Best Friend Emma (9 page)

Somehow, I made it through the rest of Friday. It is now Saturday morning, but instead of getting ready to go to Marine Universe with Annie Pat and her dad and no new baby, or getting ready to take Kry Rodriguez out to lunch and a movie, I am sitting alone in my bedroom watching the rain come down. (Outside, of course.)

I do not have a TV in my bedroom, because my mom doesn’t approve of TVs in kids’ bedrooms. Also, I do not have a computer in my bedroom, because Mom thinks kids should only use the Internet when a grown-up is watching. Watching the actual screen, not the kids.

In my opinion, however, another reason—maybe the real reason—I don’t have these things is because extra TVs and computers cost extra money, and extra money is something we do not have ever since my mother started working at home.

Why couldn’t she have chosen a new job that pays a lot of money? I will never understand grown-ups—until I am one, and probably not even then.

What I do have in my room is a combination radio and CD player, which my father sent me last Christmas. (He lives in England with his new wife, Annabelle.) But when I am grounded, I am not even allowed to listen to music.

Is my mother the strictest mom in the world? Yes. And is this going to be the most terrible Saturday in history? Probably.

All I’m allowed to do when I’m grounded is read, which doesn’t make any sense at all. It’s like saying that reading is another part of my punishment,
and TV and CDs and the radio are treats.

Really, reading is one of my favorite things in the world—for lots of reasons. For instance, everyone is exactly the same when they read a book. Rich kids, and kids with perfectly straight hair, and undivorced kids read the exact same words that I do. But I get to choose how everyone looks in the book!

Another reason I like reading is that no one can tell me who to like in the book and who to hate. I mean, you can always tell who you’re supposed to like, but nobody can make you. You get to decide who’s popular—with
you
.

But I don’t feel like reading this morning. I prefer to feel a little sorry for myself.

I am all alone in the world. Alone except for the person in the condo next door, who is thudding along on his treadmill like a giant hamster. The vibrations shake my bedroom wall.
And alone except for my mom, who keeps coming up with chores for me to do.

“Emma?” Mom calls out from down the hall. “Did you finish writing your apologies?”

“Uh-huh,” I say, eyeballing the two letters that practically have sweat marks on them, they were so hard to write.

“And did you gather up all your laundry like I asked you to?”

“Yes,” I lie, looking around at the dirty clothes strewn around my room. Because—what’s she going to do if I
don’t
gather up my laundry? Ground me? Too late!

But then I remember what happened the last time I lied to my mom—about Annie Pat and Marine Universe—and I start gathering. I finish just as Mom steps into my room. “All done,” I say, trying not to pant as I stuff the last T-shirt into my laundry basket.

“Good girl. You can help me get the first load started, and then I’d like you to empty all the
waste-paper baskets and take the trash out to the Dumpster.”

Just like Cinderella! Taking out the trash is my least favorite chore, because other people’s garbage smells so yucky. And even though I have to throw our garbage bag up really high to get it over the side of the condo Dumpster, I worry about falling in. Especially today, when it’s slippery outside because of the rain.

Mom gives me a challenging look until I mumble, “Okay.”

“This is how I spend
every
Saturday,” she reminds me.

Never grow up
, I remind myself.

Mom tells me to take a seat in the kitchen just before lunch. She is holding the apology letter she made me write to her. “We need to talk,” she says, looking serious.

Uh-oh. “But why?” I ask her. “Don’t you like the letter I wrote? I worked really hard on it.”

“It’s perfectly fine,” she says, giving it an absentminded pat. “Apologies come very easily to you, Emma.”

“They do not,” I say, trying to keep calm. “I
hate
apologizing—to anyone!”

Mom sighs. “Well,” she says, “you obviously know that lying to your mother is wrong, at least.”

“Lying to
anyone
is wrong,” I tell her, hoping this will give me extra credit.

But Mom doesn’t even hear me. “I’m just worried about you lately, sweetie,” she says. “You really hurt Annie Pat’s feelings, and that’s not like you.”

It’s
exactly
like me—when I’m not thinking
, I feel like telling her.
It was a mistake! Can’t a person
make a mistake around here? It’s not like
you’re
so perfect!

Naturally, I don’t say any of this out loud, or I’d have to sit here forever.

“Didn’t it hurt your feelings when Cynthia stopped being friends with you, Emma?” Mom asks. “It was only a few weeks ago, after all.”

I give a tiny shrug. “I didn’t care,” I mumble.

“I think you
did
care, honey,” my mom says. “I think you felt really sad and confused when it happened. And I think that’s the way Annie Pat
must have felt when you forgot about her and started going after Kry Rodriguez, just because she’s exciting and new.”

“But Cynthia shouldn’t get to have her,” I say, finally daring to argue a little. “Cynthia is mean. That’s the whole
point
, Mom. And she gets to have everything!”

“Kry isn’t a ‘thing,’ Emma,” my mom says, frowning. “She’s a person, and she can make up her own mind about who she wants to be friends with, don’t you think?”

“But what if she decides wrong?” I say, trying to make my mom understand.

“Then she’ll have made a mistake,” Mom says calmly. “And that’ll be her problem, Emma. Not yours. Look,” she says, leaning forward. “Do you remember when you kept losing your doll clothes after we moved here? And do you remember when you
completely
lost that library book last month, and we had to pay the library fourteen ninety-five to replace it?
Fourteen ninety-five
?
And remember when you lost the front-door key a couple of weeks ago?”

She’s gonna bring up
everything?
What do moms do, keep an invisible list?

“I guess,” I say reluctantly. “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry.”

Mom reaches over to hug me. “Oh, honey, I’m not trying to make you apologize again,” she says. “I’m only trying to tell you that being careless with
objects
is one thing. But you can’t be careless with people, ever. Especially not the people you care about.”

“And I was careless with Annie Pat?” I say, kind of seeing it that way for the first time.

“I think you were,” my mom says, nodding.

“Well, you don’t have to be mad at me, Mom,” I tell her softly. “Because I’m already even madder at myself.”

“I am so glad to hear that, Emma,” my mom says, hugging me again, only this time there are tears in her eyes.

The weirdest things make her happy—and sad.

“I’ve got a good idea,” she says, changing the subject with food, which always works. “This is a perfect day to bake some pies.”

“Pies?” I repeat. “But it’s too early to cook for Thanksgiving. They’ll get stale, won’t they?”

“Not if we eat ’em,” Mom says with a grin. “Or give ’em away. Come on, Em—I thought you
liked
pumpkin pie.”

Pumpkin pie
! “I love it,” I say, almost drooling.

“And you didn’t get to have any last year, as I recall,” my mother continues. “You griped about it for weeks, in fact. And I did the bulk of my holiday shopping yesterday, to beat the crowds, so we have the ingredients. Why
not
make our pies today? And even eat one, if we feel like it!”

“But—but we usually buy pumpkin pie in the store, Mom,” I say. “It must be really hard to make.” I picture my mother, who really doesn’t like to cook, plopping our poor old Halloween
pumpkin—which we never got around to carving—into a frozen pie crust and hoping for the best.

“I’ve actually got a recipe,” she says, grinning at me. “And lots of canned pumpkin,” she adds. “So let’s make our sandwiches and eat them fast, sweetie. We’ve got some serious pie baking to do!”