Only Emma (5 page)

“It’s not the Halloween kind of witch, it’s the other kind,” my teacher says to me, as if I didn’t know. “And Cynthia didn’t spell either word right,” she continues. “You’re supposed to be checking that list, or else this exercise is just a waste of time.”

“I—I lost my place,” I fib. “I’ll be more careful from now on.”

Ms. Sanchez glides off to help somebody else, and all that is left behind is the smell of flowers.

She shouldn’t sneak around like that. I think she should wear bells around her ankle or something.

“How do you really spell it?” Cynthia whispers to me.

“W-H-I-C-H,” I say, whispering back. “Like in
Which way are you going?”

I’m good at words.

“I’m sorry I called you the other word,” Cynthia says, rolling her pencil under the palm of her hand.
Rrrrr, rrrr, rrrr
.

“That’s okay,” I say. “But I didn’t forget about going over to your house,” I add.

“So you’ll ask your mom tonight?” Cynthia says.

I nod my head.
I sure will
, the nod tells her.

“And we’re still friends?” Cynthia asks shyly.

I nod my head again. We sure are!

   4   

A Pain in the Patootie

“Rrrrr, rrrrr, rrrrr,”
Anthony growls under his breath as he scoots his metal truck across the kitchen floor. The truck reaches one of my feet, stops for a second, then rolls right over it.
“Rrrrr.”

“Ow, quit it,” I yell.

“That didn’t even hurt,” Anthony informs me. He rolls the truck into the hall.

“How do you know whether it hurt or not?” I call after him. “It’s my foot!”

It
didn’t
hurt, as a matter of fact, but only because I am wearing my sneakers. Anthony doesn’t know that, though. He should learn to be more careful.

Mom pokes her head around the corner. “Are you guys all right in here?”

“Well, I’m trying to do my homework,” I tell her. “But wherever I go, Anthony follows me.”

Secretly, I am proud of this. I am an Anthony-magnet.

“The little guy likes you,” my mom says, beaming.

“Huh,” I say. I am trying to be modest, but it does make me feel kind of good. In a weird way.

“Did the timer go off yet?” Mom asks.

“Nuh-uh,” I say. Its
ticka-ticka-ticka
noise bounces around the kitchen, and the yummy smells of dinner fill the air.

“Well, tell me when it rings,” Mom says.

“When what rings?” Anthony asks, chugging back into the room with his truck. “The telephone? Is it my mommy and daddy?” He looks around the kitchen as if they might be standing there.

“Oh, no, honey—not yet,” Mom says. “I’m sorry.” She holds out her arms to him, and sure enough, he bursts into tears.

It’s as though there’s a boo-hoo switch inside him or something.

“I want to ask you a question,” I say to my mom over the terrible racket Anthony is making.

“Excuse me?” she asks. She cups her hand to her ear to show me that she can’t hear what I just said.

“I want to ask you something,” I shout.

The kitchen timer goes off with its scary little buzz. That timer always surprises Mom and me, no
matter how much we think we are expecting it to ring.

We all jump.
“Wah-h-h-h,”
Anthony cries even louder.

“Can what you want to say wait until later?” Mom yells at me.

“I guess it’ll have to,” I yell back, mad.

After dinner, it is time for Anthony’s bath. I try to get as far away from the bathroom as possible, because I do not care to see a bare little boy staggering around like a robot. I already saw that five minutes ago.

Yuck.

When Anthony is in the bathtub, it sounds as though there are lots of creatures in there with him—growly bears, squeaky bats, and two or three other kids. He makes a lot of noise for someone who is only four.

The bathroom door is open, and Mom is rearranging sheets and stuff in the hall closet. She wants to give him some privacy, but I guess she is afraid he might fall and bump his head.

I think he probably won’t. Maybe we should close the door, give him a
lot
of privacy, and take our chances.

(I’m only kidding.)

Finally, Mom stuffs him into my guest bed for another night of sniffling and snuffling. I don’t have to go to bed yet, though, because I’m older. My mom leaves the light on in my closet so he won’t be scared.

He is singing Christmas carols as loud as he can, even though it is still September. I guess he is trying to cheer himself up.

Poor little guy, like my mom says.

“I want to ask you something,” I tell Mom again. “It’s important.”

“Okay,” she says, sighing. She looks very tired, and her shirt is wet from Anthony’s bath. We sit down in the living room, as if we are our own guests.

Maybe we should have a tea party, while we’re at it!

I say
ahem
first, like they do in the funnies. “Cynthia Harbison invited me over to her house on Friday,” I say to my mom. “I forgot to ask permission before.”

Mom smiles. “Do you mean she wants you to come play after school?” she asks.

“Nuh-uh,” I say, shaking my head. “She wants me to spend the night.”

“Oh, Emma,” Mom says, “can’t that wait for a week? Because what about poor little Anthony?”

“I never slept over at Cynthia’s house before in my whole life,” I say, trying not to whine.
“And she’s my first friend since you made me change schools. And I don’t
care
about poor little Anthony.”

I mean those last few words when I say them, but only for a second.

“I’m sure you care about him, sweetheart,” my mom tells me, as if she can read my mind. She ignores what I said about changing schools, which was all her fault for losing her job.

Magdalena was a very expensive school.

“But since you’ve never stayed with Cynthia,” Mom says, “a week wouldn’t be too much longer to wait, would it?”

“She said it had to be this Friday,” I tell her. “And I thought you wanted me to make new friends.”

“Well, I do. And I won’t say no, Emma, but I really want you to think about it,” Mom says. “I think Anthony needs the two of us. Just listen to him.”

I am making a scrunchy face by now, but I
listen. Anthony is singing “Jingle Bells” for about the millionth time, but by now he is yelling
“Jim-bull Gells”
instead, and his voice is all scratchy.

I have to say that sometimes Anthony is a pain in the patootie.

Somebody said that about
me
once, but it was a long time ago. I outgrew it.

“So what?” I say to Mom, referring to all that singing. “That’s a good reason for me to get out of here, isn’t it?”

My mom takes one of my hands in hers. “Come on, Em,” she says. Now,
she’s
the one who sounds a little whiny. “I need your help, honey. This is a really tough time for the little guy, and he seems to like having you around.”

I don’t get it. First she wants to take care of Anthony, and now she acts like she’s scared to be alone with him. “Well, what about me?” I shout, jumping up and yanking my hand away. “What about what
I
like? It’s bad enough that you don’t even have a regular job anymore and that
we had to move to such a teensy place. Now we have to take care of a baby who’s not even ours, too?”

Mom looks the same way she did that time when she couldn’t get the tape out of the VCR. “Come on,” she says again, finally. “Things aren’t that terrible for us here, Emma. And Anthony’s not so bad, is he?”