Super Emma (5 page)

“Oh, honey,” Mom exclaims, and she scoots her chair back and holds out her arms, so I dive
into her lap. She makes a noise that sounds like
“urf.”
And I can’t help it—I cry for a little while, and she rubs my back, saying, “There, there.”

Sometimes I feel like saying,
“Where, where?”
when she does that.

“I’m scared,” I tell my mom. “Jared’s so big and mean!”

“But Emma,” Mom says, “I’m sure he would never really hit you. You’ve stood up to him before, right? You did it just yesterday, in fact.”

“Mom, I
told
you! I wasn’t thinking when I grabbed EllRay’s toy away from him, so that doesn’t count. See, that’s the trouble,” I tell her.

“What’s the trouble?”

“Everyone thinks I was trying to be so brave,” I say, sniffling. “They were even calling me Su-Su-
Super
Emma all day long.”

Mom gives me a little hug. “Well, that’s not such a bad nickname, is it? I think it’s pretty cool, in fact.”

“It was bad the way
they
said it,” I tell her.
“And then even today, Annie Pat thought I was being brave again when Jared started picking on me and I called him a name. And I wasn’t being brave, I was being mad—mad and scared. That’s not the same thing as brave, is it? So it really doesn’t count, either.”

“But Emma …”

“I don’t
want
to be brave,” I interrupt. “I just want everyone to leave me alone!”

Mom ruffles my tangly hair. “Honey, ‘brave’ is only a word. It can mean a lot of different things. But did you apologize to EllRay the way we talked about—for embarrassing him yesterday?” she asks me.

“I never got a
cha-a-a-ance
,” I wail. “He was too busy being mean to me! Oh, don’t make me go to school tomorrow, okay? Have mercy!”

“Well, honey,” my mom says in her most reasonable voice, “you’re going to have to return to school sooner or later, so it might as well be
tomorrow. Does Ms. Sanchez know any of this is going on?”

“She knows they’re calling me ‘Super Emma,’ anyway,” I say gloomily, wiping my face on my sleeve. “But she probably doesn’t know why.”

“Maybe I should go in and talk to her,” Mom suggests. “Perhaps that would help.”

“No, that would
hurt
,” I tell her. “Ms. Sanchez can’t follow Jared around for the rest of his life, can she?”

“Of course not,” Mom says.

“Then sooner or later, he’ll get me,” I tell her.

“But Emma, if he threatened to beat you up, I—”

“He—he didn’t exactly say he would beat me
up
,” I admit. “He said he would get even with me. In front of all the kids. At recess tomorrow.”

“Hmm,” Mom says, thinking.

“You’ll just make everything worse if you tell Ms. Sanchez,” I tell her. “Promise you won’t.”

“But listen, Emma,” Mom says, “you’re really in a pickle here, and I think you need some help getting out of it.”

Mom says “in a pickle” when she means that a person is in trouble.

Or else she says “in a jam.” She likes food talk, I guess.

“Well, maybe I could get out of the pickle if I stayed home tomorrow,” I suggest, snuggling up. I am trying to remind her of our long history together. We go way back.

“That’s no solution,” Mom says, sighing.

“Then I’m going to be pickle-
relish
,” I tell her. “That’s all. But I’ll go to school if you really want me to,” I add. “I might as well get it over with.”

It feels as though there is a rock in my stomach.
But I climb out of her lap, sit down again in my own chair, stab another bite of meat loaf, dip it, and then chomp it as hard as I can.

Mom watches me and just shakes her head. “You’re braver than you think you are, honey,” she says.

Huh
, I think,
that’s easy for her to say
.

My mom pulls our car up under the big pepper tree in front of our school. She reaches over and twiddles with my hair. “Now remember, honey,” she says, “if things look like they are getting out of control with Jared, I want you to tell Ms. Sanchez—at once. Do you promise me?”

“Okay,” I say, crossing my fingers where she can’t see them. I straighten them for a second to undo my seat belt, and then I grab my backpack.

“I’ll be home all day,” Mom continues. “You call me if—if anything happens.”

She means if Jared gives me a bloody nose or
something. “Nothing is going to happen,” I lie.

I
know
that I am telling a lie, because Jared is going to get even for sure. And for no reason, really, except that he is a boy who likes things to get all stirred up. But there’s nothing I can do about that. That’s just his nature.

Mom is still looking worried. She puts her hand on my sweater, as if her magic touch will keep me from leaving the safety of our red VW. “It’s just that Jared is so big, Emma—and you’re so tiny. He might hurt you by accident.”

I shake away her hand. “You make me sound like an elf or something,” I grumble. “I’m not
that
small.”

Mom gives me a nervous smile, the kind that doesn’t reach her eyes. “Of course you aren’t an elf, darling. But a big boy like Jared shouldn’t go around hitting a little girl, that’s all. A boy shouldn’t hit
any
girl. Or even another boy, for that matter.”

My mom can be very old-fashioned. As if
a girl wouldn’t get in trouble at Oak Glen for slugging a boy—or another girl! This is an equal-opportunity school when it comes to getting in trouble.

“Oh, dear,” my mom says, “I think I should go into the school office and talk to someone. I can’t just do
nothing
, Em. I’m going to park this stupid car.”

“Well, you can’t park the car, not here in the loading zone,” I tell her. My heart is thunka-thunking underneath my sweater, because I just want her to go home. “You’ll get a ticket, and tickets are expensive,” I remind her.

“Oh, you’re right,” she mutters. She peers all around, looking for a regular parking place—which is impossible to find on a Thursday morning when school is just about to start.

“There’s Annie Pat waiting for me,” I say real fast, before Mom can come up with another terrible plan. “I’ll-be-okay-I-love-you-
bye
,” I say, and I jump out of the car.

“Bye,”
I can see my mom’s mouth say through the closed window as she gives me a weak little wave.

I try to walk bouncy toward Annie Pat, exactly like a girl who does not know that today is going to be the worst day of her life. Because I’m pretty sure that Mom is still watching me.

But then I hear our car give its little cough and then start up again. She is pulling away from the curb, I think, picturing it.

And I am on my own.

“You should have stayed home,” Annie Pat advises me in a tight, worried voice. “You should have changed schools, or moved.” We are about to take our seats for roll. Over by the window, Cynthia and Fiona and Heather are taking peeks at me and whispering together. They look worried, as if it is lunchtime already and Jared has just given me two black eyes.

Cynthia is wearing a brand-new pink top, as if this is a special occasion.

Thanks a lot, Cynthia!

“Why should I have stayed home?” I say to Annie Pat, feeling grouchy all of a sudden. “I thought you said I was so brave.”

“Well, you
were
brave, yesterday,” Annie Pat says. “But,” she adds, “I don’t think a person ever really knows how brave they’re going to be the next time something bad happens. Every single time, it’s new. Like when I went to the doctor last week, I had to get a shot, and—and even though
everyone was telling me how brave I always am,” she says, shivering a little, “all of a sudden, I wasn’t brave at all. I just started crying.”

Annie Pat can be very scientific about things. And she is so exactly and perfectly right about this one thing that I lose my breath for a second, just as if Jared has already punched me in the stomach.

Because I don’t know
how
I’m going to act when Jared tries to make me sorry.

Maybe I’ll whine and beg him not to pound me.

Or maybe I’ll try to run away from him, with all the kids watching!

Maybe
I’ll
be the one to cry—and in front of everyone on the playground, too, just the way Jared wants.

I scowl and plop down into my seat. “Hmmph,” I say to Annie Pat. “Gee, thanks a lot.”

Annie Pat’s big navy blue eyes widen even bigger. “Emma, I didn’t mean—”

“Take your seats, boys and girls,” Ms. Sanchez
calls out. She waves her engagement-ring hand in the air to get everyone’s attention. Our teacher’s boyfriend, Mr. Timberlake (like I said before, not the one on MTV), works at a sporting goods store. He is very handsome, even though he’s not the famous singer. We saw him once, when he came to school.

Corey Robinson slides into the chair next to me as if he is diving into a swimming pool, which he really does every morning before school. I can tell that he did it this morning, because his hair is all slicked back wet, and I can smell the chlorine.

“Pee-yew,” I say. I hold my nose with one hand and wave the air in front of my face with my other hand.

Corey is supposed to grin and say
“Same to you!”
right back, but today he doesn’t.

“Jared told me to tell you to go over by the
trash cans in the playground at recess,” he whispers instead, as if he is delivering bad news. He gulps and looks over his shoulder.

I take a peek, too.

Yeah, Jared’s there, all right. In the back row, the same as always.

Stanley Washington gives Jared a poke in the ribs with his plaid elbow and starts cackling.

Jared waves at me, all fake-friendly and everything.