Super Emma (6 page)

The whole class is buzzing. It sounds as if there are ten TV sets turned on low in here. “Settle down,” Ms. Sanchez says sharply. She is very beautiful, as I said before, but she has X-ray eyes—and she is now zooming them around the room. “I have an important announcement to make,” she tells us.

We all sit up straight in our chairs, because maybe it is something about Halloween! We have heard rumors that third-graders usually get to have a party.

Ms. Sanchez starts out slowly. “It has come to my attention …” she begins.

Uh-oh. Good announcements never start out that way.

“It has come to my
attention that there have been certain threats floating around this classroom,” Ms. Sanchez says. “A little bird told me,” she adds, as if this is an interesting scientific fact.

Everyone in the whole room—except Ms. Sanchez, of course—tries to look at me as if they are not looking at me.

But it is pretty obvious what they are all thinking: that
I
am the little bird who told.

And I’m not!

It wasn’t Mom, either. I’m almost positive about that. And it wasn’t Annie Pat, or she would have blabbed about it to me this morning. She could never keep a secret like that.

Kids are whispering. I want to jump up and say, “Hey, it wasn’t me,” but I can’t, for two reasons. Number one, I am stuck to my seat as if someone has poured a big puddle of the world’s strongest glue there. Number two, it is against
the rules. In our class, you have to raise your hand first, before you jump to your feet and say
anything
.

Well, I guess you would be forgiven if the classroom were on fire, or if you happened to see a highly venomous pit viper slither under someone’s desk, but otherwise, no.

Ms. Sanchez is still talking. “Well, I’ll have no bullying in this classroom,” she snaps. “I don’t care what squabbles are going on in here, I’m not going to allow you children to use violence to straighten things out.”

Most of us shift back and forth in our seats as if our teacher has just poked us with a fork to see if we’re done yet.

We
might be done, but she isn’t. “Do you have … that … straight?” she asks us.

“Yeah,” we all mumble.

“I want you to say
‘Yes, Ms. Sanchez,’
” she instructs us, hands on her hips. “And I want you to mean it.”

“Yes, Ms. Sanchez,” we finally chant together after a few lame tries.

We say it, and some of us might really mean it.

Me, for instance.

But
living
it is another question, when there are kids like Jared in your class.

“Where are you going?” Annie Pat squeals. She is tugging urgently at my sweater sleeve. It is morning recess, and I guess Annie Pat is trying to keep me from leaving the classroom.

“I’m going outside,” I tell her. “I’m going to stand over by the trash cans. I guess it’s time for Jared to teach me a lesson.”

“But—but wait, aren’t you going to go get your snack first?” Annie Pat
asks me, pointing toward the cloakroom, as if I might have forgotten how to get there.

Right
. It is obvious that Annie Pat is trying to make time stand still.

“I don’t think I’m going to need a snack, not where I’m going,” I say gloomily.

I might need Band-Aids, but not a snack.

“Tweet tweet,”
Jared Matthews chirps as he shoves his way past me. By making this noise, he is obviously trying to tell everyone that he thinks I was the little bird who tattled to Ms. Sanchez.

As he walks out the classroom door, Jared looks like an engine that is pulling a train. Behind him, EllRay scowls as he chugs along, and Stanley gives a foolish giggle. Then Stanley gets a bright-idea look in his mean eyes and starts clucking like a chicken—which means that he
thinks
I
am chicken.
“Buk buk buk,”
he says.

“Shut up,” I tell him.

“Yeah, shut up,” someone behind me says. Hey, I think it’s Cynthia! Two days ago she admired me, and then yesterday she thought I was stupid. Who knows what she will be thinking tomorrow? It’s hard keeping up with her.

“Come
on
, Emma,” Annie Pat is begging. “Let’s just eat inside.”

“For the rest of our lives?” I ask her.

But I feel almost sorrier for Annie Pat than I do for myself. Her red pigtails, which are usually so springy, seem to be drooping with worry. Her mouth opens and shuts the way a goldfish’s mouth does, but like the goldfish, no words come out.

I pull away from Annie Pat’s hand and follow the rest of the kids out onto the playground.

Jared is waiting over by the trash cans. He greets me. “Oh, look who’s here,” he says, rubbing his hands together like a greedy Scrooge McDuck. “It’s Super Emma!”

“
I
never called me that,” I tell him.

It is strange, but I feel like I am walking in a dream. My steps are bouncy, as though I am stepping on puffy white clouds. And it is as if those same clouds are making every sound a little bit quieter than it usually is, except for the beating of my heart.

“Glad you could make it,” Jared says, fake-polite, ignoring my words. But then, I don’t think he’s even talking to me. He’s talking to the circle of kids around him.

I step into the middle of that circle carefully, as if I am getting on an escalator. “Well, I’m here,” I say.

“Yeah, after crying like a baby to Ms. Sanchez,”
Jared says.
“Ooo, Teacher, save me, save me,”
he says, pretending to be me.

“I never said that,” I tell him—and anybody else who’s listening.

“Well, Ms. Sanchez can’t save you now,” Jared says, laughing. “She’s not even here. She’s probably drinking coffee.” His big square hands are closing into fists, opening, then closing again while he talks. I try not to look at them.

“I don’t even want her to save me,” I lie. “Just go ahead and sock me, you big bully. Get it over with.”

And I get ready to pound him back, even though he probably won’t feel a thing—because Jared is
big
. I barely even come up to his chin. Hitting Jared will be like slugging a school bus. Jared will be softer, though. But only a little bit softer.

And I’m going to find out what hitting him feels like pretty soon, because even though I don’t have a chance against Jared, I’m not just
going to stand here like a big dumb doll.

Around Jared and me, kids have been cramming snacks into their mouths as if they were at the movies or something. But all of a sudden, something changes. It is as though the circle of third-graders is really only one kid, and that kid was a person who started out excited but is now beginning to get mad. “He’s going to beat up a
girl
?” someone asks, outraged.

“Look how big he is compared to her,” another person calls put, as if this is fast-breaking news. Duh!

“But she asked for it,” Stanley cries, defending Jared.

“No she didn’t,” somebody says. I think it’s Annie Pat.

“Yeah,” a boy calls out. “It was Jared who stole EllRay’s action figure, remember? Emma was just getting it back for EllRay.”

Oh, wonderful
, I think.
Here we go again about EllRay’s action figure
.

Jared is looking around, confused. His hands open and close one more time. Then he speaks.

“Well, I wasn’t going to
hit
her,” he lies. “I was just going to—to
trash
her.”

Nobody knows what this means, exactly, but everyone is eager to find out. It is as though the big circle-person has gone from excited to mad and then back to excited again.

“Do it,” Stanley shouts. He picks up an apple core from the ground. “I’ll help,” he offers. He puts his arm back like he is going to throw the apple core at me, hard.

“You copycat dope,” I yell at him. My heart is beating so fast now that I’m kind of surprised it doesn’t lift me right off the ground, like a helicopter.

I wish it would!

“No,” Jared calls out. “Drop it.” As if Stanley was a dog!

Which is not fair to dogs, in my opinion.

The apple core hits the ground.

Jared sneaks peeks all around to make sure everyone is watching him and listening to him. “I’m not going to throw stuff at her,” he announces slowly. “I’m going to throw her at
stuff
.”