by Sally Warner
Except she’s not a very good friend. I learned that the hard way. Cynthia will talk about you behind your back—or to your face—just to stir things up when she’s bored, or to make herself interesting. And she hardly ever gets in trouble for it.
For Cynthia Harbison, crime pays.
She does look “ just right” today, however. She is wearing a short, faded denim jacket over T-shirts layered so carefully that their bottom hems seem to make little ribbons of color around her hips. And she is wearing jeans that flare out perfectly at the bottom.
“Hi, Cynthia,” Annie Pat says, but Cynthia is already long gone and up the stairs, heading toward Heather and Fiona, her loyal sidekicks, who are waiting by the school’s front door. Each of those two girls is okay on her own, I have learned, but they change for the worse when they’re together—or, for sure, when they’re with Cynthia.
The only girl in our class who gets along well with everyone is Krysten “Kry” Rodriguez, who started school late this year. Kry isn’t even here yet. She’s really pretty, but she’s not stuck-up about it.
I hate to admit it, but I think I might be stuck-up a little, if I were that pretty. But I would be kind.
“Want to go hang out on the playground?” I ask Annie Pat. “There’s still ten minutes before school starts. I’ll let you wear my jacket,” I add, before she can tell me it’s too cold to play outside.
“But what’ll you wear?” Annie Pat asks.
“I’ll be okay,” I say bravely, steering her toward the chain link gate. “I have to tell you something important. But you have to promise not to tell anyone.”
“Okay,” Annie Pat says, her eyes wide. She pokes her arms down into my jacket’s pre-warmed sleeves and waits patiently. The cold sinks into my sweaty, long-sleeved T-shirt like icewater, but I just stand there, trying to figure out where to start.
“Cross my heart and hope to die,” Annie Pat says, quoting the old promise, and so I start talking before she gets to the part that goes, “And stick a needle in my eye.” Because—yow!
“My-mom-went-out-on-a-date-last-Friday-night,” I say, speaking as fast as I can. I peek around to see if anyone else is listening in, but so far, so good.
“Huh? Say that again, Emma,” Annie Pat tells me. “Only slower this time.”
“My mother went out on a date,” I repeat, hating the words.
“Cool,” Annie Pat says, her navy-blue eyes shining with the so-called romance of it all. “Was the man handsome? Did he bring her candy and flowers?”
“I didn’t meet him,” I tell her. “I don’t even know his name.”
Annie Pat’s eyes grow wide. “So it could be anybody?”
“Anybody in Oak Glen,” I say, narrowing it down a little. “And don’t look so happy about it, Annie Pat. Because this is a disaster. It’s—it’s nuclear acid.”
Annie Pat’s brow wrinkles. She wants to be a scientist when she grows up, too, and she probably knows there isn’t any such thing.
“I mean it’s like nuclear acid,” I say quickly. “It’s nuclear acid – ish.”
“But—why?” Annie Pat asks, still frowning a little as she decides not to challenge me about the acid. “Maybe he’s nice?” she says cautiously, making it a question.
“He is not nice,” I say fiercely.
And because Annie Pat is my friend, she slowly nods her head in agreement. “Not nice,” she echoes as we walk to class.
My brain feels as though it is pounding inside my skull.
And I think I may be getting a stomachache, too.
Thanks, Mom.
4
Word Search
While Ms. Sanchez takes attendance, I look out the window at the cloudy sky. I squint at the trees and try to tell if it is raining yet—because I already know I’m “Here.” Or “Present,” as EllRay or Stanley will probably say when Ms. Sanchez calls their names. So I don’t have to pay attention.
Ms. Sanchez always wears her shiny black hair pulled back into a bun, but on her it looks good. She uses her engagement hand a lot when she is explaining things, because she likes to watch her ring sparkle. Ms. Sanchez is engaged to marry Mr. Timberlake—not the famous one who’s on TV all the time, even though he’s still handsome—but we don’t know when the wedding will be.
I secretly wish I could be her flower girl.
They are going to live happily ever after. Somebody has to.
Ms. Sanchez is wearing very pretty colors today, probably to cheer herself up because of the weather: a coral sweater, which Annie Pat will really like because she wants to be a marine biologist, and real coral is alive and lives under the sea, and dark chocolate-colored boots, which I really like because—mmm, chocolate.
Ms. Sanchez wears such cute outfits! In fact, Fiona McNulty has started a secret fashion notebook where she draws what our teacher is wearing each day.
I think Ms. Sanchez dresses so nicely because she’s in love. But Annie Pat and I have promised each other that even if we never fall in love, we will wear cute clothes when we grow up, just like Ms. Sanchez does. We will never dress the way our moms do, in baby-spitty turtlenecks and pull-on pants—like Annie Pat’s mother, because of Annie Pat’s baby brother, Murphy—or in pullovers, jeans, and boring flat sandals, which my mom wears, because she works at home.
Scientists can look as cute as anyone, we have decided. And they can wear extremely high heels.
“I have a word-search activity paper for you to do this morning,” Ms. Sanchez announces, surprising us—because activity papers are almost like games. They’re usually for rainy Friday afternoons, not Monday mornings, when you’re supposed to work like crazy to make up for having relaxed your brain all weekend. “And it’s dinosaur themed,” Ms. Sanchez adds, which makes the boys in our class very happy.
“Yes!” Corey whispers, pumping his fist in the air. He sits next to me.
Jared Matthews glares at him, then sits up importantly in his seat, because dinosaurs are “his thing,” as he likes to tell everyone. It is obvious that Jared intends to be the best dinosaur word-search kid in our class.
Jared’s real thing is being a bully, in my opinion, and bossing smaller kids around—which means just about everyone, because he is so huge. Jared has swirly brown hair, large hands, and lots of freckles.
Annie Pat and I are a little scared of Jared, because he has a very bad temper.
Not this morning, though! This morning, Jared is all smiles. He grabs his word-search paper eagerly and scrabbles in his desk for his yellow highlighter pen.
“And—you may begin,” Ms. Sanchez says, sinking into her desk chair. She starts correcting a stack of papers.
I look down at the list of words at the bottom of my word search. Some of the words, like Jurassic, carnivore, and herbivore, are about dinosaurs, and some of the words—Triceratops, Allosaurus, and Raptor—are the names of dinosaurs.
But I can’t concentrate. “Cool. Is he handsome?” Annie Pat had said when I told her about my mom’s date.
I look at the big square block of letters that form the word search, and my headache starts to pound again, and my stomach churns. Were those the only four words Annie Pat could think of to say? She didn’t get it at all!
“Stop daydreaming, Emma,” Ms. Sanchez says, glancing over at me.
So I look at my word search again. The letters all blur together, though, and they do not start forming any of the given words at all. But next to me, Corey is drawing wavy yellow lines up and down, back and forth across his block of letters, and he’s gleefully checking off words at the bottom of the page.
Check.
Check.
Check!
And Jared seems to be working even faster than Corey.
So I start drawing a yellow line through anything that even looks like a word. Lopisol, greenop, and nodub. Oonah, rigneg, and rorance.
Corey glances over at my paper and begins to look nervous.
Hey, this is fun! It’s so much fun that I start to g
iggle, and Corey shoots me a dirty look. Now he is falling further behind Jared.
But I don’t even care. Maybe Ms. Sanchez will ask me to use my words in a sentence. “The greenop grazed in the rorance forest, until the nodub lopisol came along and ate him right before the meteor hit,” I’ll tell everyone, just as if it really happened.
And how can anyone say it didn’t happen? Do people actually think that Triceratops knew they were called Triceratops? Maybe they thought of themselves as greenops, instead.
“Emma?” a voice behind me says.
Wow! How did Ms. Sanchez sneak up behind me?
I try to hide my fake words from her eyes. “I’d like to talk to you for a minute, please, Miss Lopisol,” she murmurs. “In the back of the room. Eyes on your papers, people,” she calls out to the kids who are now staring at me: Annie Pat, who is looking worried, and EllRay, who is looking sympathetic, and Cynthia, whose eyes are shining with excitement.
Sometimes Cynthia Harbison
reminds me of a jackal. My favorite nature book says that jackals are “opportunistic carnivores.” I think that means they’ll pounce on any animal that’s down— like Cynthia does with me—and then eat it.
I slink to the back of the class, behind Ms. Sanchez. She takes me gently by the shoulder. “What’s up, Emma?” she says, which reminds me so much of that cartoon guy Elmer Fudd for a second that I start to giggle again. I think I’m nervous.
“Sorry,” I say, trying to make my mouth obey me and stop laughing.
Ms. Sanchez scowls—and she’s still pretty. “This is not funny, Emma,” she tells me. “You’re not acting at all like yourself today.”
She’s right! She’s right! Because I am not myself today. I am a girl whose father lives in England and whose mother is now dating a strange man.
Which leaves me all alone, in case you didn’t notice. I’m practically an orphan!
I try to find the words that will make Ms. Sanchez like me again, without me having to tell her my private business. “I’m sorry. But—my stomach hurts,” I say, clutching at my middle.
Ta-da! I have instantly turned a small worry-ache in my stomach into what Ms. Sanchez must be thinking are sharp, stabbing pains, with the possible forecast of hurling in the immediate future, and I feel only a little bit guilty.
“I think I’d better go home,” I add, my voice weak. “Before I—you know.”
Before I vomit, I add silently. Before I vomit, Ms. Sanchez! All over your cute brown boots!
I don’t say this last part out loud, but I don’t have to. Teachers everywhere hate it when a student throws up in class, because then they have to take care of the sick kid and wait for the custodian with the sawdust at the same time. Also, one or two other kids in class are sure to start gagging, just thinking about what happened.
Vomiting can be contagious—like yawning, only a hundred times worse, because yawning never involves a custodian with sawdust.
Ms. Sanchez has already stepped back a couple of paces, probably to protect her boots. “I’ll call the school nurse and tell her you’re coming,” she says in a great big hurry.
“Can’t you just call my mom?” I ask in a wheedly, about-to-barf way. “She’s home. She works at home.”
“That’ll be up to the nurse,” Ms. Sanchez tells me. “Now, go gather your things, Emma. Remember to get your jacket from the closet, too. And I hope we see you back here soon, honey. Feel better.”
And do you know what?
I already do!
5
Happily Ever Emma
“Of course you’re well enough to go back to school tomorrow,” my mom tells me right after dinner. “Look at what you just ate, for heaven’s sake.”
Meatballs, mashed potatoes, and peas. And applesauce for dessert.
Sure, I ate everything. But maybe I was only being polite.
“In my humble opinion,” Mom says, “you were well enough today to stay in school.” She gives me a look. “The nurse said so, Emma. In fact, I don’t know why I let you talk me into bringing you home. I figured you needed a day off, so I gave in. But don’t press your luck, sweetie.”
“I did need a day off,” I agree. “And about that so-called school nurse, I don’t think she really even is one! She doesn’t wear a uniform, Mom. Just regular clothes. And she keeps saying ‘tummy,’ instead of ‘stomach,’ which is just wrong, if you’re a real nurse. Sure, she has a stethoscope and a name tag, but that doesn’t make it official. Anyone can buy those things in a costume store.”
Mom laughs. “So you think the school nurse is pulling off some elaborate stunt because she really, really, really wants little kids to sneeze on her all day long? And upchuck in her office?”
“Hey, I just ate,” I remind my mom, cradling my stomach—which really could still be queasy, for all she knows.
But I do think it’s funny how my mom says “upchuck.” What a weird word. It reminds me of woodchuck. Did you know that a woodchuck is the same thing as a groundhog? And that woodchucks are mostly vegetarians, and by the end of October they are fast asleep under the ground—for the entire winter? Sounds okay to me, the way things are going.
“You will be at school tomorrow,” Mom says slowly. She gives one last wipe to the kitchen counter with a Santa Claus dish towel and then throws the towel into an almost-full laundry basket.
Then she tosses her library
book into the basket, too. “I’ll be downstairs doing the wash,” she says in her coolest voice. “Remember, Emma, don’t open the front door to anyone, no matter what.” We usually do the laundry together on Saturday morning, not Monday night, so it is clear that my mom is just trying to get away from me for a while.
“But what if there’s an emergency?” I ask, trying to sound pathetic. “I won’t be able to call you. You lost your cell phone, remember?”
“You lost it, Emma, and there won’t be an emergency. But if there is, start yelling, and I’ll hear you. Or dial nine-one-one.”
“What if I get hungry?”
“In the next hour?” Mom asks, smiling. “Eat some fruit, Emma. You have my permission. Live it up.”
“What if I get scared?”
“Turn on all the lights. Or call Annie Pat. Look, Emma,” my mother says, leaning forward to make sure I hear each word. “It’s not as if I’m taking off for Las Vegas. I will just be down one flight of stairs and around the corner, in our condominium’s laundry room. You’ve been half-a-step away from me all day long, ever since you talked your way home from school this morning. So I really need some time alone with a washing machine, a dryer, and a good book. Understand?”
“No,” I mumble. Because I will never understand why my mom doesn’t want to be with me every single minute of every single day. Until last Friday, I thought she did.
Me, and only me! We were going to live happily ever Emma.
I mean happily ever after.
This is all the fault of that date.
“Good,” Mom says, which proves she wasn’t listening to me.
I’m not really afraid of being almost alone for an hour, even when it’s dark outside. Oak Glen is a safe place to live, and Candelaria is a quiet street, and our condo is packed with people—mostly old—who peek out of their windows when anyone even tiptoes by. But it makes me feel nervous when my very own mom acts like it’s a chore just being around me.
I try to go over my spelling list, but how can you practice spelling words all by yourself?
Luckily, I can stop even trying, because the kitchen phone is ringing. Brrr-rrr! “Hi, A.P.,” I say, picking up the receiver—because I am sure it is Annie Pat calling to tell me how wrong my mom was for going on that date.
“Hello,” an unfamiliar man’s voice says. “Is Maggie there?”
Maggie is my mom: Margaret “Maggie” McGraw.
It’s that man she went out with. I’m sure of it!
My brain is suddenly flooded with choices. One, I could just hang up, or two, I could pretend
I only speak some strange foreign language, or three, I could say he has the wrong number and then hang up, or four, I could say that my mother doesn’t want to talk to him ever again, or five, I could say, “She can’t come to the phone right now,” and then take a message, which is what I’m supposed to do if my mom happens to be busy when somebody calls.
Usually, she’s in the bathroom when I say, “She can’t come to the phone.”
Every kid knows that you never say, “My mother is gone, gone, gone! And who knows when she’ll be back? I am all alone here, and totally unprotected!” when some stranger calls on the phone.
I don’t have the nerve to choose numbers one, two, three, or four, so I panic and choose number
five, which my mom would say was the right choice to make. “I’m sorry, but Maggie can’t come to the phone right now. May I take a message?” I look around for paper and a pencil. I can’t find either, but who cares? It’s not like I’m really gonna write anything down.
“Is this Emma?” the voice asks, all friendly and jolly. He knows my name after one date with my mom? This is too much!
“It all depends,” I tell him in my frostiest voice.
“Well, okay,” he says, sounding a little confused. “This is Dennis Engelman. And it’s a complicated message, so I’ll go slowly. Are you ready to write it all down?”
“Sure,” I say, trying to hold the phone and peel a banana—fruit, Mom!—at the same time. I also practice winking one eye, which makes the clock on the wall seem to jump back and forth. Cool.
“It’s about this coming Wednesday night,” he tells me slowly, so I can supposedly get every detail of the message right. “I can’t make it up to Oak Glen that night after all. My out-of-town client is arriving in San Diego a day early, and I’m going to have to take him out for a big seafood dinner. So I have to cancel my date with your mom.”
Awww.