Philip and the Sneaky Trashmen (9781619502185) by John Paulits Page A

telling Philip he
couldn’t bear to watch. As Philip led Leon into the kitchen, he
heard the front door close. He walked into the living room, and
through the window he saw his mother carrying his baby sister Becky
toward the car. He watched his mother put the baby into the safety
seat and drive off.
    “ Come on upstairs,
Leon.”
    “ roomroomroom ”
    “ What are you
doing?”
    Philip’s mother had left the vacuum
cleaner leaning against the sofa. Leon pushed it across the rug
making vacuum cleaner noises.
    “ I like to play cleaning
sometimes, too. It lets you make neat noises. Listen. roomroomroom.”
    “ Oh, Leon. Stop it! Never
mind roomroomroom. Come up and clean my room room room.”
    “ Yuk yuk. That’s pretty funny. Room room room. I get
it.”
    Philip felt his stomach
clench like it did when Emery acted stupid. Leon would be worse, he
knew. Way worse. But if it got his room cleaned, it would be worth
it. Leon followed him upstairs repeating roomroomroom all the way.
    “ Leon, shush. No more room
room room. Here’s the real room.” He pushed his bedroom door open,
and Leon took a step inside.
    “ Holy macaroni,” Leon
muttered. “I can’t hardly even see the floor floor floor in your
room room room. It’s so messy messy messy.”
    “ Yeah, well the floor’s
down there. We’re walking on it, aren’t we? Can you clean this
place or not?”
    Philip watched Leon tiptoe through the
mess to his dresser and pick up something. Philip recognized it as
the jacket-thing his mother wore when she did serious cleaning
around the house. Leon lifted it with two fingers and held it away
from him.
    “ This what you sleep in? I
wear pajamas. This doesn’t have any legs even, and it’s awful
short.” He threw Philip a suspicious look.
    “ Leon, don’t be stupid.
That’s my mother’s.” Philip grabbed it out of Leon’s hand, balled
it up, and tossed it behind him. “She must have been in here. She
always wears that to clean.”
    “ You wear pajamas, right?
Regular pajamas?”
    “ Of course I wear pajamas.
See them over there on the floor in the corner? What about
cleaning?”
    Leon glanced at the pajamas and then
looked over the room. Philip followed his gaze. Two pillows sat on
the floor, along with a crumpled up sheet. Socks and shirts were
sprinkled around like overgrown snowflakes. Toys lay everywhere.
Sneakers and shoes, never a pair together, were tossed sideways and
upside down. Crumpled construction paper and some scattered crayons
added color to the mess.
    “ I didn’t feel the
earthquake on my block,” Leon said softly.
    “ What
earthquake?”
    “ The one that shook up this
room. Yuk yuk.”
    “ You’re not funny, Leon.
Can you fix it?”
    “ Sure. I’ll throw the shoes
over there; I’ll put the socks over there; the shirts’ll go there.
I’ll separate everything first except what looks like junk. You
want to save the junk?”
    Philip threw his arms up. “No! Why
would I want to save the junk?”
    “ How about food? You want
to save the food?”
    “ Food? What
food?”
    “ I see a half a sandwich
over there.”
    “ No, throw out the food,
Leon. Just be sure to get this place neat.”
    “ I need a trash
bag.”
    “ I’ll get one.” Philip ran
downstairs to the kitchen closet and pulled a large white trash bag
off the roll. When he got back to his room, Leon had a twelve inch
ruler in his hand, one of Philip’s socks dangling from the end of
it.
    “ What are you doing?” asked
Philip.
    “ Your socks
stink.”
    Philip grabbed the sock off the end of
the ruler.
    “ Just give it here. Any
clothes you find I’ll put in the hamper. Start cleaning. Anything
that’s junk put in the trash bag.”
    “ Crumpled
paper?”
    “ Junk.”
    “ Crayon pieces?”
    “ Junk.”
    “ Broken . . .”
    “ Junk, Leon, junk. The
room’s gotta look like nobody lives in it.”
    “ Gotcha.” Leon made a
circle of his thumb and index finger and poked it at Philip. Then
he pushed an