When Philip arrived back at Emery’s house, Emery had his disguise kit laid out on the dining room table. A small round mirror, encased in a light blue plastic square, stood on the table. Emery was holding a mustache under his nose and looking into the mirror.
“How do I look?” Emery asked, wiggling his upper lip to make his mustache dance.
“You look stupid. Nobody our age has a mustache. Except that one girl in Mr. Beebers’ class, but she doesn’t count.”
Emery threw the mustache back into the box. “Ready to get into disguise and do something sneaky?”
“Like what?”
“I think we should follow somebody and try to learn all their secrets.”
“Suppose they haven’t got any secrets?”
“Everybody has secrets. Remember when you snuck into Disher’s garage—”
“All right. All right. Never mind. You didn’t tell anybody, did you?”
“No, it’s a secret. But it wouldn’t be a secret long if we were on our trail.”
Philip wanted to change the subject. “What shall we disguise ourselves as?”
“Here, put this on.” Emery handed Philip the red baseball cap. It was turned inside out and the brim had been cut off. Emery put on his double-brimmed Sherlock Holmes cap. “That’s first.”
Philip bent over to look into the mirror. “Let me see the picture.” He compared himself with the man in the Sherlock Holmes book. “The hat should have a little brim all around it.”
“I tried to leave some brim, but it was too thick. I couldn’t cut it with the scissors.”
Philip nodded. His hat didn’t look as good as he thought it would, and Emery’s hat looked better than he first supposed. Philip studied the four white lines running up and down the inside of his baseball cap, where the four quarters of the hat were sewn together. “I don’t like these lines, and the air holes look dumb.”
“Nobody’ll notice,” Emery said.
“What about the wigs?” Philip asked. There was a bushy black-haired wig and a straight-haired red wig.
“I tried them. They’re too itchy. This other stuff is way better.”
Philip watched Emery glue on a fake nose. Then Emery took a dark pencil from the kit and colored in his eyebrows. Finally, he put on a pair of black-rimmed glasses. Emery stuck his finger through the circle where the glass should be. “Empty,” he smiled.
“What can I use?” Philip asked, impressed with the way Emery had changed his appearance.
“Here, try this nose.” Philip took the nose Emery handed him, held it in place, and looked into the mirror. It was a very large nose. “Isn’t there a smaller one?”
“Nope. Only two noses in the kit.”
Philip felt a slight stirring over the fact that Emery had taken the smaller nose for himself. But all he said was, “Give me the glue.”
Philip attached the nose and rechecked himself in the mirror. It was a shocking change. “Wow.”
Emery handed Philip a red pencil from the kit.
“Color your eyebrows and give yourself some freckles.”
Philip stared at Emery and said slowly, “Why do I have to use the red pencil?”
“We both can’t look the same, can we? We’re not disguising ourselves as twins.”
Philip wanted to argue that the ridiculously big nose he was wearing would successfully prevent anyone from thinking they were twins, but things were getting too interesting to waste time arguing, so he took the pencil.
Looking into the mirror, he pressed the pencil hard against his right eyebrow and colored. Then he colored the other eyebrow. With an artistic flourish he connected the eyebrows over his nose. Then he pressed the point of the red pencil against his cheek.
“Wet it,” Emery said.
Philip wet his finger and applied the spit to the pencil point. Then he dabbed his cheeks until they were covered with red spots. He turned to Emery.
“That looks great.” Emery smiled.
Philip checked the mirror.
“You sure I don’t look like I have the measles? People will be running away from me.”
“No, no. Nobody’ll notice.”
Philip took another look into the mirror at his eyebrows. It looked as if someone had thrown a long piece of saucy spaghetti at him and it stuck to his forehead. But he did look different.
“You can use the ear,” Emery said.
Philip turned to him. “The ear?”
Emery handed him a big plastic ear.
“Where’s the other one?” Philip asked.
“I can’t find it.”
“You lost an ear. A whole ear?”
“I spilled everything and it must have rolled someplace.”
Philip looked at the big ear. “Ears don’t roll.”
“It went somewhere. Here, put it on.”
Philip took the big ear, scrunched his own ear up, and stuffed it inside the rubber ear. He checked the mirror, turning his head back and forth. The big ear and the big nose sort of went together. But it was only one ear.
“I can’t go around with one big ear and one little ear,” Philip protested.
“Look at me,” Emery argued. He turned sideways. “How many ears can you see?”
“One,” Philip answered.
Emery turned to the other side. “Now how many ears can you see?”
“One,” Philip answered.
“So there.”
“So there what?”
“People can only mostly see one ear at a time. Nobody’ll notice your ears don’t match.”
“But now you’re looking at me and I can see your two ears.”
“That’s only because we’re talking together. Don’t talk to anybody and people will only see one of your ears at a time. And even if they see both, they’ll be too polite to mention that your ears don’t match. Did you ever tell anybody that their ears didn’t match?”
“Of course not,” Philip said, raising his voice. “I never met anybody whose ears didn’t match.”
“Nobody’ll notice. Nobody’ll notice.” Emery waved his hand. “Now, where shall we go to find somebody to follow?”
“Some place dark a hundred miles away,” Philip grumbled.
“Where?” Emery asked.
“Nothing,” said Philip. After a quiet couple of seconds Philip said, “How about the supermarket? There’ll be a lot of people there.”
“Yeah,” said Emery, “and we can walk round and push a cart and nobody’ll pay any attention to us.”
“Unless they see my ears,” Philip grumbled again.
“Don’t worry, I told you. Nobody’ll notice. Now let’s go to the supermarket and find somebody who looks suspicious.” Emery gathered up the rest of his disguise kit and tossed it back into the box. “I have to give my mother her mirror back.” He took the mirror and ran upstairs while Philip put his jacket on and checked his hat.
“Ready?” said Emery when he got back. “How do I look?”
Philip studied Emery’s false nose, black eyebrows, empty glasses, and fancy hat. “You look fine. How do I look?”
Emery studied Philip’s inside out, half-a-baseball cap, spaghetti line, freckles, big nose, and one big ear. “Don’t worry, nobody’ll notice,” he said and led Philip out the front door.