Best Friend Emma (8 page)

Then she makes a few good-bye noises, hangs up the phone, and turns to face me.

And I thought things were bad before!

I have a feeling round three is about to begin.

     
9
     

It is a cold but sunny Friday morning, and the world smells like wet fallen leaves, and school starts in about twenty minutes, and I have a headache from being yelled at by my mom last night. She told me that not only did I hurt Annie Pat’s feelings, which I did by accident, but I lied about what happened, which I did on purpose. (But it seemed like a good idea at the time.)

So I’m not doing
anything
tomorrow—except writing letters of apology to Annie Pat
and
my mom. Ugh. Maybe I should just write a letter of apology to the whole world, while I’m at it!

And now, worst of all, I have to un-invite Kry
Rodriguez to the cool Saturday lunch and movie. We were going to have such a good time that Kry would have wanted to be my friend for sure, even though I’m divorced. Well, not me, but you know what I mean.

And Cynthia would have learned an important lesson. (Not to mess with me.)

“Who are you looking for, the Easter bunny?” EllRay Jakes asks me, teasing. He hops up onto the picnic table the girls usually use, but I don’t even tell him to scram—partly because Jared Matthews and Stanley Washington are on their way over to the table, too. And there aren’t any other third-grade girls around to help defend it.

“Yeah. Even though it’s almost Thanksgiving, I’m looking for bunnies,” I say, pretending to be bored. “And here come some now.”

“Yo. What’s happenin’?” Jared bellows, flinging his grimy, skate-stickered backpack onto the table. Yuck.

“Nothin’,” EllRay mumbles, because he’s a little
bit scared of Jared, I think. Like I said before, EllRay is the littlest kid in the third grade, and Jared is the biggest. “Emma’s just waiting for—”

“I
know
who she’s waiting for,” Jared interrupts. “Kry Rodriguez, that’s who. Her new best friend,” he jeers. “Only Cynthia wants her, too.”

Even the
boys
know about our battle for Kry? I thought they never noticed anything!

“Who cares what Cynthia wants?” I say—under my breath, of course.

“Ooh!” Stanley says, pretending to be shocked. “I’m gonna tell Cynthia you said that.”

“Go ahead and tell,” I say, since he’ll probably do it anyway. “I’m just trying to be nice to the new girl, that’s all.”

“Well, now’s your chance,” Jared says, pointing.

It’s true. Kry Rodriguez is heading toward the picnic table! She waves hello at me from across the lawn, then swings her shiny hair back over her shoulders. She is wearing a red fleecy top, black Levis, and black ankle boots.

I really, really, really want a pair of boots like those.

“Hi,” I say, jumping off the table so I can meet her halfway—without those nosy boys listening in on every word. “I have to talk to you, Kry. It’s important. In fact, I was going to call you last night, only I don’t have your phone number yet.”

“I wanted to call you, too,” Kry says, peeking at me through her long bangs. An
I’m-sorry
look
is already spreading across her face. “Because it turns out that we have relatives coming on Saturday. They’re staying for a whole week, until after Thanksgiving. So my mom says I can’t go out to lunch with you.”

I instantly decide that there’s no reason to un-invite Kry for Saturday, since she can’t come anyway. Why tell her what I almost had to do? “Lunch and a movie,” I remind her, because I want Kry to realize just how special Saturday was going to be.

“And a movie,” Kry echoes, looking even sadder. “Oh, and by the way,” she whispers, “she’s divorced, too. My mom, I mean.”

Huh?

Hooray!

“Oh. That’s too bad,” I say with a grown-up-sounding sigh.

Kry shrugs to show me that yeah, it’s too bad, but no big deal. She’s okay with it. “Where’s that girl with the red hair?” she asks, peering around
the filling-up lawn area as she changes the subject. “She looks really nice. Maybe you can ask
her
to go with you.”

“Her name’s Annie Pat. And she
is
nice,” I say gloomily. “She used to be my best friend, in fact.”

“Used to be?” Kry says, blinking her surprise.

“It’s a long story,” I tell her as Fiona, Cynthia, and Heather come swooping across the lawn, heading in our direction. They are all dressed in various shades of pink today. Even Cynthia’s headband is pink. With sparkles in it.

No sign of Annie Pat yet. I think my headache just got a whole lot worse.

“Kry,” Cynthia squeals, giving her a little hug. “You look so cute today. Love your boots!”

“You look cute, too,” Kry tells her. “You guys look very—
pink.
”

“We are,” Cynthia exclaims, as if looking pink is a good thing. She twirls around and then pauses to rearrange her glittering headband. “And next time we dress alike, I’ll call you, too, Kry, and tell you what color to wear.”

Score—for Cynthia.

“Oh. Thanks, I guess,” Kry says weakly. “But I’m not really sure if—”

“It’ll be great,” Cynthia interrupts, grinning. She shoots me a
ha-ha-on-you
look. “Where’s Annie Pat?” she says, hands on her hips.

Does
everyone
have to ask me that?

I suddenly realize that Annie Pat probably isn’t even coming to school today. She must have told her mom she had tummy trouble again—and Mrs. Masterson is too worn out from having a new baby to argue with her.

Lucky Annie Pat, to have such a frazzled mom.

“But Cynthia,” Heather says in kind of a snotty way, “you’d better not call Annie Pat and Emma the next time we get dressed up, because pink doesn’t look good with red hair.”

“Everything looks good with red hair,” I tell them in a loud, clear voice, and I turn and walk away.

What have I done?
I’ve lost Annie Pat Masterson forever, and she was my very best friend.

I got greedy, that’s what happened.

“Hey, Emma,” EllRay Jakes calls out from the picnic table. “You forgot your book bag.”

“Keep-away,” Jared cries, delighted.

“Keep-away!” Stanley chimes in as he tosses my extremely nice book bag to Jared.

Leave it to a bunch of boys to make a bad situation even worse.

     
10