Philip and the Thief (9781619500648) Read Online Free Page A

Mrs. Moriarty.
    Philip nodded. The table sat right out in the
open, so the stamps couldn’t fall behind anything like Emery’s
candy bar did.
    Philip stopped walking around the table and
looked at Mrs. Moriarty. “All you did was go to the telephone?”
    “ I came in. I put everything down, the
stamps, the batteries and the box of candy.”
    “ A box! You bought a whole
box?”
    “ Twenty-four bars. Twenty-two now. Then
I picked up the box to take it to the kitchen and put it in the
refrigerator. The phone rang. I put the box down and answered the
phone. Then I put the candy and batteries away, but couldn’t find
the stamps.”
    Philip walked into the kitchen. When he
walked out again, he had a wide smile on his face and held his
hands behind his back.
    “ Don’t tell me . . .” Mrs. Moriarty
began.
    “ Ta-da! Your stamps,” said Philip
grandly and, like a magician pulling a rabbit out of his hat, he
produced the tiny book of stamps.
     
     

Chapter Seven
     
    “ Philip! How did you do that?” asked
Mrs. Moriarty, genuinely amazed at Philip’s success.
    “ I listened to what you said. The
stamps had to be somewhere. When you said you bought a box of candy, I got an idea. Maybe
you put the box down on top of
the stamps. And you did. You bent the stamp book cover when you
scrunched the stamps in your purse. One stamp got unpeeled a little
and the sticky part stuck to the bottom of the candy box. When you
put the candy box into the refrigerator, the stamps went with
it.”
    “ Philip, that’s wonderful. How very
clever of you. You have real talent. Have you solved any other
mysteries?”
    “ I found a lost candy bar and Emery and
I . . . I figured out what
happened to his Superball. Today we had a mystery in
school.”
    “ And did you solve it?”
    Philip shook his head slowly. “No.”
    “ Tell me about the school mystery, but
first go and get yourself another Hershey Bar. You deserve one.
Bring me one, too.” She laughed and added, “You know where the box
is.”
    Philip obeyed happily. He enjoyed the way
Mrs. Moriarty treated him like a real detective. After he handed
Mrs. Moriarty the candy bar, he told her the story of the teacher’s
forty dollars.
    “ Wow!” Mrs. Moriarty exclaimed. “Forty
dollars is a lot of money. Did the teacher catch the
thief?”
    “ No one got blamed yet, but someone’s
probably going to tell on Jason. He spent thirty dollars at lunch
on a new Pearl Quest.”
    Mrs. Moriarty tilted her head. “A Pearl
Quest?”
    “ You know. A game.” Philip bounced his
thumbs up and down.
    “ Oh, one of those. Is Jason the kind of
boy who might steal?”
    Philip thought a moment. “I think he is.”
    “ Then his buying a new game is
suspicious,” said Mrs. Moriarty.
    “ After school he told me and Emery he
bought the game with money his father gave him.”
    “ Do you believe him?”
    Philip shrugged. “He always has money.”
    “ Did you piece together the teacher’s
actions like you did mine? Let me see you do it. I’ll bet you can
solve the teacher’s mystery right here and now.”
    Philip shook his head, embarrassed. “I can’t
solve every mystery.”
    “ Follow the teacher’s morning,” Mrs.
Moriarty insisted.
    Philip drew a breath. “He sat at his desk
looking through some books trying to decide what to read aloud to
us. Tyler’s mother showed up and interrupted him. He took Tyler
outside the room. As soon as the teacher left, Jason started
walking around. He came over and teased Emery and me about being
detectives. I never even saw the envelope the teacher
mentioned.”
    “ Did this Jason walk near the teacher’s
desk?”
    “ He did—on his way around the room
toward Emery and me.”
    “ Then what happened?”
    “ Then Tyler came back into the room
alone while his mother and Mr. Ware stayed outside a while
longer.”
    “ And where did he walk?”
    Philip thought a moment.
“ He walked past the teacher’s
desk, too, on the way to his seat. Hmmm. He was