Only Emma (6 page)

I put my hands on my hips and stomp my foot. “Yes, he is,” I say. “He
is
so bad.”

Mom puts her finger to her lips, but it is too late—the singing has stopped.

In fact, Anthony is standing in the hall, looking at us. His face looks like a round white marshmallow under all that curly black hair.

And he is crying—without making a sound.

For once.

   5   

Uh-Oh

“I’m a bad boy,” Anthony tells me the next morning at breakfast. He scowls.

My mom is putting some clothes in the washing machine, so she doesn’t hear what he is saying.

“Why?” I ask him. “What did you do?” I take a bite of my cornflakes.

He looks lost for a second. “Nothing,” he finally says. “I guess I’m just bad, that’s all.”

“No, you’re not,” I say to him.

“I am too. You said,” he tells me. “Last night. I heard you. Don’t lie.”

“I’m not lying,” I say. I can feel my face get hot,
though. I feel terrible that Anthony overheard what I said, but that wasn’t really my fault. “I didn’t say you were bad, Anthony. I said you were
that bad
. There’s a big difference, you know.”

Anthony chomps down hard on his toast and frowns some more, thinking. “What’s the big difference?” he finally asks. Crumbs fly everywhere.

“It’s too complicated to explain,” I tell him, as
if this is a third-grade thing that preschoolers could never, ever understand.

When, really, I can’t figure out what the difference is fast enough to tell him.

Anthony bites his toast again and chews hard. He reminds me of this other nature program I saw once, about termites. It was a little bit nauseating, to be perfectly honest.

But I’m working on liking insects better, even the yucky ones. After all, if I want to be a scientist some day, I have to give bugs a chance, at least.

Anthony takes a drink of milk. “Well, if I’m so good, where are my mommy and daddy?”

“Huh?”
I ask him. “They’re taking care of your grandmother in Tucson, that’s where they are.”

“And if I’m so good,” he continues, ignoring my words, “how come you never want to play with me?”

I stir a circle in my cornflakes, which are all soggy, by the way—I don’t care what any commercial says. “I play with you,” I remind him.

“Yeah, when your mom makes you,” he says gloomily. His pink cheeks stand out on his white face like clown paint—only he is not laughing the way a clown does.

I decide to explain things to him another way. “Listen, Anthony, don’t you have
other
friends you like to play with?” I ask him. “Friends in preschool?”

“Yeah, but I can’t invite them over. Not when I’m living here, at your house,” he says. He slurps down some more milk.

That actually makes sense, I think, kind of surprised. After all, those kids’ parents don’t know my mom and me. Why would they let their kids play at some stranger’s condo, even if it was with Anthony?

Mom comes into the kitchen with clean clothes neatly folded in a yellow plastic
laundry basket. “You’d better get a move on, Emma,” she says, looking up at the kitchen clock.

“Okay,” I say, but when I carry my cereal bowl to the sink, it feels as though I am a hippopotamus walking through mud, I am so tired.

Like I said, I did not get very much sleep last night.

That’s what happens when you hurt somebody’s feelings.

I get to Oak Glen Primary School before Cynthia does, and that is at least one thing to be glad about. Mom was going to call Cynthia’s mother last night, to thank her for the invitation. But I told her
I
wanted to be the one to tell Cynthia what I would do on Friday.

The truth is, though, I don’t know what I am going to do, or what I am going to say to Cynthia.

I guess Mom could tell I had mixed feelings about Cynthia’s invitation. She said that I could invite Cynthia over to my house instead, on Friday night, and we could have a slumber party—with Anthony.

Oh, yeah, right. That sounds like fun.

I wait in the cloak room like a trapdoor spider about to pounce on its prey—only I’m a whole lot cuter, I hope. Finally, Cynthia dashes in to hang up her sweater. I grab her arm.

“Yow,” Cynthia squeals, and then she laughs. “You scared me,” she says.

“I have to talk to you about something,” I whisper in her ear.

“Young ladies?” a voice says. It is Ms. Sanchez.

I think she calls us “young ladies” sometimes,
instead of “girls,” because then we might use better manners in class. She calls the boys “gentlemen,” too, even Jared and Stanley. And that’s stretching things a little.

Ms. Sanchez is a person who expects the best from people.

“Yes-s-s-s?” Cynthia and I say together, like talking snakes.

“It’s time to sit down,” she says, tapping at her watch.

Cynthia and I follow Ms. Sanchez into the classroom. Part of me feels like saying
phew
—because Cynthia gets huffy very fast, and I do not want her to be mad at me because of what I decide about Friday.

If it’s not the decision she wants me to make, I mean.

Ms. Sanchez takes a few minutes to read us the school announcements, so I have some extra time to think about what to do. I
could
invite Cynthia over to my house, the way Mom said,
except I really, really do not think that Cynthia is the type of person who would like Anthony Scarpetto. Cynthia is an only child, just like me—but if
she
saw Anthony running around with no clothes on, she would probably faint right on the floor.

And then everyone at my new school would hear all about it, and I would be totally embarrassed.

Or I could go spend the night at Cynthia’s house, and forget all about Anthony. He might
be sad, true, but it’s not as though he would starve or anything.