Another Day as Emily (20 page)
Read Another Day as Emily Online
Authors: Eileen Spinelli
The first thing I think about
is Emily’s list
and what activity
I’m going to choose—
and then I remember!
I’m not Emily anymore.
I’m
me
.
Suzy Quinn.
I grab the list
and tear it
into tiny pieces.
I toss it in the air—
confetti!
And go down to breakfast.
Mom is scrambling eggs.
She eyeballs my Phillies shirt.
No comment.
“Want toast with your eggs?”
“I’ll make it,” I say.
“Okay.”
“Where’s Dad?”
“Left early for a class.”
“How about Parker?”
“Went to Franky’s for the day.”
Mom spoons scrambled eggs
onto my plate.
“Funny thing—
your father and I
had the same dream
last night.
You were standing
in our bedroom
shouting something about
going to a Phillies game.”
I sprinkle salt
on my scrambled eggs.
“It wasn’t a dream,” I say.
“Gilbert’s father won tickets.
They’re taking me and Dad.”
My mother dumps
the rest of the eggs
onto her plate.
“And Miss Emily—would she
go to a Phillies game?”
I start gobbling down my eggs.
“Emily?” I say. “Emily who?”
Mom freezes.
She gapes at me—
with big eyes,
kind of like Ottilie does.
A couple seconds like that
and then she gets it.
“You’re Suzy again?”
“The one and only,” I say.
“Yahoo!” she yips.
And yanks me out of the chair
and we go dancing around
the kitchen table.
When I call Alison,
I half expect her to tease me
about the Emily Dickinson business.
But she doesn’t.
She just gives a happy squeal
that I’m willing to be on book
or whatever
for Giselle.
“Rehearsal’s at six p.m.,”
Alison tells me.
“And don’t be late.
Giselle hates late.”
I’ll call Gilbert later,
tell him yes to the game.
I’ll reply to Ms. Mott
later.
Right now,
I just want to ride my bike.
I go out to the garage.
There it is—leaning against
Dad’s workbench, all red and shiny.
Dad must have been
keeping it dusted.
I lay my head on the handlebars.
“Hello, sweet thing,” I whisper.
I wheel it outside into the sunlight.
I hop on.
I ride into the golden light,
the warm breeze,
away from the houses.
I pat the bike.
“Oh, wouldn’t Emily Dickinson
have loved you,” I say.
I’d forgotten
what a busy life
I used to have.
Mrs. Harden invites me to lunch.
She teaches me how to make
strawberry salad and poppy seed dressing.
I go on Mom’s computer and catch up on
all the latest Phillies news.
Alison calls. She wants me to come over.
“I’ll do your hair,” she says. “You can
have supper here.
We can go to the theater
together.”
Giselle explains more about
being on book.
When an actor forgets a line,
the actor calls “Line,”
and then I read the line
as it is written.
I’m not supposed to give a line
unless it’s called for.
Giselle asks me to sharpen
some pencils for her.
I also help move scenery,
find props.
And fix Giselle’s coffee—
two sugars, no cream.
Rehearsal is over at nine.
Giselle asks me to flip off
some of the lights.
“Good work, Suzy,” she says.
Alison sidles up to us. “Don’t forget
who got her for you, Giselle.”
Alison’s father drops me off at home.
Mom and Dad are watching TV.
“How’d it go?” Mom asks.
“It was cool,” I say.
“I love working at the theater.”
“Gilbert called,” says Dad.
“Thanks,” I say.
Then: “Where’s Parker?”
“In bed, I hope,” says Mom.
I laugh. “You never know with
the little hero.”
I grab the feather duster.
I tiptoe up the stairs.
I think I’m going to Parker’s room—
but I don’t.
Suddenly there’s something
I have to do.
I detour into my parents’ bedroom.
I pick up the phone. I dial.
I don’t even sit on the bed.
As soon as Gilbert says “Hello?”
the words burst out.
“I’m coming to the game.
Of course I am.
What was I thinking?
I don’t even know what happened,”
I tell him. “One day everything was normal,
and the next day Parker was a superhero—
newspaper stories,
a medal,
a parade,
and what was I?
I was the little hero’s sister.
Boring old Suzy Quinn.
Nobody wanted to meet
me
.
Nobody took
my
picture.
And then I went to the audition—
and didn’t get the part.
But I learned about acting and
I read about Emily Dickinson
and I figured, hey, why should I be stuck with
boring old Suzy Quinn when I could be
a famous and fascinating recluse?
And for a while it seemed like it was working.”
On and on I go. When I finally stop,
I’m gasping as if I just finished a race.
Gilbert laughs.
He absolutely
howls
on the other end of
the line.
“Suzy”—he says—”
that
was a major blurt.”
I try to join in the laughing, but it’s hard
because it takes breath to laugh.
When I finally calm down, I say:
“I guess what I mean is—I missed myself.”
There’s silence on the other end.
I wonder if Gilbert has put down the phone.
Then he says: “I missed Suzy too.
I’m glad she’s going to the game.”
When we hang up, it feels like two
holding hands
coming apart.
I pick up the feather duster.
I tap on Parker’s door.
“Who’s there?” he asks.
“Guess,” I say.
“Emily?”
“No.”
“Suzy?”
“No.”
“I give up.”
I open the door.
I creep
step
by step
over to Parker’s bed.
I wave the feather duster at him.
“It’s the
Tickle Monster!”
A WORD ABOUT EMILY DICKINSONEmily Dickinson was born in 1830.
Celebrated today as one of America’s greatest poets, Emily, in her own time, was better known as a gardener. A niece once remarked that Emily’s garden had enough blossoms to gorge “all the bees of summer.” When Emily sent a verse to a friend, it was often attached to a bunch of flowers.
When she wasn’t tending her garden, Emily could often be found in the kitchen of the family home in Amherst, Massachusetts. Her specialty was baking. She once won a prize in a bread competition with a rye and Indian round bread.
Emily was not a very social person. Her brother’s wife, Susan Gilbert, was perhaps her best friend. She also loved her dog, Carlo.
As Emily got older, she became more and more housebound. Visitors might find themselves speaking to her from the other side of the closed front door. From her bedroom window she would lower baskets of gingerbread to the neighborhood children. When someone did manage to get a glimpse of her, she was always wearing white.
No one in Amherst knew how much time Emily spent with her poetry.
She had little interest in publication. Fewer than a dozen poems appeared in print during her lifetime. After Emily died in 1886, her sister, Lavinia, discovered nearly eighteen hundred poems locked in a chest. At Emily’s request, Lavinia destroyed all of Emily’s correspondence after her death, but preserved her poetry so that it can still be read today.
EILEEN SPINELLI
is the beloved author of nearly fifty children’s books. Among them are the middle-grade novels
Summerhouse Time
and
The Dancing Pancake
and picture books such as
Cold Snap
and
Princess Pig
. Eileen and her husband live in western Pennsylvania. When Eileen was ten, she used to drape herself in her grandmother’s old white organdy curtains and recite Emily Dickinson’s poem “I’m Nobody! Who Are You?” in front of the mirror (making sure no one was watching!).
JOANNE LEW-VRIETHOFF
’s passion for art has given her the opportunity to illustrate picture books and middle-grade novels for the last fifteen years. She lives in Amsterdam with her husband and two wildly imaginative kids. Learn more about Joanne and her work at
joannelewvriethoff.com
.
