Only Emma (4 page)

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, 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.

“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.