Not-So-Weird Emma

by Sally Warner

  We wash our hands and then hurry into the kitchen. Mom is cooking and reading some pages from her work at the same time, which usually means disaster. “I think you should turn those quesadillas over now,” I tell her, looking at the hot griddle on the stove.

  “Oh, okay,” Mom says, surprised. “Why don’t you pour some juice or some milk?”

  She has already gotten out the fancy wine glasses, the way we talked about this morning. “Ooo, pretty,” Annie Pat says, picking one of the glasses up carefully. “We get to use these?”

  “Sure,” I say, shrugging as if it is nothing. Mom and I sneak each other a secret look, and I can’t help but smile. I finish pouring the milk into the wine glasses while Mom cuts the quesadillas into triangles and puts them on our plates. The good plates, the wedding present ones that look as if there are beautiful, bumpy flowers growing all around their edges.

  It would almost be worth getting married just to get plates like that.

  “Ooo,” Annie Pat says again, her eyes wide.

  After our snack, we go back into my room to play. “I’ve got dolls,” I tell Annie Pat, and I point to the shelf where I keep them. I have four good ones, and I also have lots of outfits for them, because that’s an easy present for people to figure out, I guess. My mom says it’s a kindness to relatives when there’s something obvious they can buy for a kid.

  “Cool,” Annie Pat says, taking one of the dolls down. “Want to dress them up for a big party?”

  “Yeah, or for school,” I say. “For a special treat at school.” We settle down on the rug and spread all the doll clothes around us. They really are pretty, and the little dresses and capes and pants look like tropical flowers that have fallen onto the floor.

  It would be fun if we could play Amazon rain forest, instead of dolls, but you can’t have everything.

  I give my own scrunched-up lavender party dress a tug.

  Ugh. It’s getting itchy.

  “So, who do you think is prettier?” Annie Pat asks me. “Ms. Sanchez, or Barbie?”

  I think about it for a minute. “Mmm, Barbie,” I finally say. “Only Barbie’s not real.”

  “I know,” Annie Pat says, nodding. “And she’s not engaged, either, if you don’t count Ken.” She reaches for a weensy pair of tiger-striped leggings.

  “I never count Ken. But I wonder who Ms. Sanchez is getting married to?” I say. “Maybe it’s some man from our school.”

  The doll droops in Annie Pat’s hand. “Oh, I hope not,” she says. “I mean, who would be handsome enough for her to marry?”

  We both stop and think for a couple of minutes.

  No, we finally decide, none of the men at Oak Glen Primary School would be right for Ms. Sanchez. “Maybe it’s EllRay Jakes,” I finally joke, giggling.

  “Or Jared Matthews,” Annie Pat says. She pretends to be Jar-Head: “Hey, Ms. Sanchez—I love you,” she bellows in that special Jared way.

  “Settle down, Jared darling,” I yell back to her, pretending to be Ms. Sanchez. “And please take your seat.”

  Annie Pat and I both crack up. “Yahhh,” she finally gasps, holding her sides.

  I notice that I have popped a couple of tiny buttons from laughing. The front of my dress is pooching open a little. “I guess I’d better go change,” I say, getting up.

  “Hey, I know what! We can dress you up, instead of the dolls,” Annie Pat says, excited. “I’ll go and get some clothes out of your closet.”

  “No, wait,” I cry out, but it is too late—Annie Pat has opened my closet door.

  And out tumble two of the shoeboxes.

  And there are rocks and shells all over the floor.

  Not only that, but a roll of my old nature pictures falls out, too.

  And the picture right on top shows—yeah, that’s right: the stupid picture shows the stupid lizard eating the stupid grasshopper.

  Annie Pat turns to stare at me.

  6

  Weird

  “But why do you even care what Cynthia says?” Annie Pat asks me, after we have finished picking up my fossils and examining my lizard picture to see if the grasshopper leg really looks as if it is moving.

  “Because she’s my friend, that’s why,” I say. “Or she used to be.”

  “But she called you weird and strange, and in front of everyone, too,” she reminds me.

  “Maybe I am weird and strange,” I say gloomily.

  “Well, you’re not so weird,” Annie Pat says. “Plus, I like nature just as much as you do.”

  “Really?” I say. “What kind of nature?”

  “Underwater things, mostly,” Annie Pat tells me. “I want to be an underwater scientist when I grow up. I plan to study the beaked sea snake. They’re highly poisonous,” she adds, looking important.

  “Me, too,” I say, excited now. “I mean, I’m not highly poisonous, but I want to be a nature scientist, too. Not the beaked-sea-snake kind, though—I’m not copying you.”

  “I know you’re not,” Annie Pat says, nodding loyally. “You would never copy.”

  I look over at my dolls. “But I like playing dress-up with dolls, too,” I tell Annie Pat. Because if we are going to be friends, we might as well be honest with each other.

  “Me, too,” Annie Pat says. “I think you can be a scientist and still like cute clothes.”

  “Yeah,” I say, but then I sigh. “I wish she wouldn’t call me names, though.”

  “Who, Cynthia?” Annie Pat says, laughing. “She called me ‘Bozo’ all last year, and we’re still friends. Sort- of friends, anyway.”

  “She called you Bozo?” I ask, confused.

  “Yeah. You know, like that old cartoon character Bozo the Clown,” Annie Pat says. “The red hair,” she explains, fluffing up her curls. “All the kids called me that, after she did. For a while, anyway.”

  “That wasn’t very nice,” I say, a little bit shocked. Wow, I think—second grade at Oak Glen Primary School must have been rough! “Anyway,” I say, “you don’t look like a clown. You look very nice.”

  “Thank you,” Annie Pat says.

  “But how come Cynthia did that to you?” I ask Annie Pat.

  “I don’t know. She got mad about something,” Annie Pat says, shrugging. “Something little.”

  “But that’s no fair,” I tell Annie Pat. “I mean, Cynthia called poor Corey ‘Freckle-Face,’ and he really hated it. You can’t just go around calling people names. Names like—like ‘Jar-Head,’” I say, giggling at the mean name I invented.

  I can’t help it!

  Annie Pat wrinkles up her face, thinking. “Jar-Head? Oh, Jared. I get it,” she says, and she laughs. “And don’t forget ‘Cynthia-in-Wonderland,’ “she says.

  “I know, but that was a good one. Almost a compliment,” I tell her. “It’s not like calling Fiona ‘Baloney,’ or something,” I say, getting silly now.

  “Yeah, or like calling EllRay ‘Shrimpy,’ because he’s so short,” Annie Pat says.

  “Hey, watch it,” I tell her, pretending to be mad. “I’m almost as short as he is.”

  “Oops! Sorry,” Annie Pat says with a giggle. And we both crack up again.

  “Or—or you could call Cynthia ‘Bossy Pants,’” I say at last, after I have caught my breath. “That’s a whole lot worse than ‘Cynthia-in-Wonderland.’ And how would she like that?”

  “‘Bossy Pants,’ “Annie Pat says, trying it out in her mouth.

  “How would she like it?” I ask Annie Pat again.

  “Yeah, how would she like it?” Annie Pat asks me back.

  We look at each other. One smile seems to zip back and forth from my mouth to Annie Pat’s mouth, and you can hear my Felix the Cat clock ticking.

  7

  That’s Just Tough!

  Mom crunches a bite of toast and then looks at me. It is Thursday morning, which means that there is only one day left until our class treat. “What are you going to wear to school tomorrow?” she asks me.

  “Ms. Sanchez
says it has to be play clothes,” I say, and I frown. I slosh my orange juice back and forth in the glass, pretending that we are having an earthquake, and I wonder if I have any play clothes that look girly enough. Because no way am I going to give Bossy Pants Cynthia a chance to make fun of me again.

  Not tomorrow, when we will have our treat, and not today, when Annie Pat and I are going to do our best to teach her a lesson.

  “Well, you’d better decide now what you want to wear tomorrow,” Mom says. “It took you way too long to get dressed this morning, Emma. We can’t go through that again. And I need to make sure the clothes you want to wear will be clean.”

  “Okay. What about my pink T-shirt and white shorts?” I say to Mom, deciding fast. “And Band-Aids for my knees. But I want the cute kind with flowers on them, not the plain old skin kind. Even though I have never met anyone with skin that color. And could you wash my sneakers so they don’t smell funny? And my white socks, too? They’re in the hamper.”

  “All right,” Mom says, sighing. “At least shorts and sneakers will be an improvement over what you’ve got on today.”

  What in the world does she mean? Today I am wearing my second-best shoes, not my regular sneakers. And I am wearing a plaid skirt and dark green sweater, even though it has been kind of hot out lately.

  October can be sweltering in California.

  “You’re going to broil, sweetheart,” Mom says, eyeing my sweater.

  “Nuh-uh,” I say, after taking a slow and dainty sip of my juice.

  “Well, why don’t you at least bring a T-shirt with you to school, just to be on the safe side?” Mom suggests. She is a big believer in always being on the safe side. Usually I am, too. But the thing is, I feel safer wearing my skirt and sweater today. I feel more special.

  They match, like in a newspaper ad.

  Still, I have a jangly feeling in my stomach when I think about Cynthia, and about the lesson that Annie Pat and I are going to teach her. I push my cereal bowl away and shake my head no.

  Mom sighs. “Okay,” she says, “only don’t call me from school today, saying you’ve changed your mind and want me to bring you something more comfortable to wear. Because I’ve got a ton of work to do.”

  “I won’t,” I promise her.

  I’m going to be far too busy to be making any Mommy-help-me phone calls today.

  Annie Pat and I meet under the pepper tree in front of school, just the way we planned. She is wearing her second-best clothes today, too. “Okay,” I tell her. “Now, I’ll say it to Corey, and you’ll say it to Heather. Okay?”

  “Okay,” Annie Pat says. She giggles way up high, because of hearing all of our okays, maybe, and her face turns pink the way it does when Ms. Sanchez calls on her. “I’m scared,” she whispers to me as we walk into class.

  “Me, too, but so what?” I whisper back. “It’ll serve Cynthia right for being so mean to us.”

  “Yeah, it’ll serve her right,” Annie Pat agrees, nodding her head up and down so fast that her curly hair bounces.

  I sit down at my desk and try to tug my plaid skirt over my scabby knees.

  Corey flops down in his seat, too, just as Cynthia prances into the room. She is not wearing her usual Wonderland headband today, I notice. “Hi,” Corey says to me, then he looks at my skirt and sweater. “Are you going ice skating after school or something?” he asks.

  See, there is an indoor rink at the shopping mall. That’s what he’s talking about.

  But why can’t people just mind their own business? I don’t say that to Corey, however. He’d probably faint if I did. Even his freckles would faint! Instead, I say, “Not really,” which doesn’t make very much sense, once I think about it. People are either going ice skating, or they are not going ice skating. There is nothing in between.

  “Oh,” Corey says, looking confused.

  Cynthia plops down into her seat and gives me a dirty look. She has probably heard that Annie Pat came over to my house after school yesterday.

  Well, that’s just tough! Let her be mad.

  Across the room, I can see Annie Pat whisper something to Heather, and they both look at Cynthia and giggle. Next to me, Cynthia frowns a little and twiddles with a pencil.

  I am going to have to hurry if I want to keep up with Annie Pat. “Hey,” I whisper to Corey, “I wonder if Bossy Pants is going to yell at you again today?”

  There, I’ve said it to someone in class—and so has Annie Pat.

  Bossy Pants.

  Pretty soon, everyone in class will be calling Cynthia that. At least I hope they wall!

  But Corey Robinson is confused. “Bossy Pants?” he asks in a very loud voice.

  “Shhh. You know,” I mutter to him, and I jerk my head in Cynthia’s direction.

  Cynthia tries to flip her hair back out of her eyes and looks as if she wishes she had worn a headband today, after all.

  “Oh, yeah. Her,” Corey mutters back, and he puts a hand over his mouth to hide a snorty laugh.

  He nudges his neighbor and whispers something to her.

  And Ms. Sanchez starts to take attendance.

  We did it!

  8

  I’m Just Nervous, That’s All

  By lunchtime, everyone in the third grade is calling Cynthia “Bossy Pants,” only behind her back, not to her face. We’re all too chicken to say, “Hi, Bossy Pants! You sure are a Bossy Pants,” to the front of her. So we say it behind her back, so Cynthia can’t yell at anyone—even though she knows that something strange is going on.

  And I am not feeling as wonderful as I thought I would about the whole thing, only I can’t exactly explain why. Maybe it’s because I don’t think it was very brave to make up a hurtful name behind someone’s back. Or maybe it’s the name itself. Because what does “Bossy Pants” mean, anyway? Nothing, that’s what. How can pants be bossy?

  For some reason, that name made more sense when I first invented it.

  Or maybe I feel not-wonderful because Cynthia looks so sad. She has been slumped over her desk all morning, ever since nutrition break. Her mouth is turned down as if somebody drew it that way with a pink Magic Marker.

  Even her hair looks droopy.

  I know for sure that by now, she has heard what everyone is calling her. I only hope she doesn’t know how that name got started, because now, I really don’t know how to turn my fight with Cynthia around.

  Our quarrel is kind of like an airplane that has already taken off.

  “I guess we taught Cynthia a lesson, all right,” Annie Pat says to me as we walk out to the playground. She doesn’t sound very happy, though. Maybe she feels rotten about this whole thing, too.

  “Yeah,” I say, but I sound like a robot. “And I know what we taught her, too. We taught her that you can’t trust your friends.”

  Annie Pat ducks her head as if I just spritzed her with a red plastic squirt gun. “Well,” she says, “she had it coming, didn’t she? Didn’t she?” I can tell by the way she asks this question that Annie Pat really feels terrible about making Cynthia so sad.

  Just the way I do.

  “I can’t remember,” I say. “I know. Let’s go ask Cynthia if she wants to eat lunch with us.”

  I actually feel sorry for Cynthia.

  “She’ll probably say no,” Annie Pat say, scurrying behind me.

  Gloomy Pat. That would be a better nickname for Annie Pat today than Bozo, even though her hair is still curly and red.

  And people could call me Mean Emma, I think, blushing a little bit. Or Emma-Wemma-Meanie. Or Emma-Meanie-Weenie.

  “Hey, Cynthia, wait up,” I say, hurrying to join her. She and Fiona are walking toward the shady bench by the chain-link fence. I guess Cynthia has forgiven Fiona for calling her rude, the same way that she probably would have forgotten all about the Cynthia-in-Wonderland thing, if Annie Pat and I hadn’t gone and messed things up.

  See, that’s a good thing about Cynthia—she doesn’t ever stay mad very long.

  Un
til now, maybe.

  A drop of sweat slides down the side of my face. My mom was right, it’s way too hot to be wearing a sweater. I can feel trickles of sweat creeping down my back, too.

  Oh, why didn’t I just wear my regular clothes?

  And why couldn’t it have just been a regular day today, with regular Cynthia, regular Annie Pat, and regular Emma?

  Too late.

  Cynthia turns around, only instead of looking mad, she gives Annie Pat and me a one-corner smile. “Oh, hi,” she says softly.

  “Hi,” Annie Pat says, catching up. “Hi, Fiona.”

  “Hi,” Fiona practically whispers, and then she sits down, opens her lunch sack, and pulls out—a baloney sandwich!

  I can barely believe my eyes, because I made up the name “Fiona Baloney” just last night. Thank goodness nobody heard that one—no one except Annie Pat, I mean.

  Annie Pat has just spied the baloney sandwich, though, and she bites her lower lip to keep snirts of laughter from popping out of her mouth. Her face, is almost as pink as Fiona’s baloney.

  Annie Pat stares down at the hot cracked playground asphalt as if it is the most interesting thing she has ever seen.

  “Hi, Fiona,” I echo. “Can we eat lunch with you guys?”

  “Sure,” Cynthia says, answering for Fiona. She looks around. “Where’s Heather, anyway?” she asks.

  “I think I saw her going to the cafeteria,” Anniè Pat announces. She looks as if she is glad to have something ordinary to say.

  “Huh,” Cynthia says, scowling. “Well, who even cares?” She makes a little face and brushes some dust off her pants.

  Off her bossy pants.

  I bite my lower lip, just the way Annie Pat did a minute ago—only I don’t exactly feel like laughing.

  I guess I’m just nervous, that’s all.

  “So, what’s new?” Annie Pat says, poking around in her lunchbox. She still hasn’t looked up.