Only Emma
Authors: Sally Warner,Jamie Harper
Thanks a Lot, Anthony.
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, suspicious 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.
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Only Emma
Only
Emma
Sally Warner
Illustrated by
Jamie Harper
PUFFIN BOOKS
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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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, 2006
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.
Only Emma / by Sally Warner; illustrated by Jamie Harper
p. cm.
Summary: Third-grader Emma’s peaceful life as an only child is disrupted
when she has to temporarily share her tidy bedroom with four-year-old
Anthony Scarpetto, a bona fide “pain in the patootie.”
EISBN: 9781101567593
[1. Only child—Fiction. 2. Single-parent families—Fiction.
3. Interpersonal relations—Fiction.] I. Harper, Jamie, ill. II. Title.
PZ7.W24644On 2004 [Fic]—dc22 2004012478
Set in Bitstream Carmina
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 one and only
Julia Bosley! — S. W.
For Kate—J.H.
There Are No Koalas in Oak Glen, California
1
Crazy Anthony
Anthony Scarpetto saw me reaching for that puzzle piece, but he grabbed it first. And he doesn’t even know where it goes. “Give it,” I say to him, but he does not let me have it.
“You’re not the boss of me, Emma McGraw,” he says, but that’s not true. He is only four, and I am eight, which is twice as much. Of course I am the boss.
Besides, we’re at my house. You are always the boss—of other kids, anyway—when you are at your own house. That’s the rule, even though no one ever wrote it down.
Until now.
Why am I even
trying
to do a puzzle with a four-year-old baby on a Sunday night? Because my mom told me I had to be nice to Anthony, that’s why. She’s friends with his mom and dad. They used to be our neighbors at our old house, before we moved to this condo.
In my opinion, a condo is way worse than a house. You always have to worry about whether or not you are bothering your neighbors, for one thing, even though they never worry about bothering you—with their noise, with the stupid decorations on their porches, with their weird cooking smells.
Other people’s cooking is just plain
strange
.
And there are lots of other bad things about living in a condo, but I’m too busy keeping an eye on Anthony to mention them.
My mom and Anthony’s mom are sitting in our kitchen right now. They are drinking Constant Comment tea and yak-yak-yakking.
Anthony Scarpetto has black curly hair,
brown eyes, and fat pink cheeks. He is not as cute as he sounds, though—and not nearly as cute as he thinks, even though he is wearing his striped pajamas already. I guess that’s so his mom can just stuff him into bed right away to get rid of him when they finally go home.
I am so glad that I do not have a little brother! Or a little sister either, for that matter. I am an only child, and I like it that way.
Only Emma.
“Give it,” I say to him again, but I know Anthony is not going to give me the puzzle piece. I’ll be lucky if he doesn’t eat it just to make me mad.