Best Friend Emma (3 page)

Well, she’s not really a little girl—she’s
my
age. And she’s pretty, with a friendly, smiling face, black hair, and perfectly straight bangs that go almost past her eyebrows.

The girl looks at me.

“Who’s that?” I whisper, nudging Annie Pat in the ribs.

“Mmm!”
Annie Pat reminds me, her eyes wide.

“Oh, yeah,” I say. “School nurse. Emergency.”

Annie Pat nods three times—fast. If she could open her mouth, she would probably be saying,
“Duh. Hurry!”

And so I do hurry, because I don’t want the poor custodian to have to go get a mop and a bucket of sawdust instead of that nice cold drink of water.

     
3
     

“Take this late slip to Ms. Sanchez, Emma,” the nurse says. “It will excuse you for being tardy. And please tell her that Annie Pat is going home early today with tummy trouble.”

Lucky Annie Pat! Even if she does look a little green and groany, lying on her narrow cot. Its plastic covering crackles under the sheet whenever she moves.

Our school nurse wears regular clothes, not a white uniform, and I
guess
she’s a real nurse, because she has a stethoscope, squashy shoes, and an official plastic name tag.

But “tummy trouble” doesn’t sound like a very scientific diagnosis to me.

I’m not too worried about Annie Pat, though, in spite of the maybe-fake school nurse, because she and I both know the real reason for her stomach ache. But we are too embarrassed to tell the nurse that we were trying to stretch our stomachs. She might talk to us about how half the world is starving.

I know it’s true, and I feel really bad about that, and I want to help change things when I grow up. But I am still going to try to enjoy Thanksgiving, complete with pumpkin pie. Is that so wrong?

I sneak Annie
Pat a worried look.
Are you okay
? I try to ask, without using any words.

“Uh-h-h,” she says, not even looking at me. She clutches a shiny metal bowl to her chest.

“Scoot, Emma,” the nurse says, and so I do.

I wonder what they’re doing in class right now?

Probably social studies. Last Friday, Ms. Sanchez handed out photocopied maps of the United States with the states numbered but not named, because the states’ names are what we’re supposed to be learning lately.

And you can’t just make up any name, either, even though the kids in my class came up with some pretty good ones. For instance, Jared Matthews said that Florida should be called “Gun State,” because it looks like a pistol that is pointing at the rest of the country.

EllRay Jakes said that Wyoming should be
called “North Rectangle” and Colorado should be called “South Rectangle.”

Cynthia said that Idaho should be called “Leprechaun State,” because according to her, it looks like a sitting-down leprechaun.

And Annie Pat said that Rhode Island should be called “Teensy-Weensy State,” which I think is the best made-up name of all. But people don’t get to vote on what the states—even their own state—should be called. If I got to choose what to call our state, California, I’d name it “Bendy State,” because it bends in the middle. (You have to look at it on a map to get what I mean.)

Being all alone in the school halls during regular class time is fun and scary at the same time. Fun, because you can do anything you want. You can zigzag from wall to wall instead of trying to keep out of the way of bigger kids. You can spend as long as you want at the sweaty-cold drinking fountain. You can stare at the framed photographs of all the principals Oak Glen Primary School has ever had and imagine them with red wax lips or twirly mustaches.

You can even take the time to go to the bathroom in peace, instead of trying to hurry
and
not make any embarrassing bathroom noises, which is an impossible combination to pull off in a small, echoey room full of girls.

Going to the bathroom at Oak Glen Primary School is my least favorite thing.

Being alone in the halls is also scary, though, because a grown-up could appear at any second and demand to know why you aren’t in class.
Even when you have a good excuse, you can’t help feeling guilty.

I don’t think it’s fair that grown-ups are so big and kids are so small.

But the fear of running into a grown-up is enough to make me hurry—a little—to class.

“
There
you are,” Ms. Sanchez says as I slowly push open the rear classroom door. To my surprise, that friendly-looking girl Annie Pat and I just saw in the breezeway is standing in front of the class next to Ms. Sanchez.

A new kid in class! And right before Thanksgiving, too. That’s unusual.

The new girl is pretty, like I said before. She is tall and thin, and her shiny black hair falls over her shoulders like water. She is completely not nervous, which is completely unlike
me
on my first day at Oak Glen—only nine weeks ago.

To my surprise, she smiles at me and gives me a little wave, like she knows me!

“Where’s Annie Pat, Emma?” Ms. Sanchez asks as I hand her the late slip.

“She had to go home early,” I announce, feeling important. Especially in front of the new girl.

Cynthia turns her head away from Ms. Sanchez, puts a finger on her tongue, and does an imitation of someone throwing up.

How does she know
? There is no point in even asking, because Cynthia seems to know everything that goes on at Oak Glen. That is the source of her secret powers.

Everyone who sees Cynthia do this laughs, and the new girl laughs, too, but not in a mean way. After all, she doesn’t even know Annie Pat. Not yet.

“Please take your seat, Emma,” Ms. Sanchez tells me, coaxing a few stray hairs back into her bun with her engagement-ring hand. “We were just getting to know the newest member of our class, Krysten Rodriguez. Also called ‘Cry,’” Ms. Sanchez adds, confusingly.

She gestures to the board behind her, where she has written the new girl’s name in perfect cursive—but with a star over the
i
in “Rodriguez.” Just for fun, I guess. And then Ms. Sanchez spelled out
K-R-Y
underneath the longer name.

“That’s her nickname,” Cynthia calls out, which you are not supposed to do in our class, but Ms. Sanchez lets it pass this time.

And then Cynthia flashes a big kiss-up smile in the new girl’s direction.

I can already tell that Cynthia is trying to claim Kry for her own.