Only Emma (2 page)

“Make me,” Anthony says. He holds the sticky puzzle piece in the air as if it is a dog biscuit and I am a big old poodle.

I do have curly hair like a poodle, which happens to be a very intelligent dog, in case you
didn’t know. My hair is brown, and it comes halfway down my back. Mom says that my hair is so thick that it is hard for her to get a comb through it after a shampoo.

I brush my own hair the rest of the time, but
sometimes—I admit it—I just skim the brush over the outermost hairs on my head so that they look okay.

That’s my basic approach to a lot of things, actually.

I wish my hair was smooth and shiny all the time, like Cynthia Harbison’s. Cynthia is my best friend at my new school, even though I know she wouldn’t say the same thing about me.

But Cynthia’s mom can get a comb through her hair easy as pie, probably.

I shrug my shoulders. “Keep the puzzle piece, then,” I say to Anthony. “I don’t care. I don’t even like that puzzle. I was just trying to be nice to you.”

I
do
like the puzzle, though. It shows an orange cat—a boy—curled up next to a pumpkin, fast asleep. The
cat
is fast asleep, I mean, not the pumpkin.

Did you know that almost all orange cats are boys? It’s true. And cats that are three colors—
white, black, and brown—are usually always girls.

It’s
science
.

“Show me where it goes,” Anthony says, scowling. He tries to push the piece into the wrong place. He is putting kitty fur in the sky! The bumpy part of the cardboard puzzle piece bends, of course. And I hate it when puzzle pieces bend. It reminds me of sprained ankles.

“Stop, you’re wrecking it,” I say. “That’s a very valuable puzzle.”

It isn’t, but he doesn’t know that.

“You just said you didn’t like it,” Anthony reminds me.

“I don’t,” I lie. “But that doesn’t mean that I want to see you ruining it.”

“Then show me where it goes,” Anthony says again.

I could do what he wants, but then Anthony will just grab the next puzzle piece I reach for, so why bother? And anyway, I am tired of playing
with him. He is giving me a little headache.

Besides, it’s not as though we’re really playing together. When kids play, they’re supposed to have fun. This is not fun.

This is something else.

“Nuh-uh,” I tell Anthony. “Figure it out yourself if you’re so smart. I’m busy.” I get up, walk over to my bookcase, and look at the nature
books there as if they are the most interesting things in the world. Which they are, by the way.

“But you
have
to play with me. Mommy said,” Anthony yells, jumping up so fast that the white wicker chair he was sitting in clunks sideways to the ground. Now, his face is pink all over.

“No one can make me do anything I don’t want to do,” I tell him. “Anyway,” I say, “it’s my room. Don’t go knocking over the chair in my room.
Please
.” I add the
please
to be polite. And just in case my mom is listening.

Now, Anthony’s face is almost red, he is so angry. “I can knock over anything I want,” he says. To prove it, he swings his arm back, and he sweeps the whole puzzle—that
could
have been valuable, he doesn’t know!—off the table and onto the floor.

The box says that there are seventy-five pieces in that puzzle, and all seventy-five pieces go flying
everywhere. Two or three of them stick to the arm of Anthony’s pajamas like magnets.

“Oh, great,” I tell him. “Well, you’ll just have to pick the pieces up, that’s all. And I’m counting every single one, so you’d better get started.”

“No
way
,” Anthony squawks, and he starts hopping up and down, stomping on the puzzle pieces. He turns into a red-and-white-striped blur.

So here I am, holding a book about birds in one hand while a strange four-year-old kid is going bonkers in my bedroom. He’s wrecking my stuff!

I don’t know what to do.

I am a girl who likes peace and quiet, at least when I’m at home. But there will be no peace and quiet as long as Anthony Scarpetto is around, I am thinking.

My mom pops her head through the doorway,
finally
. “What’s going on in here?” she says.

She’s asking
me?
I’m just standing here in my own room, minding my own business! “You’d
better ask Mr. Big Baby Snit-Fit over there,” I say, pointing to Anthony.

Anthony is still stomping puzzle pieces, but not as hard as before. It’s as if he is some weird Christmas toy, and a few of his double-A batteries are running down.

“Anthony, honey?” my mom says, using her soft voice. She kneels down and holds out her arms.

“Wah-h-h-h-h,”
Anthony cries, and he runs into my mother’s hug so hard that he knocks her over. I don’t like to see her hug Anthony. Where’s
his
mom, anyway? It is her job to hug this terrible kid.

I mean, I feel sorry for her and everything, but tough.

“Oof,” Mom says, and she laughs and gives little striped Anthony another big squeeze.

Tears are squirting out of Anthony’s eyes as though he has a sprinkler turned on inside, the
big faker. “Emma wouldn’t play with me,” Anthony says. He is such a tattletale.

“You call that
playing
?” I ask, and I point to the puzzle disaster all over my floor.

“Simmer down, you two,” my mother says. “Emma, let’s get this picked up.”

“Okay,” I say, “but Anthony has to help, at least.” Anthony snuffles and wipes his nose on his pajama sleeve.

Yuck. That is so typical of him.

“I don’t wanna help,” Anthony says, sliding me a look.

“He doesn’t have to help,” Mom says. “I want Anthony to go into the kitchen, Em. His mother needs to talk to him.”

Anthony gives me a secret
hah-hah-on-you
kind of grin.

“But
Mom
,” I say. This is very bad for him!

“Go on, Anthony—she’s waiting for you,” my mother tells him. And Anthony goes pattering off down the hall.

“That’s so not fair,” I say. “He made this mess.”

My mom is already picking up the pieces. “You two are going to have to learn how to get along, Emma,” she tells me. “Just because you don’t have any brothers or sisters, that doesn’t mean you can’t—”

“But I
was
getting along,” I say. I am interrupting her, but this is important. “Anthony is the one who wouldn’t play right,” I tell her. “He was pounding puzzle pieces into the wrong places—with his bare fist!”

“He’s only four,” Mom reminds me, scooping up some more puzzle pieces.

I am starting to feel even angrier than before. “Well, anyway,” I say, “I don’t
have
to learn how to get along with crazy Anthony, because he will be going home in about one minute. Thank goodness.”

“I wanted to talk with you about that,” Mom says, and she settles back as though we are about to have a cozy little chat.

I do not want to have a chat with her tonight. I just want to be left alone—in my nice, quiet, picked-up room. That’s all.

I have library books about insects that I need to read.

So I don’t say anything.

I can hear Anthony crying again, though—in the kitchen, this time.

“Anthony will be staying with us for a little while, Emma,” Mom says, her voice soft. “For at least a week, actually.”

“What?” I yell. I can’t help it.

My mom pats her hands in the air like that is going to calm things down. “Shhh,” she says. “Anthony’s grandmother in Tucson is very sick, sweetie, and his mom and dad are going to go help take care of her.”

“So why can’t Anthony go, too?” I ask, trying to make my voice sound normal. “His
grandmother probably thinks he’s
darling
. It would do her good to see him.”

“He would just be in the way,” Mom says.

I can believe that much, at least.

“Emma?” Mom says.

I don’t answer.

My mother waves her hands in front of my eyes, then lifts up some of my curly hair and pretends to peer inside my ear. “Anyone home in there?” she asks, trying to make a joke.

“When?” I ask her. The word comes out croaky. “When do we have to start taking care of him?”

“Right away, darling,” Mom replies. “Anthony’s mother brought his little duffel bag with her. She’s explaining the situation to him now.”