Only Emma Read online

  Perfect!

  Today is going to be so much fun, with us wearing practically the same clothes. I am lucky I found a friend so fast after changing schools. Finding your first friend at a new school is like discovering a life preserver floating past your nose when you’re right in the middle of drowning. You’re safe, at least for a while.

  I open the bureau drawer to get my underwear. Oh no. The drawer squeaks. I am scared to turn around, in case the noise has made you-know-who wake up.

  But when I look, Anthony is lying there, watching me with sleepy brown eyes. “What are you doing?” he asks.

  “Getting my clothes, obviously,” I say. “I’ll tell Mom you’re ready to get up. Just stay right where you are. Don’t move a muscle.”

  And hearing those words, of course, Anthony springs out of bed like a jackrabbit. I saw a nature program about them once—or was it about Siberian hares?—on PBS.

  I love nature programs; they are my favorite. Except when they go too slow, like when someone says, “And now the icy fingers of winter touch Yosemite Valley,” or when something little and furry gets killed—in slow motion. Slow motion is always bad news in the animal kingdom.

  “I’m up,” Anthony says, as if this is the greatest news he could tell me.

  He smells like peanut butter, even from across the room, I notice—and even this early in the morning.

  I guess it’s a boy thing.

  “Well, follow me,” I say, and we march down the hall to the kitchen. My mom is on the phone, but she says good-bye in a great big hurry when she sees the look on my face. “Here he is,” I say when she has hung up.

  Why can’t Anthony Scarpetto sleep in her room, if she likes him so much?

  “Come here, you,” my mother says tenderly to Anthony, opening her arms wide.

  I don’t stay to see the rest of this revolting scene. I lock myself in the bathroom and start to get ready for school.

  I used to go to Magdalena School, which is private, girls only. Now, I go to Oak Glen Primary School, which is public. Girls and boys. I am in the third grade, which lasts all day long, naturally. My teacher’s name is Ms. Sanchez. She is so pretty that she could be on a TV show.

  Anthony goes to afternoon preschool.

  Oak Glen is the name of our town, too. It is in California, an hour north of San Diego. Our town is not on the ocean, though—it’s in the hills.

  “Breakfast is ready,” Mom tells me through the bathroom door. “It’s safe, Emma, you can come out now.” She sounds as though she is making a joke.

  Ha ha, very funny.

  “It’s safe? Why? Did Anthony run away or something?” I ask her through the door.

  “No, but he’s busy watching Sesame Street,” Mom says.

  “Promise?” I say, peeking out.

  My mom looks me up and down. “That green top is even cuter on,” she says, and I feel better all of a sudden, thinking about how much fun Cynthia and I will have today. Because wearing something you really like—and that looks good on you—can make an ordinary day fabulous.

  Mom and I sneak into the kitchen, and she puts some scrambled eggs and toast on a plate for me. I can hear Big Bird in the other room, and Anthony is singing along, not very well.

  “How did it go with Anthony last night?” Mom asks, pouring some coffee into her mug.

  “Mmm, okay, I guess,” I say slowly. I want her to at least think that I am trying to be a good sport. “But he breathes too loud,” I add. “He sort of snuffles and snorts.” Usually it’s just my mom and me, and things are pretty quiet around our house. See, my dad moved away when I was two years old—which is why I am an only child.

  You do the math.

  (Whatever that means.)

  Mom looks worried. “He snuffles? Gee, I hope he’s not catching a cold,” she says, fretting.

  “He isn’t,” I reassure her. “I think his nose was just stuffy from all that crying.” Anthony’s nose is not huge, but it seems to be very runny.

  Which can be quite disgusting, actually.

  “Poor little guy,” Mom says, then she sighs.

  And I am thinking, What about poor little me?

  “I’m thirsty,” Anthony calls from the doorway.

  “I’ll get you some juice, honey-bunny,” Mom says.

  Honey-bunny. Terrific.

  Anthony looks at me in my brand-new green top. “You look like a great big grasshopper,” he says, tilting his head as if he were the nature scientist.

  Which is what I want to be when I grow up, in case you couldn’t figure that out!

  I look down at my top, which suddenly does not seem so wonderful anymore.

  “Emma does not look like a grasshopper at all, Anthony,” Mom says. I can tell that she is trying not to smile, though, which makes everything worse.

  “I meant that her shirt looks like—”

  “I know, I know, it looks like a great big grasshopper,” I say, finishing the awful sentence for him. “Although for your information, it’s a top, not a shirt.” I turn to Mom. “Do I have time to change?”

  “No,” Mom says, and she grabs her car keys and hands me my lunch. “We have to scoot,” she says. She takes Anthony by the hand.

  “Does he have to come, too?” I ask, but I say it under my breath. Because I already know the answer.

  “Of course he does, Emma. Did you think I’d leave a four-year-old child all alone in the house?”

  “It’s a condo,” I mumble.

  “Yay, I get to ride in the car in my PJs,” he says, jumping up and down.

  The weirdest things make him happy!

  “Promise me you won’t let him out of the car?” I ask my mom. I try not to sound as though I am begging, but it is hard.

  She crosses her heart and nods, without saying any words.

  But that’s good enough for me. At least Anthony won’t get a chance to embarrass me in front of the whole school by prancing around in his PJs and possibly bursting into tears for no reason.

  Boy, I think, this must be just like having a real little brother.

  What a terrible thought!

  I guess I should count my blessings, the way Mom always says.

  3

  There are No Koalas in Oak Glen, California

  “Who was that in the car with you and your mom?” Cynthia asks me. She is wearing bright green skinny-leg pants, a pure white T-shirt with lace trim, and a green plastic headband with sparkles trapped inside.

  “Nobody,” I tell her, smoothing down my new green top. I don’t know why, but I want to keep Anthony private. At least for now.

  Cynthia and I walk across the patio to our classroom door, crunching eucalyptus leaves. They are curved like little brown moons. Koalas eat eucalyptus leaves, and only eucalyptus leaves, but there are no koalas in Oak Glen, California. That doesn’t seem right. Couldn’t nature have planned things better than that?

  There are some koalas in the San Diego Zoo, though, and that’s not too far away.

  Koalas are not bears, by the way, even though people say “koala bear” all the time. They’re marsupials, which means they have pouches. Like kangaroos.

  “Oh,” Cynthia says, accepting my strange answer to her question. We get to the classroom door, and I let her walk in first. Some kids are already sitting down.

  Cynthia leans over to whisper something to me. “My mom says it’s fine about Friday,” she tells me, as if it is a great big secret. She opens her mouth a little and smiles, as though she is waiting for me to say Yippee.

  “Friday?” I say, staring at her. What is she talking about? I can’t remember. I feel stupid, but I try to make my face look smart.

  “You know,” she says, frowning suddenly, “when you come sleep over at my house.”

  “Oh, yeah,” I say. “That’ll be fun.” I try to match her smile. I can’t believe I forgot about the best thing that has happened to me in a long, long time.

  “Wait a minute. Did you even ask your mom?” Cynthia asks, suspi
cious now.

  “I—I meant to,” I tell her. “Only things got kind of goofed up at our house last night.” Thanks a lot, Anthony, I think.

  “You don’t even care about coming over,” Cynthia says, flinging herself into her seat so hard that her green plastic headband flies off.

  I pick it up and hand it to her. She grabs it from me. “I do too care,” I say.

  “Hmmph,” she says, jamming the headband back onto her head.

  “Quiet down, everyone, while I read our Monday morning announcements,” Ms. Sanchez is saying.

  Her reading the announcements gives me time to think. Do I care about going over to Cynthia’s? Yes! I want to sleep over there on Friday night. She’s my best—and only!—friend at Oak Glen, my new school, even though she can be a little grouchy. And going to her house would give me some time away from you-know-who.

  If I went to Cynthia’s right after school on Friday, and if I stayed until late Saturday afternoon, that would be almost two whole Anthony-free days.

  Perfect!

  Except then I would miss whatever crazy thing Anthony did next, or some funny thing that he might say.

  I surprise myself by thinking this.

  “Emma?” Ms. Sanchez is saying. Uh-oh, she is tapping her pencil on her desk.

  Cynthia nudges me, and I stand up. “Yes?” I say.

  “I was asking if you’d like to pass out these flyers about the PTA candy sale,” Ms. Sanchez says, frowning.

  “Oh. Sure,” I tell her, and I stumble to her desk as if my feet are asleep.

  Usually I love doing things for Ms. Sanchez, but not when she’s in a bad mood. So now Ms. Sanchez is mad at me, and Cynthia is, too.

  And it’s all because of Anthony Scarpetto.

  When I sit down again, it is word-list time. We are supposed to work with partners: first one kid, and then another kid.

  For me, the first kid is Corey Robinson. He has freckles all over his face, and greeny-yellow hair from spending so much time in the swimming pool. Chlorine can do that to a person. “Okay,” he says, looking down at a sheet of paper, “spell ‘with,’ and use it in a sentence.”

  “ ‘With,’ “ I say. “W-I-T-H. I am bored with this.”

  Corey looks at me and grins. “You’d better not let Ms. Sanchez hear you,” he says, peering over his shoulder.

  “Why not?” I say, sounding brave. “I used the word right, didn’t I?”

  “I guess,” Corey says, looking doubtful. “Okay, the next word is ‘these,’ “ he says.

  I’m not so sure about the word “these,” but I like showing off for Corey. “ ‘These,’ “ I say slowly. “T-H-E-S. These are very stupid words.”

  Corey peeks up as if he is afraid to tell me some bad news. “You spelled it wrong,” he says. Corey looks a little like Anthony when he is scared, I notice.

  His comment makes me frown. “No I didn’t,” I tell him. “Are you sure?”

  “Yeah, it has two Es,” he says, looking as though he is sorry to have to be the one to tell me.

  I frown some more. “T-H-E-E-S? That doesn’t sound right,” I say.

  “Change partners,” Ms. Sanchez calls out, as though we are folk dancing in the gym. I wish we were folk dancing! At least we would be having some fun that way—although the one time our class tried it, we got mixed up and crashed into each other in the middle of the room. This girl named Heather got a bloody nose and had to go to the nurse.

  Folk dancing can be dangerous.

  I turn my back on Corey, who is just trying to trick me about how to spell “these,” probably.

  Now my partner is Cynthia. I’m supposed to ask her the words. “Okay, ‘which,’ “ I say to her.

  Cynthia sniffs and sticks her nose in the air like a cartoon lady who has smelled a skunk. “ ‘Which,’ “ she announces. “W-I-C-H,” she says. She tries to sound as if she knows she’s right.

  I do not want to inform her that she is wrong, so I don’t. “Use it in a sentence,” I remind her.

  “I know, I know,” she says, cranky. She thinks for a few seconds. “A witch is a person who forgets about going over to her friend’s house,” she says at last.

  Oh no—she means me! And not only that, but Cynthia has her whiches mixed up. I don’t want to be the one to tell her, though. “Correct,” I say like a teacher. I swoop my tangly hair back behind my ears the way Ms. Sanchez does and then pretend that I am admiring my engagement ring. Ms. Sanchez does that, too.

  Phew! Cynthia can’t help it—she starts to giggle.

  “Emma?” a quiet voice behind me says.

  Oh, no! It’s the real Ms. Sanchez. How long has she been standing there? Did she see me gazing at my pretend engagement ring? “Yes?” I almost whisper the word.

  “It’s not the Halloween kind of witch, it’s the other kind,” my teacher says to me, as if I didn’t know. “And Cynthia didn’t spell either word right,” she continues. “You’re supposed to be checking that list, or else this exercise is just a waste of time.”

  “I—I lost my place,” I fib. “I’ll be more careful from now on.”

  Ms. Sanchez glides off to help somebody else, and all that is left behind is the smell of flowers.

  She shouldn’t sneak around like that. I think she should wear bells around her ankle or something.

  “How do you really spell it?” Cynthia whispers to me.

  “W-H-I-C-H,” I say, whispering back. “Like in Which way are you going?”

  I’m good at words.

  “I’m sorry I called you the other word,” Cynthia says, rolling her pencil under the palm of her hand. Rrrrr, rrrr, rrrr.

  “That’s okay,” I say. “But I didn’t forget about going over to your house,” I add.

  “So you’ll ask your mom tonight?” Cynthia says.

  I nod my head. I sure will, the nod tells her.

  “And we’re still friends?” Cynthia asks shyly.

  I nod my head again. We sure are!

  4

  A Pain in the Patootie

  “Rrrrr, rrrrr, rrrrr,” Anthony growls under his breath as he scoots his metal truck across the kitchen floor. The truck reaches one of my feet, stops for a second, then rolls right over it. “Rrrrr.”

  “Ow, quit it,” I yell.

  “That didn’t even hurt,” Anthony informs me. He rolls the truck into the hall.

  “How do you know whether it hurt or not?” I call after him. “It’s my foot!”

  It didn’t hurt, as a matter of fact, but only because I am wearing my sneakers. Anthony doesn’t know that, though. He should learn to be more careful.

  Mom pokes her head around the corner. “Are you guys all right in here?”

  “Well, I’m trying to do my homework,” I tell her. “But wherever I go, Anthony follows me.”

  Secretly, I am proud of this. I am an Anthony-magnet.

  “The little guy likes you,” my mom says, beaming.

  “Huh,” I say. I am trying to be modest, but it does make me feel kind of good. In a weird way.

  “Did the timer go off yet?” Mom asks.

  “Nuh-uh,” I say. Its ticka-ticka-ticka noise bounces around the kitchen, and the yummy smells of dinner fill the air.

  “Well, tell me when it rings,” Mom says.

  “When what rings?” Anthony asks, chugging back into the room with his truck. “The telephone? Is it my mommy and daddy?” He looks around the kitchen as if they might be standing there.

  “Oh, no, honey—not yet,” Mom says. “I’m sorry.” She holds out her arms to him, and sure enough, he bursts into tears.

  It’s as though there’s a boo-hoo switch inside him or something.

  “I want to ask you a question,” I say to my mom over the terrible racket Anthony is making.

  “Excuse me?” she asks. She cups her hand to her ear to show me that she can’t hear what I just said.

  “I want to ask you something,” I shout.

  The kitchen timer goes off with its scary l
ittle buzz. That timer always surprises Mom and me, no matter how much we think we are expecting it to ring.

  We all jump. “Wah-h-h-h,” Anthony cries even louder.

  “Can what you want to say wait until later?” Mom yells at me.

  “I guess it’ll have to,” I yell back, mad.

  After dinner, it is time for Anthony’s bath. I try to get as far away from the bathroom as possible, because I do not care to see a bare little boy staggering around like a robot. I already saw that five minutes ago.

  Yuck.

  When Anthony is in the bathtub, it sounds as though there are lots of creatures in there with him—growly bears, squeaky bats, and two or three other kids. He makes a lot of noise for someone who is only four.

  The bathroom door is open, and Mom is rearranging sheets and stuff in the hall closet. She wants to give him some privacy, but I guess she is afraid he might fall and bump his head.

  I think he probably won’t. Maybe we should close the door, give him a lot of privacy, and take our chances.

  (I’m only kidding.)

  Finally, Mom stuffs him into my guest bed for another night of sniffling and snuffling. I don’t have to go to bed yet, though, because I’m older. My mom leaves the light on in my closet so he won’t be scared.

  He is singing Christmas carols as loud as he can, even though it is still September. I guess he is trying to cheer himself up.

  Poor little guy, like my mom says.

  “I want to ask you something,” I tell Mom again. “It’s important.”

  “Okay,” she says, sighing. She looks very tired, and her shirt is wet from Anthony’s bath. We sit down in the living room, as if we are our own guests.

  Maybe we should have a tea party, while we’re at it!

  I say ahem first, like they do in the funnies. “Cynthia Harbison invited me over to her house on Friday,” I say to my mom. “I forgot to ask permission before.”

  Mom smiles. “Do you mean she wants you to come play after school?” she asks.

  “Nuh-uh,” I say, shaking my head. “She wants me to spend the night.”