So Totally Emily Ebers

by Lisa Yee

  I remember when Stanford was a nobody. We used to be best friends, if you can believe that. It was long before he ever picked up a basketball. We could talk Star Trek for hours. I’ve even been to Stanford’s house. He has one of those refrigerators that make ice, plus there’s a two-car garage. We don’t even own a car. A lot of years have passed since Stanford Wong has invited me to his house. Now he pretends he doesn’t even know me — not that I care.

  I retrieve a small red leather-bound notebook from my pocket. On Star Trek, Captain Kirk records his voice onto his Captain’s Log to keep track of what’s happening on his missions. I sort of do the same thing, only instead of recording my voice, I write and sometimes doodle. My Captain’s Log is all worn out. At the start of every new year, I write a word that describes me. In the past I’ve written “hopeful” and “adequate.”

  The basketball game is actually pretty entertaining. Stanford is the best player. He scores a last-minute shot that’s unbelievable. Even I’m cheering, until I realize it’s not like he cured cancer or anything.

  Afterward Stanford waves to the crowd. Just who does he think he is? When he scans the bleachers, our eyes lock. Then he does something I can’t believe. Stanford Wong gives me the Vulcan salute. It was our signal when we were little kids. When we were friends.

  Slowly, I raise my hand to return the salute. Stanford starts toward me, but is mobbed by fans. Then he’s gone.

  I probably just imagined the Vulcan salute. Or that we were ever friends.

  *

  I’m almost home. We live in the upstairs apartment of the Rialto Theater. I reach for my Captain’s Log to record an entry … but wait … my Captain’s Log is missing!

  Quickly, I retrace my steps. By the time I get back to the gym, it’s empty. I race up the bleachers to where I was sitting. I look everywhere but can’t find it. It’s nowhere, like it vaporized.

  *

  “How was the basketball game?” my mother asks. She’s stirring the vegetable soup on the stove and I can smell the onions. It’s pitch-black in the kitchen, so I turn on the light.

  “It was okay.” I pour myself some lemonade and drain the glass.

  Mom brushes the hair off my face. “Almost time for a haircut,” she notes. Her fingers flitter across my brow. “You seem worried.”

  “I’m not,” I tell her as I pull away. Even though she’s blind, it’s impossible to hide anything from her.

  “Did Stanford Wong play?” Mom asks. She’s wearing a blue shirt and a denim skirt. All her clothes are blue or white, so she can mix and match. With her shoulder-length black hair and no-nonsense style, my mother looks like Bonnie Bedelia in Heart Like a Wheel. Dad showed the movie in the Rialto last year during his Speed Week Marathon.

  “Yeah, Stanford played,” I tell her.

  “How did he do?”

  “Great, like always.”

  “You should invite Stanford to dinner sometime,” my mother says as she slices a thick wedge of her homemade bread. “He used to love my cooking.” She ladles the soup into a big bowl and I watch the steam rise, then disappear. “It seems like forever since he’s been here.”

  That’s because it has been forever, I start to tell her, but then stop myself. Why waste the energy? Stanford Wong is never coming back. Besides, I don’t have time to think about him. I’ll bet someone stole my Captain’s Log and is reading it right now. “Loser,” they’re probably saying. “Marley Sandelski is a loser.”

  “Take this to your dad for me,” Mom says, handing me a tray. “Be careful not to spill.”

  *

  My father is in the projection booth of the Rialto. It’s cramped and loud, but I love it. When I was a baby and had trouble sleeping, my mother would bring me here, knowing that the steady purr of the projector would lull me to sleep.

  The previews are just ending. My father cues the theater music, then closes the heavy red velvet curtains that flank the screen down below. There are only a handful of people in the Rialto tonight. Still, he makes sure they get a good show. Dad fades the lights, then, three … two … one … the curtains reopen and the feature film begins. I hand him the soup. He eases down into his swivel chair and cups the bowl in his hands. “Tell your mother thank you,” he says as he dips a piece of the bread into it. “Want to stay? It’s Casablanca.”

  “I’ll stay until Victor Lazlo shows up,” I tell him. I like Victor Lazlo. He’s a man of mystery. “Then I have to get ready for school.”

  “I almost forgot,” Dad says. “You start seventh grade tomorrow. Are you looking forward to it?”

  “No.”

  “Marley,” he says, “it’ll be fine. You’ll see. Just be yourself.”

  Excuse me? Being myself all these years is the reason I’m a nobody.

  I go to my room and reach for the Captain Kirk cookie jar on the top shelf. Twenty, forty, sixty … I have over $130. This year the Super Star Trek Convention is in Los Angeles and only a twenty-minute bus ride away. Can you guess who’s going? That’s right. Me. $130 is enough for a ticket, and food, and even a signed poster or two. It’s the one thing I’ve been looking forward to.

  I put the money back and get ready for seventh grade, which basically means I sit on my bed and dread tomorrow. Will I get shoved into the lockers? Will I get punched between classes? Will I get spit on? Oh, wait. The real questions are: How often will I get shoved into the lockers? How many times will I get punched between classes? How much spit will land on me?

  I close my eyes and try to imagine what tomorrow would be like if I lived in an alternate universe. As I drift off to sleep, I can see myself walking down the hallway. Everyone knows who I am. I’m no longer invisible. Instead, I am a somebody.

  LISA YEE’s award-winning novels include Millicent Min, Girl Genius; Stanford Wong Flunks Big-Time (an ALA Notable Book); So Totally Emily Ebers; Bobby vs. Girls (Accidentally); Bobby the Brave (Sometimes); Warp Speed; Absolutely Maybe; and The Kidney Hypothetical. Please visit her website at www.lisayee.com.

  Text copyright © 2007 by Lisa Yee.

  All rights reserved. Published by Arthur A. Levine Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc., Publishers since 1920. SCHOLASTIC and the LANTERN LOGO are trademarks and/or registered trademarks of Scholastic Inc.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Yee, Lisa.

  So totally Emily Ebers / by Lisa Yee. — 1st ed.

  cm.

  Summary: In a series of letters to her absent father, twelve-year-old Emily Ebers deals with moving cross-country, her parents’ divorce, a new friendship, and her first serious crush.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-439-83847-4

  ISBN-10: 0-439-83847-9

  [1. Moving, Household—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Divorce—Fiction. 4. Parent and child—Fiction. 5. California—Fiction. 6. Letters—Fiction.] I. Title.

  PZ7.Y3638So 2007 [Fic]—dc22 2006022738

  First edition, April 2007

  Cover photograph © 2007 by Michael Frost Agency

  Photo illustration by Rick Schwab and Elizabeth B. Parisi

  Cover design by Elizabeth B. Parisi

  e-ISBN 978-0-545-31620-0

  All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this publication may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher. For information regarding permission, write to Scholastic Inc., Attention: Permissions Department, 557 Broadway, New York, NY 10012.

 

 

 
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