Read Philip and the Fortune Teller (9781619501317) for Free Online

free to see her
son again. RAP!”
    The boys jumped as the pharaoh gave another
loud knock on the door.
    “The old man wrapped his arms around his wife
and screamed at the top of his lungs, ‘I wish my son back where he
came from. Immediately!’ The old woman began to beat at her
husband, not realizing the wisdom of his choice. They froze as the
scraping sound again began, this time moving away. Soon, the noise
faded into nothingness.”
    The pharaoh stared at the boys and nodded his
head slowly.
    “Do you know why the man wished his son
away?”
    Emery and Philip shook their heads
silently.
    “Remember, he had fallen into a machine. He
was terribly hurt. He was dead. A dreadful dead person had come
back to life and stood knocking on their front door! The old
man had figured out what happened and wisely sent the son away. So,
my dear children, you must be very careful what you wish for.
Because wishes . . . do . . . come . . . true.”
    The pharaoh stood and walked to the tent
entrance. He opened the flap, and sunlight flooded in, making the
boys wince.
    “Go now. And I wish you the wisdom of the old
man.”
    Philip and Emery stood and, like two people
in trances, stepped out of the tent and onto the midway. They
walked two blocks before Emery broke the silence.
    “You want to make your wish first?” he
asked.
    “What? Me? No. You can go first.”
    “I don’t think I’m ready yet.”
    “Let’s go sit in Mrs. Logan’s bushes,” Philip
suggested. “I’m all out of breath, and I didn’t even do
anything.”
    “Good idea,” Emery agreed. “We better think
about this.”
    The boys hurried back to their hideout in
Mrs. Logan’s bushes. They looked at each other questioningly.
Finally, Philip spoke.
    “Maybe we shouldn’t ask for money. You see
what happened to those other people when they asked for money.”
    “You don’t think saying the things we wanted
this morning was like really making the wishes, and it counted, do
you?”
    “How could it count for real? We didn’t even
have the three wishes yet.”
    “I wish we knew about this story before we
gave the box back.”
    “Emery!” Philip screamed. “You just made a
wish!”
    “I did? No, I didn’t. Oh, no. I did. I take
it back; I take it back,” Emery cried looking up toward the
sky.
    The boys waited. They didn’t know for what,
but they waited.
    “I don’t think your wish counted,” Philip
said softly. “If it did . . . if it did, we’d already know the
story before the pharaoh told us.”
    “But we know the story now. How do we know we
didn’t know it before he told us?”
    “Because.”
    “Because what?”
    “Because I still remember being surprised by
the story. If we knew the story before the pharaoh told it to us, I
wouldn’t have been surprised.”
    “Oh, yeah. Me, too. I guess you’re right. We
gotta be careful.” Emery paused. “How do you think the money would
come if we wished for it?”
    “I don’t even want to think about it.
Let’s forget money until we figure out how to get it safely.”
    “We could wish for money and say it has to
come without anybody getting hurt.”
    “That would be two wishes.”
    “We have three.”
    “Yeah, but maybe you can’t make two wishes at
the same time. Maybe if you do, only the first one counts.”
    That silenced Emery.
    Philip had another thought. “What about your
wish about your sisters? That you wouldn’t hear them crying.
Suppose your wish made you deaf, or you had an accident, and your
ears got chopped off. Then you wouldn’t hear them.”
    Emery’s eyes bugged. “My ears got chopped
off!” He reached up and grabbed onto them. “Yeah, well how about
you? Not having any brothers or sisters to bother you? Suppose that
came true because . . .”
    “Never mind. Never mind. I don’t want to hear
it.”
    The boys fell silent again.
    Emery had an idea. “Maybe we should just wish
for a new comic book or something simple.”
    “Seems like an awful waste of a wish.