Only Emma (12 page)

After Anthony and his mother are gone, Cynthia, my mom, and I sit down for dinner. We are having spaghetti, Anthony’s favorite. I give a big sigh and slurp up a few noodles in his honor.

The three of us are pretty quiet.

When dinner is finished, Cynthia and I wander back into my bedroom. Mom has already taken the used sheets off Anthony’s bed so she can wash them. That’s one good thing! Cynthia and I can sleep on regular beds tonight, in my own room.

So everything is back to normal, except for the part about me missing Anthony.

Cynthia dumps her little round suitcase out onto my bed. She looks at the markers she brought for playing school with Anthony, and the paper, and the prizes she brought for him: a granola bar and an eraser shaped like a goldfish.

I want that cute eraser. “You can play school with me,” I tell Cynthia.

“It’s not the same,” she says, shaking her head. She picks up the granola bar, though. “Want to to split it?”

“Sure,” I say, and so we do.

   11   

Here is What i Think

It is Saturday morning. After breakfast, Cynthia and I are sitting on the little wall in front of the condo, waiting for Cynthia’s father to come pick her up. She turns to me and asks, “So, what was it like, anyway, having a little brother?”

“He wasn’t really my brother. And I only had him for five days,” I say.

“But what was it like?”

I think for a minute. “Well, I hated it at first,” I say, remembering. “And I never really
loved
parts of it. Not the mess and the noise, or watching my mom give him presents and hugs. And everything in the house got sticky, and the VCR
was always blaring away, and my whole room smelled like peanut butter after a couple of days. But I don’t know, I kind of got to really like Anthony.”

“How come, when he wouldn’t even play right?” Cynthia asks. She is frowning as if she is trying to do subtraction at the board, which is the hardest kind. In front of other people, I mean. “You couldn’t make that kid do anything,” she reminds me.

“Yeah, but I didn’t
want
to make him do stuff,” I tell her. “I just got used to having him around, I guess—doing nothing. I like him,” I say again.

I look down the road. Maybe Anthony and his mom are on their way here now, to pick up the rest of his stuff. I kind of hope they don’t come until Cynthia is gone, though. Because Anthony and I would have more fun without her being here.

“Huh,” Cynthia says, as if that is not the
answer she was looking for. “Well, I like being an only child. I would hate it if my mom and dad had another kid,” she adds, smoothing her hair back.

It is already smooth, though. It always is.

“Well, I like being an only child, too,” I say, even though I am not as sure about this as I was a week ago.

Just then, Cynthia’s father drives up in his navy-blue Audi. So she says good-bye to me, and away they go.

But I stay on the little wall, in the shade.

Here is what I think: The good parts about being an only child are that nobody messes with your toys and stuff, and you get to watch what you want on TV, and your mom gives lots of everything—hugs, toys, attention—just to you.

The bad thing about being an only child is—no Anthony. Only Emma.

Oh, sure, I guess I will get used to being alone again. I will probably even like it. But for right now …

Yuck.

Turn the page to read an excerpt from the next book featuring the lovable Emma:

Not-so-

Weird

Emma

   1   

Are You Listening?

“Settle down,” Ms. Sanchez calls out as we straggle into the classroom. She claps her hands once, and her engagement ring flashes. You should see it.

You can tell that she means business. Everyone sits down fast, as if we are playing a game of musical chairs. I sit down fast, too. There is a scuffle over by the window. “Ow. Quit it,” Annie Pat says to Jared Matthews. She rubs the top part of her arm.

I secretly call Jared “Jar-Head,” because he is so mean to little kids, especially the ones in kindergarten and first grade. Just because we are
in third grade doesn’t mean we have to be bullies, does it? Also, his mud-brown guinea-pig swirly hair always looks as though he has been sleeping on it—or as though an invisible lid was just twisted off his head. He is the biggest kid in my class.

My name is Emma McGraw. I am the second littlest kid in class, next to EllRay Jakes. EllRay is small in size but large in noise.

Jared holds up both of his square hands and makes his eyes big and round to show how innocent he is. “It was an accident,” he says. But he is making sure that the other boys—especially Kevin, EllRay, and Corey—see that he is laughing at Annie Pat.

“I have an announcement to make,” Ms. Sanchez says. Her eyes are sparkling. It must be a good announcement, not a bad one, like
Uh-oh
,
you all have to take home this letter to your parents about head lice
, or a confusing one, like
Guess what? The P.T.A. is having another candy sale, even though everyone keeps telling you not to eat candy
.