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What’s wrong?” asked
Philip.
    “ I’m in
trouble.”
    “ What’d you do this time?”
asked Emery.
    “ I gave my mother’s good
plate away. I was looking for stuff to give Mr. Sorino, broken
stuff. I saw the plate, and I gave it to him with some other stuff
I got from knocking on doors. My mother looked for the plate and
went bonko when I
said I gave it away.”
    “ Why’s she want a broken
plate?” asked Philip.
    “ It had a big line in it.”
Leon slashed a line in the air with his finger. “I thought it was a
crack. My mother said it was part of the design.”
    “ So go get it back from Mr.
Sorino,” said Emery.
    “ I tried. He said he gave
it to Pete’s Repeat shop. I’m sunk. My mother won’t talk to me.
She was going to
send me to camp this summer, a real neat camp. Now, she says
she won’t . I’m
sunk. I’m really sunk.”
    Philip had a quick thought. Anything
that sent Leon to camp was good. Anything that kept him in the
neighborhood all summer wasn’t. “Tell her to go to Pete’s and buy
it back,” he said.
    “ I did and she went
double bonko . She
said she was in no mood to waste money buying something that
already belonged to her. I’m so sunk.”
    Philip recalled his
mother’s reaction to losing her pin. “Maybe you can buy it at Pete’s. Did you go
see how much it is?”
    Leon’s eyes brightened for a moment. “I
didn’t go. Oh, but it’s probably too much. I only got a little
money.”
    “ Emery and I have some
money.”
    “ What!” cried
Emery.
    “ Leon needs to go to camp, Emery. Camp . He needs to
go away to camp.”
    “ Oooohhh. Away to camp.”
    Philip nodded vigorously. “It’s an
emergency, and Leon will pay us back. Right, Leon? What are friends
for? Besides, we’ll all get more money from Mr. Sorino this
summer.”
    Leon’s eyes opened wide. “Yeah. I’ll
pay you back. I will. Oh, thanks, guys.”
    Emery mumbled, “You better.”
    The three boys headed off to Pete’s
Repeat shop.

Chapter
Nine
     
    Pete’s Repeat shop was a small store at
the far end of an outdoor mall where all the stores’ front doors
faced the parking lot. The boys walked along, glancing through the
store windows.
    “ Boy, guys,” Leon said,
“this is really nice of you. If I don’t get that plate back, I’m
sunk.”
    “ Hey!” Philip pointed at a
window display. “They look like the pants my aunt gave my mom and
dad.”
    “ See the sign?” said Emery.
“I told you they were made of sat . . .”
    “ There’s the store,” Leon
interrupted.
    “ Stop jumping up and down,
Leon,” ordered Philip. “Or else we’re not going in there with
you.”
    “ I’m still. I’m not
jumping. See.” Leon walked in a proper manner to the door of Pete’s
and pulled it open for his friends. The boys walked inside. The
store was small and not lit very brightly. The aisles were narrow.
Tables, shelves, and glass cases of old, used, no-longer-wanted
stuff spread out across the floor. Items hung on the walls, and a
few even dangled from the ceiling.
    “ Find the old plates,”
whispered Leon.
    Pete sat at the front counter and eyed
the boys. “Help you?”
    Emery gave Philip a push forward.
Philip tossed an uncomfortable glare over his shoulder at his
friend and said, “Leon, tell him.”
    “ Me? Uh, hi,
sir.”
    Pete puffed out his cheeks. “Yeah, hi.
May I help you, young man?”
    “ You got
plates?”
    “ No, they’re my own teeth.”
Pete made a face like he was growling.
    The boys looked at each other,
perplexed.
    “ Never mind,” said Pete. “A
joke. Plates, dishes, glassware over there. And be careful. You
break it, you bought it.”
    “ We won’t break nothing,”
Leon assured Pete.
    “ Be sure.” Pete went back
to his newspaper.
    The boys maneuvered their way through
the aisles until they reached a table covered with glasses of all
sizes and shapes.
    “ Can you find it?” asked
Emery. He pointed to a case with glass doors. “How about
there?”
    Leon studied