Free Philip and the Girl Who Couldn't Lose (9781619501072) by John Paulits Page A

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.
     
     

Chapter Three
     
    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?