Chapter Four

 

Philip sat on the edge of his bed to think. He knew all of the things in his room. If something in his room brought luck, he would already be having it. No, nothing in his room would be any help.

He thought back. Had anyone played over his house lately and left something behind? No, no one visited lately, and even if someone had visited, his mother probably already cleaned up and threw out anything she didn’t recognize.

Philip walked down the hallway to his baby sister’s room. Becky lay sleeping in her crib. She had a room full of toys, baby toys. Philip couldn’t imagine good luck coming from anything a baby had slobbered on, so he proceeded on to the big bedroom at the end of the hall where his parents slept. The vacuum cleaner stood in the middle of the room, and cardboard boxes were spread out over the floor and the bed.

“Don’t mess up in there,” Philip heard his mother say from behind him as she climbed the stairs.

Philip stared into the room. “It’s messed up already. What are you doing?”

Philip’s mother peeked into the baby’s room before joining Philip. “Shhh. Becky’s still sleeping. I’ll vacuum when she wakes up. I’m cleaning out the closets—the accumulated junk of the ages. How this all gets saved year after year is a mystery to me. Your father will have to go through this pile of junk and throw out whatever he doesn’t want.”

“If it’s all junk, why would he want any of it?” Philip asked.

His mother gave him a look. “Junk to me is gold to him. If half of it gets thrown out, I’ll declare it a victory.”

“What is this stuff?”

Philip’s mother sighed, shook her head, and rolled her eyes. “Memories of his childhood. Sentimental value, he says.” She bent over a box on the bed and started separating the good from the bad. Philip knelt down on the floor next to his father’s pile. He saw some old baseball cards of players he never heard of; a few old photographs of people he didn’t know; and lots of meaningless other things. When he lifted a small notebook, something round and shiny and a little bigger than a quarter caught his eye. Philip picked it up with two fingers, and when he tilted it back and forth in the light, strange, creamy swirls seemed to move around on the surface. Dull silver metal covered the back.

“What’s this?” Philip asked, holding the shiny disc up for his mother to see.

She glanced back. “From your father’s stuff?”

“Yeah.”

“You’ll have to ask him when he gets home.”

Philip stood up with the disc in his hand. When he turned toward the door, a flash of color from the top of his father’s dresser caught his eye. Philip reached for it. A red Jolly Rancher!

“Where’d this come from?” Philip asked excitedly.

“I found it downstairs after you left for school. Here’s another one.” She reached into the pocket of her slacks and pulled out a yellow Jolly Rancher.

His two lost Jolly Ranchers! Philip took the candy from his mother and stared at the swirling, colorful disc in his hand. Hmmmm.