The boys walked in quiet contemplation for a while before Philip spoke.
“Where’d he get the ticket from? I didn’t see.”
“I didn’t see either, but he got mine out of his sleeve. What’s pawn mean?”
“You know what a pawn is. The little man in the chess set.”
“No, I don’t think so.”
“Of course it is. You taught me how to play. The whole front line of pieces are pawns. You said so.”
“I know they’re pawns, but there must be another pawn. Did you notice on the ticket the gypsy showed us? With the number? It said pawn on it.”
“Oh, right,” Philip recalled. “I did see that. Pawn. Pawn. I think my father watches a show . . . something about pawn. Pawn Stories; something like that. I never watched. I don’t know what it’s about.”
“Ask him,” Emery suggested. “Or watch with him.”
Philip considered. “No. He’d get suspicious. I already told him most of the shows he watches are stupid. People singing and then getting told how bad they are. News. No. Why don’t we just Google it? I don’t think we want anybody asking us why we’re interested in pawn until we know what it is.”
“Good idea. Wanna walk past the old lady’s house?”
“Think we should?”
“We’re just walking.”
Philip considered again.
“Can’t hurt, I guess. We’ve seen her garage. I threw my ball against it before she hexed me.”
“You really think she’s learning to be a witch? She looks like one.”
Philip tried to remember whether the ball he bounced off the garage had hit a crack or . . . he thought it bounced off his knee, but he couldn’t exactly remember.
“All I know is my ball went sailing to the sewer when she pointed her witchy finger at me.”
The boys stopped at the corner, paused, and searched each other’s eyes. They would have to make a turn onto this street if they wanted to pass by the old woman’s house.
“Let’s walk on the opposite side of the street of her house, at least,” Emery suggested.
That sounded like the safe thing to do, and Philip agreed. They walked along slowly until they were opposite the garage. A wide lawn separated the garage from the old woman’s house and the houses behind it. A short driveway separated the garage door from the street. The right side of the garage had a narrow cement walkway which stopped at a regular door in the middle of the garage wall. Low bushes separated the garage from the house next door on that side.
“See the side door?” Philip asked. “I wonder if she keeps it locked.”
“If she keeps jewels in it, she probably keeps it locked.” Emery walked part of the way into the street and tried to see down the narrow walkway. When he returned to Philip, he said, “The garage door has those four little square windows like a plus sign. If the door’s locked, we can bust the window by the doorknob.”
“That’ll make noise.”
“Not much. We can break the window and go away and come back later—in case somebody hears it and comes to investigate right away.”
“When should we break the window? And when should we come back?”
“The gypsy said we have until Sunday.”
“Look,” said Philip, “let’s find out what pawn means on a ticket with a number before we do anything.”
“Good idea. It might mean atomic radiation or something like that.”
“Emery, it’s not going to mean atomic radiation.”
“I don’t mean atomic radiation really. I just mean something bad. Let’s leave before she sees us. I don’t want her to point at me and send me down the sewer.”
Philip wanted to tell Emery how stupid that sounded, yet it could be true, he thought.
Instead, he said, “You go and see what your computer says about pawn, and I’ll check mine. I’ll come for you after lunch.”
Their plan agreed upon, the boys made their way home.
Emery answered Philip’s knock on his door, an orange Popsicle in one hand. “What’d you find?”
Philip stared at the treat.
“You want one? We only got orange and only the kind with one stick and not two.”
“Sure.”
The Popsicle taken care of, Philip asked, “Where’s your mom?”
“Upstairs with the babies.” Emery had two little sisters, a year apart in age.
“She might hear us.”
“Ha! My mother doesn’t even hear me when I talk right to her. She’s always got a baby in her arms and is talking to herself. My mother had me doing stuff. I didn’t get to go on the computer yet. Did you find it?”
“Yeah. A pawnshop is a place you take stuff, and they give you money for it.”
“I’d like to take my two sisters to a pawnshop then.”
“Not people, dummy. Stuff.”
“Like scarabs?”
“Jewelry, sure. I guess. Anyway, Wikipedia says you give the guy the stuff, and he gives you a ticket. If you want your stuff back, you have to pay him more than he gave you. If you don’t show up after a while, he keeps whatever you gave him and sells it.”
“So the lady has the stuff, and the pharaoh and gypsy have the ticket?”
“Looks like.”
“Why don’t they give her the ticket and get the box back?”
“Because she’s not the pawnshop; she bought the box from the pawnshop. She wants it. It’s hers now. Get it?”
“I guess so. So what’s it all mean?” Emery asked softly.
“It means they didn’t go to buy the box back in time, and the old lady bought the box of jewels and doesn’t know about the magical scarab. The gypsy wants it back before she does know and causes trouble. So, should we do it?”
“Get the jewels?”
“No, open a pawnshop. Yes, get the box of jewels.”
“Let’s go to Mrs. Logan’s bushes. We need a plan.” Mrs. Logan’s house on their block had lots of bushes, and the boys had found a convenient hidey-hole in them. The bushes had grown in a way leaving the boys an igloo-shaped space big enough to sit and even lie down in if they wanted.
“You gotta tell your mother you’re going out?” Philip asked.
“She wouldn’t hear me if I did. Let’s go.”
After two hours of arguing and plotting, the boys finally had a plan they agreed on. It was dangerous; it could get them into a world of trouble; it could fall apart and even get them arrested, they thought; but with three wishes on the line, they agreed the attempt was worth the danger, and they would put their plan into operation that very night.