Philip and the Girl Who Couldn't Lose (9781619501072)

Who Couldn’t Lose

John Paulits

All rights reserved

Copyright © July 20, 2012, John Paulits

Cover Art Copyright © 2012, Charlotte
Holley

Gypsy Shadow Publishing, LLC

Lockhart, TX

www.gypsyshadow.com

Names, characters and incidents depicted in
this book are products of the author’s imagination, or are used
fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales,
organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental
and beyond the intent of the author or the publisher.

No part of this book may be reproduced or
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limited to printing, file sharing, and email, without prior written
permission from Gypsy Shadow Publishing, LLC.

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ISBN: 978-1-61950-107-2

Published in the United States of America

First eBook Edition: July, 2012

~~~~~

DEDICATION

To Becky Lee

The original girl who could not . . . and
still cannot . . . lose

~~~~~

“
Why didn’t you catch it?” Emery asked
for the tenth time. “He threw it right to you. Your team could’ve
won.”

“
Yeah, ninety-nine miles an hour he
threw it to me. How could anybody catch a ninety-nine-miles-an-hour
football?”

“
The other kids did.”

Philip threw his arms over his head in
frustration. “The other kids are way older. I didn’t see you catch
anything.”

“
They didn’t throw me anything. If they
did, I’d probably’ve caught it.”

“
You didn’t catch it last
game.”

“
It hit me in the nose! How could
anybody catch a ball that hits you in the nose?”

The two boys walked a short distance in
silence.

Then Emery said softly, “I guess we’re lucky
they let us in the game at all.”

“
The only reason they let us play is
‘cause none of them wants to stand on the line with his hands up
and count to ten.”

“
I guess, but at least my team
won.”

“
You didn’t have anything to do with
it. You just stood there counting.”

“
I ran out for passes.”

“
They didn’t throw to you. At least
they threw
one
to
me.”

“
And you missed it.”

“
If they used a smaller football like
the one we play with . . .”

“
The big kids don’t want to play baby
football.”

“
Oh, Emery, be quiet!”

The bigger boys had allowed Philip and Emery
to join the touch football game for the exact reasons the boys
described; to either count to ten before running after the
quarterback—and never catching him—or to run out for a pass—and
never get thrown to—usually.

“
So what do you want to do?” Emery
asked a moment later.

“
I don’t want to go home. My father’s
watching the football game.” It was a Sunday.

“
His team usually loses so he’s always
yelling at the television, and afterward he’s grumpy the rest of
the day.”

“
Maybe some guys are in the schoolyard
playing punch ball.”

Philip felt his frustration rise.

“
Don’t start with punch ball,” he
warned.

“
Hey, I like punch ball. I won every
game this week.”

“
Your team won; you didn’t
win.”

“
Your team lost; you
really
didn’t win.”

Philip glared at his friend, but Emery walked
on.

“
Want to play wall ball?” Emery asked.
“But I don’t have a ball.”

“
I have one.”

“
No, wait. I don’t like to play wall
ball with you. You get mad when you lose.”

Philip felt an angry little snake start to
crawl up his back. “I’m not going to lose, Emery. And I don’t get
mad. Here, I have a new ball.” He took the ball out of his
pocket.

“
Let me see it,” said Emery.

Philip tossed the hard, air-filled pink ball
to his friend.

“
This is the ball you owe me,” said
Emery.

“
What!”

“
You threw mine away,
remember?”

“
That was two weeks ago.”

“
So?”

“
That was two weeks ago.” It was the
only thing Philip could think of to say. He and Emery had been
playing wall ball behind Emery’s house. Emery had been way ahead,
and Philip got angry and told Emery the ball was no good and threw
it so wildly it missed the wall and sailed past the house into the
street. A gigantic truck rolling by ran over the ball and exploded
it like a balloon.

“
You still owe me a ball,” said
Emery.

“
But I missed the wall by accident. I
shouldn’t have to give you a ball because of an
accident.”

“
Accident! You got mad and threw it
away.”

“
I did not.”

“
You did.”

“
No, no.”

“
Yes, yes.”

The two boys scowled at each other. Finally,
Emery said, “Pay me back, or I’m going home. You owe me a
ball.”

“
I don’t.”

“
You do.”

“
I don’t.”

Emery turned and threw Philip’s ball into the
Erbacher’s front yard.

“
Hey,” said Philip, running toward the
Erbacher’s so he could keep his eye on the ball. He chased it until
it stopped rolling. When he turned around, Emery was
gone.

Philip stuffed his ball into his pocket. Now
what was he going to do, with no one to play with? His father had
the football game to watch. His mother didn’t like to be around
during the football game, so she went to visit Mrs. Moriarty. He
might as well go there. Maybe he’d find something interesting going
on. Besides, Mrs. Moriarty always had lots of candy lying around.
Dishes full.

Philip dug the ball out of his pocket as he
walked along and bounced it on the cement, wondering how many times
he could catch it in a row. When he threw the ball down for the
seventh time, it hit a crack in the sidewalk and bounced crazily
away from him. He’d have to start his count over again. He got up
to five when a bicycle, pedaled by a girl his size, zoomed
furiously past him in the street alongside the curb, startling him
and making him miss the sixth bounce. He gave the girl an angry
look as his ball rolled slowly ahead of him down the sidewalk. She
surprised Philip by turning sharply into Mrs. Moriarty’s driveway
and disappearing behind the house.

Rotten girl,
Philip thought. She spoiled his setting a new
catch-the-bounce record with his ball. He picked up his ball and
stuffed it angrily into his pants pocket. He would set the record
on his way home without any rotten girl to bother him.

When he turned onto Mrs. Moriarty’s front
walk, he saw a bicycle wheel sticking out from behind the house. He
knocked twice and, since his mother was in the house, opened the
front door without waiting. He walked into the living room and saw
his mother on the sofa, Becky asleep in her lap. Two other
grown-ups, strangers to Philip, sat alongside her on the sofa. The
bicycle girl sat cross-legged on the floor catching her breath. She
wore jeans and a sweatshirt and rolled a pink ball like the one in
Philip’s pocket from one hand to the other. Her eyes met Philip’s.
Philip wrinkled his forehead and looked away.

“
Philip,” his mother said with a smile.
“I was telling Mr. and Mrs. Lancaster about you. This is their
daughter, Jeanne. They’re the people who moved next door to Mrs.
Moriarty. Our new neighbors.”

Oh great
,
thought Philip. He already guessed his mother’s next suggestion
would be to go and play with Jeanne.
What a
lot of fun that’ll be,
Philip moaned to himself.
Dolls, hopscotch, jump rope. Forget it.

“
Say hello, Philip.”

“
Hello,” said Philip to the two new
grown-ups. He avoided glancing Jeanne’s way.

“
Why don’t you and Jeanne go out back
and play? Get to know each other.”

I don’t want to get to know
her,
Philip thought. Girls were trouble. Bossy and
rotten. They had to have their own way, and they played stupid
games.

Philip decided quickly to say he felt tired
from playing with Emery and needed to rest, but a sudden thought
struck him. He hadn’t won at any game all week, and there sat a
girl he knew he could beat at anything. When Philip’s mother saw
him smile, she smiled.

“
Sure, Mom,” said Philip, and he glared
at Jeanne, a challenge in his eyes.

Jeanne smiled innocently up at him from the
floor and rose to her feet.

“
Come on,” she said, and Philip
followed her through the dining room and kitchen out the back door
and into the yard.

Jeanne took a few steps onto the grass in the
backyard and turned to face Philip. She smiled pleasantly at him
and asked, “What do you want to play?”

Philip did not appreciate her smile.
Something about it made her look as if she thought she was doing
him a favor by playing with him.
I’ll do her a favor
, Philip
thought.
I’ll beat her at whatever game she wants. Beat her so
bad she never forgets it.

“I don’t want to play any girls’ games,”
Philip warned.

“I’m glad,” Jeanne said. “I don’t like to
play girls’ games much either. You mean like jump rope?”

“I’m not playing jump rope!” Philip cried,
revolted at the suggestion.

“Didn’t you hear me? I don’t want to play
jump rope either. We can’t do video games. My mom locked the
house.”

Video games?
Philip thought. No, he
didn’t want to play something you only needed your thumbs to play.
Who knew how good this girl’s thumbs were?

Jeanne continued. “Can you play ball? Do you
know how? Can you catch and throw?”

Philip laughed. She’d fallen into his trap!
“Can
you
catch and throw? Don’t worry about me.”

Mrs. Moriarty opened the kitchen door and
leaned out to call to the children. “Everything all right out
here?”

“I’m going to teach Jeanne to play ball,”
Philip said grandly. “Throw and catch.”

“That’s nice. I’m making lunch. I’ll call you
when it’s ready.”

When Philip turned back to Jeanne, she had
already hung her sweatshirt on the back of a metal patio chair.

Philip marched to the other side of the lawn
and turned to face her.

“I’ll throw easy to you in the beginning,”
Jeanne promised.

Philip glared at her. “Just throw the ball,”
he said. He had caught balls—small pink balls—thrown by the older
kids he’d played with today, so he knew Jeanne’s throws would be no
problem. He and Jeanne each took a few steps back.

Jeanne tossed the first ball to him in a
slow, lazy, upside U. Philip watched it approach, stuck out one
hand, and grabbed the ball. “Ha! Real tough throw,” Philip called.
He fired the ball back to Jeanne, but it went crooked. Jeanne ran
four steps to her left and grabbed the bouncing ball; also with one
hand. Philip scowled.
Lucky,
he told himself.

“Can’t you throw it straight?” she asked, as
she ran back to her position. She threw Philip another slow,
looping toss, and he caught it easily.

“Stop throwing like that,” Philip demanded,
and he tossed a hard one back at her. This throw went straight, and
Jeanne reached out with one hand and grabbed it. She flipped the
ball to her other hand, pulled her arm back, and fired the ball at
Philip, who threw his arms up to keep the ball from hitting him in
the face. He glared at Jeanne before picking up the ball.