kleebis forever,
woo hoo. Yuk yuk.”
    “ You’re only allowed to play Kleebis
once a month,” said Philip in disgust. “It’s in the
rules.”
    “ Oh,” said Leon, disappointed. “I don’t
like those rules much. Maybe