Philip and the Haunted House (9781619500020) (2 page)

“
Beautify the neighborhood.”

“
Go on. What else?

“
That’s it.”

“
Only four things?”

“
I read the whole list,” said Emery,
folding up the paper and stuffing it back into his
pocket.

“
An awful short list,” said Philip.
“What’ll we do?”

“
The only thing we didn’t cross off was
beautifying the neighborhood.”

“
How do we beautify the
neighborhood?”

Emery shrugged. “Maybe you could cover your
face.”

Philip stared at Emery.

“
That was a joke,” Emery
explained.

“
So why didn’t you laugh?”

“
I’m not supposed to laugh. I made the
joke. You’re supposed to laugh.”

“
Ha,” Philip burst out, his stare
boring into Emery.

“
Never mind. You have no sense of
humor. Look, let’s ask our parents tonight and see what they
say.”

Philip knew his dad could always come up with
something when he got stuck with a school project. He recalled the
prize his dad helped him win in the Walk-Mor Shoe Store poster
contest. “Good idea. Oh,” Philip moaned. “There’s the bell
already.”

Emery and Philip left the sheltered corner of
the school building and stepped out into the chilly wind. They ran
to where Mr. Ware waited for the class to line up.

Chapter Three

After dinner Philip worked on his homework in
his bedroom. He paused when he smelled something funny. He sniffed
five, six, seven times. He left his room and went downstairs. His
father sat contentedly by the open window in the living room with a
big cigar in his mouth! A small fan Philip hadn’t seen since the
summertime went back and forth on a table blowing air toward his
father. Philip watched as his father blew out a straight line of
smoke, and the air from the fan caught it and sent it toward the
window. Philip watched in fascination as the smoke appeared to melt
through the screen.

“
Mom’s going to be mad,” Philip warned.
He’d heard his mother and father’s cigar conversations
before.

“
No, she’s not,” his father
answered.

“
Why not?”

“
She isn’t here. She went down to Mrs.
Moriarty’s for an hour. On purpose.”

“
She’ll smell it when she gets back.
She’ll be mad.”

“
She bought it for me.”

“
No, she didn’t.”

His father laughed. “I received news at work
today. I was selected to be in charge of a very special project.
Everyone wanted to be chosen, but they picked me. This…” His father
held up the cigar. “…is what your mother gave me as a reward before
she left the house.”

“
Will you get a promotion if you do
okay?”

“
It is highly likely,
Flipster.”

“
Well, I want one, too,” Philip
said.

“
A cigar?”

“
Not a cigar. Blecch! A
promotion
. To fifth grade. Emery and
I have to do a project together.”

“
What’s it about?”

Philip went to sit on the sofa far away from
his father. “I smelled it upstairs, but I can hardly smell it from
here.”

“
Must be going up to your bedroom
window. Better run up and close it, or you’ll be smelling it all
night.”

Philip ran up, closed his window, and hustled
back down to the sofa.

“
So,” said his father. “Your
project?”

“
Emery and I have to do something
helpful for the community. The teacher gave us a
list...”

“
Say no more. I know exactly what you
can do. You’re looking for a project idea, right?”

“
Yeah, for me and Emery.”

“
The empty house around the corner is
an eyesore. I have to drive past it twice a day, to and from work.
If you and Emery cut the grass, it would be a great boon not only
to the neighborhood but to mankind in general.”

“
Cut the grass? I don’t
think...”

“
Call Emery. Tell him you’ve got the
most absolutely A+ idea.”

“
But nobody lives there. We can’t get
permission. We can’t…”

“
No problem. I’ll call the real estate
agent tomorrow and explain the circumstances. He’d be positively
delirious if someone made that place look better. He’s trying to
sell the place, Philip. The better it looks; the better for
him.”

“
But I don’t think cutting
grass…”

“
You can use my mower, my clippers.
Emery’s family has a mower, too. You and Emery’ve helped me with
the lawn before. You’re both experienced clip-masters. Flipster,
you’re in for an exciting Saturday. We’ll take before and after
pictures, and you can write up a report. Your teacher will be
astonished at your fine work.”

Philip frowned. He couldn’t even get an
argument going with his father. He didn’t want anything to do with
the empty house. More than his sandwich might disappear if he
started hanging around
there
.

“
So, it’s settled. Now scoot. You’re
interrupting my reward. Go. Go, call Emery. Give him the good
news.”

Philip shuffled into the kitchen and picked
up the phone.

When Emery answered, Philip could hear babies
crying in the background.

“
Oh, hi, Philip.”

“
Your parents have any good ideas for
the project?”

“
I didn’t ask yet. I’m waiting till my
sisters go to sleep. Did you ask?”

“
My dad wants us to cut the grass in
front of the haunted house and make it look less
haunted.”

“
He called it a haunted
house?”

“
Not those exact words, but same
idea.”

The conversation halted while Emery thought
the suggestion over. “Well, I guess it’s better than all those
other things.”

“
But the place is so scary,” said
Philip.

“
Not when it’s light out, and it’ll be
a Saturday afternoon when people are walking around. You know… it
sounds easy. You don’t want to visit a hospital or sit next to an
old person and look out the window, do you?”

“
No. You sure the candy sale’s no
good?”

“
You think your parents would let
you?”

“
No, I guess not.”

“
So?”

“
Well, I guess it’ll be all right. I’ll
see if I can get my dad to stay with us while we work. Hey! Maybe
the real estate guy will say no, and we won’t even have to do it.
It’s not our property, you know.”

“
If he does say no, we’ll have to pick
one of those other things.”

The boys said goodbye. Philip hoped the real
estate man would tell them to stay away. Thinking of something else
would be safer and easier than spending a whole day working around
a haunted house.

Chapter Four

Philip knew when he went to bed Friday
night this would be the first Saturday he didn’t look forward to
since school started. The real estate agent had given his father
permission to cut the grass in front of the haunted house. His
father had given Emery and him refresher lessons on how to safely
operate the lawn mowers and had bought a disposable camera for the
before and after pictures. Philip thought things over and promised
himself he’d never
ever
volunteer for any kind of community service again unless he
had to—like now. What a Saturday
this
would be. He couldn’t wait for
Sunday.

“
Time to get up, my little neighborhood
improvement elf.” Philip opened his eyes and saw his father
standing at the foot of his bed.

“
I think I’m sick. I have pneumonia or
something.” Philip coughed as hard as he could.

“
No weaseling out. You’re about to do a
good deed and get a super A+. Up. Let’s go. I called Emery. We meet
him outside his house in twenty minutes.”

Thirty minutes later they stood in front of
the haunted house.

“
Now, you guys get on the front lawn in
the middle... there... where the grass is the highest. There are
twelve pictures on this camera I bought for you, so I’ll take six
now and six when you finish and get them developed right away. Look
on the bright side! You’ll be all done with your project by Monday,
and the rest of your class will still be struggling.”

Emery and Philip silently trudged to the spot
on the lawn in the high grass Philip’s father had indicated.

Emery looked down. “What’s that?”

Philip bent down and gingerly picked up a
dirty, damp white sock.

“
Put that down,” Philip’s father
snapped. “I don’t want a picture of an old sock. Here, use these
gardening gloves to clean things up so you can mow.” Mr. Felton
reached into a large paper bag and took out two pairs of brown
cloth gloves. “A pair for you; a pair for you. Anything you need to
pick up use them and one of these.” A handful of large black trash
bags came out of the paper bag next.

Philip and Emery looked at each other.

“
This is getting complicated. I don’t
think I’m going to like this,” said Emery.

“
I already don’t like it,” Philip
grumped.

“
Okay. Smile!”

After Philip’s father moved the boys to five
other spots for five more pictures, he said, “Okay, let’s see you
turn on the mowers. Turn the key and push the button.”

The boys obeyed, and both machines roared to
life.

Philip’s father drew his finger across his
throat, and the boys turned the machines off. “First, go over the
lawn and pick up anything in the mower’s way. You don’t want pieces
of old sock or any tin cans flying around.”

“
Suppose there’s yucky stuff on the
lawn,” Philip said warily.

His father pointed to the brown gloves Philip
held. “When the lawn is clean, start the mowers and get to work.
Your lunches are in this bag.” A smaller paper bag came out of the
larger one. “I’ll put it here out of the sun.” Mr. Felton walked to
the shady porch of the house and put the bag down. Emery and Philip
both wondered which of them would be the one to go retrieve it.

“
It’s ten-thirty. I’ll be back in an
hour to see how much progress you’ve made. Eat when you get hungry.
Good luck.” Philip’s father walked down the street toward the
corner and home, leaving the two boys standing in the high grass
feeling very alone.

Emery said, “Did I hear your dad whistling?
He’s awful happy.”

“
If you were going back home, you’d be
whistling, too.”

“
I guess. Pshew! Look at this
place.”

The two boys turned their eyes away from
Philip’s departing father and looked over their chore. They stood
in the deep grass before a two-story house in need of a lot of
painting. Two broken chairs sat on the porch, along with the brown
paper bag with the boys’ lunches. The front door of the house had a
long, oval window in it looking like a black, shadowy mouth
stretched open in a weird, scary shape.

They inspected the lawn again. The grass was
green in spots but a lot of it had turned brown and crackly. A
cement walkway leading to the porch separated the plot of grass on
the right from one on the left. Fortunately, whoever had lived
there before paved over behind the house to park their car, so no
grass at all grew there.

“
Well,” said Philip, “you take one side
and I’ll do the other.”

“
There’s an awful lot of grass,” said
Emery. Then both boys noticed how quiet the neighborhood had grown;
no bird sounds, no people and very few cars.

“
You sure you don’t want to go visit
old people?” Emery asked in a small voice. “Maybe they’ll just like
fall asleep while they look out the window, and all we’ll have to
do is keep them from falling out of their chairs.”

“
Oh, come on. It’s too late now. Let’s
get started. I’ll start over there.” Philip walked across the
concrete walkway and into the high grass. When he turned, Emery
stood right behind him.

Philip jumped. “Emery! Get over there. Get
your mower and start over there.”

“
Why don’t we work together? We could
both push one mower and then we could go faster.”

“
We have two mowers. We’ll finish
faster if you do that side and I do this side.”

Suddenly a noise came from somewhere the boys
couldn’t locate.

“
Did you hear?” Emery said, stepping
closer to Philip.

“
All right. All right. We’ll push
together. The tall grass is probably hard to cut.”

“
Yeah, right. I think you’re right.
Good idea. Go ahead. Turn on the mower.”

Philip stepped up to the mower, Emery right
at his elbow.

Philip looked at him. “Could you move a
little please?”

“
Move where?”

“
Away from me a little.”

“
Why?”

“
You’re breathing on me.”

“
If I stop breathing can I stay
close?”

“
You can breathe, just don’t get so
close. I need some room to turn the mower on.” Emery took a half
step back.