Not-So-Weird Emma Read online

  The Worst Day Ever …

  Cynthia and Heather put their heads together and whisper on their way out of the playground. Annie Pat gives me a sad look over her shoulder.

  And I feel like crying.

  And so even though the morning started out great, this has turned into the most terrible third-grade day I have ever had in my life so far. Because who cares about a special treat on Friday when the only friend you thought you had makes fun of you in front of everyone else?

  In fact, they are probably all sitting in class and laughing about me and my weird room right now.

  I just wish I had something to kick, that’s all.

  Like maybe—Cynthia Harbison.

  BOOKS BY SALLY WARNER

  A Long Time Ago Today

  Not-So-Weird Emma

  Only Emma

  Super Emma

  This Isn’t About the Money

  Sally Warner

  Illustrated by

  Jamie Harper

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  PUFFIN BOOKS

  Published by the Penguin Group

  Penguin Young Readers Group, 345 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A.

  Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3

  (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.)

  Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephen’s Green, Dublin 2, Ireland

  (a division of Penguin Books Ltd)

  Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia

  (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd)

  Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre,

  Panchsheel Park, New Delhi - 110017, India

  Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Mairangi Bay, Auckland 1311, New Zealand

  (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd)

  Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

  Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

  First published in the United States of America by Viking, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2005

  Published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2007

  5 7 9 10 8 6

  Text copyright © Sally Warner, 2005

  Illustrations copyright © Jamie Harper, 2005

  All rights reserved

  THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE VIKING EDITION AS FOLLOWS:

  Warner, Sally.

  Not-So-Weird Emma / by Sally Warner; illustrated by Jamie Harper.

  p. cm.

  Summary: Eight-year-old Emma is just beginning to like her new school when her friend Cynthia starts telling other kids that Emma is, well, a little strange.

  EISBN: 9781101567586

  [1. First day of school—Fiction. 2. Schools—Fiction. 3. Friendship—Fiction.] I. Harper, Jamie, ill. II. Title.

  PZ7.W24644We 2005

  [Fic]—dc22 2004028986

  Set in Bitstream Carmina

  Book design by Nancy Brennan

  Printed in the United States of America

  Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.

  For the wonderful Katherine Brophy!—S.W.

  For Mary and Marty—J.H.

  Contents

  1

  Are You Listening?

  2

  A Lizard Eating a Grasshopper

  3

  Thinking About My Ugly Room

  4

  Ha-Ha on Cynthia

  5

  Cute

  6

  Weird

  7

  That’s Just Tough!

  8

  I’m Just Nervous, That’s All

  9

  So Busted

  10

  You Will Not Believe This

  11

  The Dreaded Phone Tree

  12

  How Cool Is That?

  1

  Are You Listening?

  “Settle down,” Ms. Sanchez calls out as we straggle into the classroom. She claps her hands once, and her engagement ring flashes. You should see it.

  You can tell that she means business. Everyone sits down fast, as if we are playing a game of musical chairs. I sit down fast, too. There is a scuffle over by the window. “Ow, Quit it,” Annie Pat says to Jared Matthews. She rubs the top part of her arm.

  I secretly call Jared “Jar-Head,” because he is so mean to little kids, especially the ones in kindergarten and first grade. Just because we are in third grade doesn’t mean we have to be bullies, does it? Also, his mud-brown guinea-pig swirly hair always looks as though he has been sleeping on it—or as though an invisible lid was just twisted off his head. He is the biggest kid in my class.

  My name is Emma McGraw. I am the second littlest kid in class, next to EllRay Jakes. EllRay is small in size but large in noise.

  Jared holds up both of his square hands and makes his eyes big and round to show how innocent he is. “It was an accident,” he says. But he is making sure that the other boys—especially Kevin, EllRay, and Corey—see that he is laughing at Annie Pat.

  “I have an announcement to make,” Ms. Sanchez says. Her eyes are sparkling. It must be a good announcement, not a bad one, like Uh-oh, you all have to take home this letter to your parents about head lice, or a confusing one, like Guess what? The P.T.A. is having another candy sale, even though everyone keeps telling you not to eat candy.

  The entire third-grade class wriggles with excitement at the same time. Even the chairs look more alert. It reminds me of this nature show I saw once on the Animal Planet about a coral reef. The whole reef was alive, every little part of it.

  See, that’s what’s so great about nature: the interesting surprises. In real life, the surprises are all the kind of thing that makes you feel sick to your stomach—like when your mom loses her job, and you have to move from a house to a condo, and you have to transfer from one school to another for practically no reason at all. Just because of someone not making enough money to pay private school tuition anymore.

  “Emma McGraw, are you listening?” Ms. Sanchez asks.

  Uh-oh. My new friend Cynthia Harbison looks down at her hands, embarrassed for me. Jared snickers, and Corey blushes, but I nod and look alert. “Yes, I’m listening,” I say.

  “Well, good,” Ms. Sanchez says, smiling, “because I don’t want anyone to miss what I have to say.” She looks around for a second, still smiling. It’s as though she wants us to love her for what she hasn’t even announced yet.

  Someone sneezes, and everyone laughs. Sneezes are always funny in our class. I don’t know why.

  “Now, I know that school only started a few weeks ago,” Ms. Sanchez says, “but you’ve all been working pretty hard. And I know that some of you have been struggling.”

  Next to me, I hear Corey Robinson give a little groan. I think he is allergic to arithmetic.

  “… so I’ve planned a treat for all you third-graders,” Ms. Sanchez is saying.

  Heather’s hand shoots up in the air, as usual. She holds her arm up with her other hand, as if otherwise it might fall off. “Oh, oh,” she says, before Ms. Sanchez has even called on her. “Are we g
oing on a field trip? Because my big sister’s class, they went on a field trip to the San Diego Zoo, in a bus.”

  A trip to the zoo! I’m glad that I am paying attention now. I have been to the zoo a lot of times with my mom, of course, but this would be different. This would be official. It would be like we were real nature scientists, almost—traveling on a special research bus.

  And a nature scientist is what I want to be when I grow up.

  “No, it’s not the zoo,” Ms. Sanchez says, and my hopes drop right down into my shoes. “And it’s not any kind of a field trip,” she continues. “The treat will be right here, this Friday, on our very own playground. Well, on the lawn next to the playground.”

  I hide my fingers and start counting on them, even though I have supposedly outgrown doing this. Today is Tuesday, so my fingers tell me that the surprise will happen in three more days.

  “Our treat will happen right after lunch,” Ms. Sanchez says in a singsong, keeping-secrets kind of voice. “Now, be sure to wear play clothes on Friday, and not your usual prom dresses and dinner jackets,” she teases us. “And tell your moms and dads,” she adds. “They are welcome to join us, if they can take a little time off work. And they might want to bring their cameras.”

  “We don’t have to wear costumes, do we?” Jared asks, sounding suspicious. “Are you going to make us put on funny hats or have a parade?” It is only October, but I know already that Jared is not a parade kind of kid. And if there was ever a Funny Hat Day at this school, he would stay home with a convenient stomach ache or something.

  I’m sure of it.

  Ms. Sanchez laughs out loud. “No, don’t worry, Jared. You’re safe.”

  “Because I’m not wearing any funny hat,” Jared announces.

  I guess he thinks having funny hair is bad enough. Funny hats would be too much.

  “No hats,” Ms. Sanchez promises. “Friday will be a hat-free day, okay?”

  Heather’s hand flies up again. “Oh, oh,” she says. “And no coconut, okay? Because I get a rash.”

  “Oh, darn,” Ms. Sanchez cries, pretending to be disappointed. She slaps her desk with her left hand, and the ring makes rainbow shines. “The treat was going to be that you would all eat coconuts while wearing silly costumes and hats and then have a parade. And now it’s ruined.”

  Heather starts to pout. “I was only saying,” she mutters. She looks around for sympathy, but everyone is too busy whispering to notice her.

  “Now get out your workbooks,” Ms. Sanchez calls out. “It’s time to do some heavy-duty subtraction.”

  Poor Corey groans again.

  I guess it’s back to real life—until Friday afternoon, anyway.

  2

  A Lizard Eating a Grasshopper

  The kick ball bounces up and bonks me in the leg at recess when I am right in the middle of a daydream. I pick it up and try to figure out where to throw it. Corey Robinson and Jared Matthews are both holding up their hands. “Give it here,” Jared shouts at me. I pretend that I am trying to, but really I throw it to Corey. Corey has a million freckles, and they all seem to leap up to catch the ball.

  “Sorry” I say to Jared, shrugging a little bit.

  “Grrr,” Jared says back at me, and he turns to run after Corey.

  I take a deep breath and walk over to the chain-link fence, where Cynthia Harbison, Heather, and Annie Pat are hanging out. I try to look as though I don’t care what happens once I get there, even though I am feeling a little funny.

  See, this is my first year at Oak Glen Primary School. I used to go to Magdalena School, which is girls only. It was in another part of Oak Glen, which is the name of the town we live in. Oak Glen is in California, about an hour away from San Diego. But we’re in the hills, not on the ocean.

  So yes, I am the new kid in the third grade at Oak Glen, and that makes me feel like an outsider. That is why it is hard for me to make new friends, I guess. Friends other than Cynthia, I mean—and Cynthia seems to like it that way. She wants to be the only friend I have, in other words, but she is with two other girls, now. And so who knows what will happen?

  Here is something confusing: Cynthia Harbison has lots of friends, even though she is crabby. I only have one friend, Cynthia. She dropped her shiny pink notebook the first day of class, and I helped her picked it up. After that, she kind of adopted me.

  My mom tries to make me feel better about not having lots of friends at Oak Glen. She says that it is only the beginning of October, after all, and I will make other friends by the end of the school year.

  A hundred years from now.

  Huh, that’s easy for her to say. So far, it’s only Cynthia—and sometimes I don’t even like her very much.

  I reach the fence where the girls are standing and hook one of my fingers through a link. I imagine myself climbing over the fence like a monkey and escaping to freedom. “Hi, Emma,” Annie Pat says. She has bouncy red hair, and blushes whenever Ms. Sanchez calls on her. Annie Pat is nice to me sometimes, but I don’t know her very well—yet.

  “Oh, hi,” I say to Annie Pat, as if I am kind of surprised to see her standing there.

  Heather leans over and whispers something in Cynthia’s ear, and they both laugh. Shade from the eucalyptus tree flickers across Heather’s face. “Jared Matthews yelled at you, Emma,” Heather says, looking serious and excited at the same time. “You’d better watch out.”

  “Emma doesn’t care,” Cynthia says, teasing. “She’s not scared. Are you, Emma?”

  “Nuh-uh,” I lie.

  Heather and Cynthia look at each other quick as a flash of lightning. “Then why don’t you go kick the ball around with those boys, if you’re so brave?” Heather says, aiming a mean smile in my direction.

  “She probably could if she wanted to,” Annie Pat says, sounding proud of me, for some mysterious reason. “She just doesn’t want to.”

  “Yeah,” I say, my heart thumping. “I guess I could if I wanted to. But what’s so great about playing kick ball with a bunch of boys?”

  Now Cynthia frowns. I guess she doesn’t like Annie Pat sticking up for me, but who knows why?

  “You’re not that good a runner,” Heather tells me. “You’d probably get hurt if you tried to play with the boys.”

  “I am too a good runner,” I say.

  “She is,” Annie Pat says, nodding. “I saw her once.”

  Cynthia scowls even more.

  Heather shrugs. “Well anyway, I was only joking,” she says. “Girls don’t play the same games on the playground that the boys do. Not at this school,” she adds, giving me a dirty look—as if it’s my fault I used to go someplace else.

  (Thanks a lot, Mom.)

  “But Emma could play kick ball if she wanted to,” Annie Pat says again, sticking up for me.

  This is too much for Cynthia, I guess. I can tell that by the look on her face, which is saying, Hey, Emma McGraw is my friend, not yours! “Go ahead and play, then, Emma,” Cynthia says out loud. She turns back to Heather, as though she wants to explain something. “Emma doesn’t mind being kind of weird,” she says. “You should see her bedroom.”

  My bedroom.

  I can’t believe what I am hearing.

  It’s true that Cynthia has slept over at our new condo a couple of times, but my bedroom is perfectly normal, in my opinion. Anyway, if crabby Cynthia is mad at Annie Pat, why is she picking on me?

  “Why?” Heather says, grinning and twinkling. “What’s so weird about Emma’s bedroom?”

  Annie Pat looks worried now.

  “It’s all covered with nature posters,” Cynthia says, as if she has just described something truly disgusting—but that she knows her listeners will enjoy hearing. “It’s just like being in a boy’s room,” she adds.

  I can feel my face get hot, and I instantly wish I were not wearing the overalls and T-shirt that I thought looked so comfortable this morning. Because who cares about being comfortable? I look like Dennis the Menace!

 
I look like a boy, if you don’t count my hair.

  “That’s not true, Cynthia,” I say in a shaky voices. “And anyway, how would you know what a boy’s room looks like? You don’t have any brothers.”

  “Are you saying Cynthia is lying?” Heather asks me, raising one eyebrow in disbelief. “You don’t have nature posters all over the walls?”

  “No,” I say. “I mean, I do. But it’s not like a boy’s room. Anyone could like nature. Even supermodels like nature. I’ve seen them talk about it on TV”

  “She’s got fish and dolphins and sharks and whales and stuff on one wall,” Cynthia reports, her eyes glittering. “Then she’s got pictures of land animals all over another wall. Even the not-cute ones like hyenas. I hate to say this, but Emma is kind of strange.”

  Like I said before, I cannot believe what I am hearing! Cynthia kept asking and asking to come over to my house, and we played and everything—and all the time, she was looking at my walls, thinking how strange they were?

  And now she’s telling everyone? No fair!

  I feel so embarrassed that I don’t know where to look.

  “That doesn’t sound so bad,” Annie Pat says, trying to stick up for me. “I like nature, too. I have some pictures of baby animals on my closet door, as a matter of fact. They’re so darling.”

  I want to tell her to be quiet, or she will only make everything worse.

  Too late. “Yeah,” Cynthia is saying, “except that Emma collects the really creepy stuff. Like, she has tons of snakes and frogs and lizards up on her walls. There’s even this one picture of a lizard eating a grasshopper. And the poor little grasshopper’s legs are sticking right out of the lizard’s mouth. You can practically see them kicking.”

  “Eeew, that is so messed up,” Heather squeals.

  Well, lizards have to eat, too. What did Cynthia think, that they would just use the drive-through window at Burger King when their little green stomachs started to growl?