“I read it in a magazine last night. I saw it on the news. It was in the headlines this morning. Can I eat with you?” he said. “Where’s your table? Are you going to sit by the window?”
Who was he? I didn’t even think he was in our grade. He looked younger, even though he was so big. Probably a seventh-grader. Was that the way seventh-graders acted? It seemed like a million years since I’d been in seventh grade.
I took my tray across the room to where Bunny was waiting. She was munching on an apple. “The best way to lose weight is to chew each bite of food twenty-five times,” she said. “They say it’s healthful, but I think it’s because by the time you get done chewing, your jaws are so tired they don’t even want any more food.”
I unwrapped my sandwich and offered her half.
“This apple is plenty for me.” She chewed and chewed. “That cheesecake looks really great!” She bent over and sniffed. I could tell she was suffering. She loves cheesecake, too.
The boy with the green T-shirt came up to our table and sat down. “Hi again,” he said. “Okay if I sit here? I’m Robertson Reo. You can call me Robby. Or Reo.”
Bunny glanced at me with her eyebrows raised. “Bunny Larrabee,” she said.
“Bunny Larrabee? That name sounds familiar!” Robertson Reo snapped his fingers in an excited way. “Did I read about you in the paper? That’s right, isn’t it? Let me think, let me think! Basketball! Right? Am I right? I have a great memory. Something about basketball! Tell me!”
Bunny shrugged. “Sometimes they write me up. I’m a guard on The Lady Chargers.”
“Pleased to meet you!” Robertson Reo stood up and shook her hand across the table. “Bunny Larrabee! You’re a celebrity. I’m Robertson Reo,” he said again. He looked at me. “I forgot your name.”
“This is Emily,” Bunny said.
Robertson Reo laughed. “I know. I was just kidding. I wanted to see if she believed me. Emily Boots, right? Emily Beth Boots, am I right?”
I drank my milk. I didn’t get it. How did he know my middle name?
“Emily, what a super name,” he said.
“She’s named for Emily Dickinson,” Bunny said.
“Who?”
“The poet. Her mom likes poetry,” Bunny explained.
He looked at me. “Does that mean you like poetry, too, Emily? Who is this Emily poet? Is she a friend of your mom’s?”
“Emily Dickinson. She’s dead,” Bunny said.
“Was she pretty?”
“What does that mean?” Bunny said. “Do you think every female has to be pretty?”
“Hey, hey, why not?”
“Because it’s stupid and sexist.”
I frowned at Robertson Reo.
“Oh, Emily, don’t give me that look,” he said. He was talking and stuffing in food at the same time. “You hurt me with that look. So do you like poetry?”
“Sometimes. Not necessarily.”
“Sometimes! Not necessarily! That’s mysterious. She’s being cagey, isn’t she, Bunny? She thinks I’m obnoxious.”
Did he expect me to deny it?
“I know some poetry I could recite for you, Emily. I know a lot of stuff. I’m retentive. How about the way I remembered about Bunny being in the newspaper? That’s the way my brain works. It’s like a vacuum cleaner, it scoops up all this stuff and stores it away. Do you know this poem? ‘Day is done, gone the sun, uh, da da da, uh something something something.’”
Bunny took another bite of her apple. “Your vacuum cleaner is breaking down.”
“It’s in there in my brain somewhere. It’ll pop out after a while.”
“It’s not a poem,” I said. “It’s a song.” The summer Bunny and I went to Brownie camp together, we sang that at the end of every day around the campfire.
“Right. A song. I knew that.”
He was totally impossible.
“Emily, if you like poetry, that settles it, I like poetry, too. ‘Emily had a little lamb, its fleece was white as snow, and everywhere that Emily went, the little lamb was sure to go.’ Baaaaaaaa!” he bleated.
Some lamb. He had big ears, I noticed, to go with his big head and his big mouth.
“Emily, I might as well tell you right up front, I’m younger than you, but that doesn’t have to matter. How old are you, anyway?”
“Fourteen.” I’d had my birthday last month.
“I’m thirteen—almost.”
“When?”
“May.”
“That’s next year. You’re twelve,” I said.
“It doesn’t bother me being the younger man, Emily.”
“That’s very mature of you,” Bunny said. “Isn’t that mature, Emily? Aren’t you overwhelmed with Robertson Reo’s maturity?” Every time she said mature, she crossed her eyes.
Robertson kept right on eating, taking huge bites of his food. “Whose homeroom are you in?” he asked Bunny.
“Mr. Clarence’s.”
“I’m in Mrs. Saginaw’s room. What an old fart. She ought to retire and give the world a break.”
“I like her,” I said. “She’s smart and she cares about kids.”
“Uh-oh. I guess that means I’ll have to like her.”
“Just because I like her, you have to like her?”
“Right. Whatever you like, Emily, is sacred to me. I’ll just have to change my attitude toward Mrs. Saginaw.” He crammed in a last bite, gulped down his soda, and stood up. “Don’t go away, Emily, I’ll be right back.” He loped off toward the serving table.
Bunny and I looked at each other. “Who is he?” I said. “What is he?”
“I think what he is, is in love,” Bunny said.
“Yeah, with himself.”
“No, with you.”
“Oh, no, don’t say it.”
“Emily, he shows all the signs. He’s got Emily fever.”
“Oh, no!” I said again.
Buy E, My Name Is Emily Now!
About the Author
Norma Fox Mazer (1931–2009) was an acclaimed author best known for her children’s and young adult literature. She earned numerous awards, including the Newbery Honor for After the Rain, the Lewis Carroll Shelf Award for Dear Bill, Remember Me?, and the Edgar Award for Taking Terri Mueller. Mazer was also honored with a National Book Award nomination for A Figure of Speech and inclusion in the notable-book lists of the American Library Association and the New York Times, among others.
All rights reserved, including without limitation the right to reproduce this ebook or any portion thereof in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of the publisher.
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, events, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
“To Arnold With Whom I Used to Pick Raspberries When We Were Children Thirty-Five Years Ago” by Hilda Mader Wilcox. Reprinted by permission of the author.
Copyright © 1991 by Norma Fox Mazer
Cover design by Connie Gabbert
ISBN: 978-1-5040-1123-5
This edition published in 2015 by Open Road Integrated Media, Inc.
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D, My Name Is Danita Page 12
