Super Emma (3 page)

Mom gives me an extra squeeze. “Well,” she says, “I can see how
Jared
might be a little bit
irked, being shown up by a girl that way, but who else is angry with you?”

“EllRay is,” I say, and I make a face to hide the way I feel—which is sad.

“Oh, dear.”

“For no reason!”

“I have to say I’m not surprised,” Mom says.

“But why?” I ask her.

Mom shrugs. “Maybe it’s because he feels bad that he couldn’t stick up for himself.”

“But he probably would have,” I say, “if I hadn’t jumped in and done it first.”

My mom stands up and stretches. “I think maybe you embarrassed EllRay a little, that’s all. He’ll get over it.”

“But should I tell him I’m sorry?” I ask. I fiddle with my pajama top, which is all cold and wet around the neck, thanks to my hair.

“
Are
you sorry?”

“Yeah, I am. If I really embarrassed him, I mean. But I’m not sorry I made Jared look
dumb in front of all those people. He’s so mean to everyone!”

Mom plugs in the hair dryer. “Well, that’s another problem for another day,” she tells me.

Whnn-n-n.
… The dryer starts its horrible noisy whine, which always hurts my ears, even though my mom doesn’t believe it when I tell her that. Hair dryers are not good for peace and quiet, that’s for sure. And they always smell funny, as if one little hair is burning somewhere inside them. “Ow,” I say.

“Emma, for heaven’s sake. I’m not even touching you yet.”

“Oops—sorry,” I mumble. “But tell me when you start, okay? So I can say ‘Ow’ again?”

And Mom just laughs.

Corey looks at me sideways the next morning when I take my seat. “You’re late,” he whispers. “I thought maybe you weren’t coming to school today.” A lock of hair flops onto his sunburned forehead.

“My mom’s car wouldn’t start, that’s all,” I tell him. Ms. Sanchez is back in class again, thank goodness, but she is busy at her desk looking at some papers. She hasn’t taken roll yet. “Why wouldn’t I come to school?” I ask Corey, keeping my voice low.

“
You
know,” he says, blushing a little around his freckles.

And then Ms. Sanchez starts calling our names for attendance.

I can feel my own face getting hot as she says our names.
“You know”?
What’s that supposed to mean?

But I can’t ask Corey that out loud.

“EllRay Jakes,” Ms. Sanchez calls out after a few names, and a couple of kids wriggle and snicker at the sound of his name. You can hear someone whisper,
“Lancelot, Lancelot.”
Ms. Sanchez pauses and looks up from her roll sheet.

The room holds still, because even though Ms. Sanchez is beautiful, she’s also strict.

“Present,” EllRay
says, his voice sounding loud and extra confident. He is wearing a big old football shirt today. EllRay likes to say “present” instead of “here” sometimes.

Ms. Sanchez gives him a little smile. Then she says, “Emma McGraw?”

“Here,” I croak.

“Oh no, it’s Super Emma,” someone in the back row cries out. I think it’s Stanley Washington. He hangs around Jared like one of those little fish that swims around a bigger sea creature, hoping for something good to eat.

(Annie Pat wants to be a marine biologist who studies the beaked sea snake when she grows up, and I want to be a nature scientist, so we watch lots of videos and TV programs about wildlife. Nature is our favorite thing.)

When Stanley says “Super Emma” like that, everyone in class starts laughing. Everyone except
Ms. Sanchez, that is, and EllRay, and Jared, and Corey, and Annie Pat Masterson.

And me, Super Emma herself. Because “super” is something I do not want to be.

Ms. Sanchez stands up and claps her smooth hands together three times. We are lucky, because she is the prettiest teacher at Oak Glen Primary School by far. She is engaged to a man named Mr. Timberlake, but he’s not the one on MTV. “Quiet down immediately,” she calls out, scowling.

Uh-oh, she’s
mad
. The noisy people in class quiet down—immediately—as ordered. The rest of us, who were quiet already, shrink down in our seats as though we are ice cream bars that are melting in the sun.

“Does anyone want to tell me just what … is … going … on … here?” Ms. Sanchez asks slowly.

No one does, of course.

“Mister Washington?” Ms. Sanchez says to Stanley.

We all turn around in our seats and stare at him. Stanley has never gotten so much attention in his whole life so far, I’ll bet—and he hates it. Hah! It serves him right. He shakes his big head “no” so fast that his face looks blurry.

“Emma?” Ms. Sanchez says, turning to me.

“I—I don’t know,” I say, and I am telling the truth, because what
is
going on? Why did Stanley call me “Super Emma” in that making-fun
way—when the only thing in the world that I was doing was sitting here trying to figure out how to tell EllRay at recess that I was sorry for embarrassing him yesterday?

“Then I’ll continue,” Ms. Sanchez tells us, zooming her sparkly brown eyes around the room one last time.

And so she does.

Cynthia Harbison turns to me during morning recess. “You really messed up yesterday,” she says. And then she grins. Next to her, Heather nods, looking wise—which is an optical illusion, believe me.

It is hot out today, even though it is almost Halloween. The third-grade girls are huddled in one shady patch of the playground, and the boys are gathered in another puddle of shade. Jared and EllRay are talking together as if nothing bad happened yesterday. It is as though someone has
drawn a chalk line across the middle of the playground to keep the boys and the girls apart.

It’s almost always like that around here.

I wish I didn’t have to say anything back to Cynthia, but I do. “How did
I
mess up?” I ask, scuffing my sneaker on the bumpy black asphalt.

“You did a boy-thing,” Cynthia informs me. Heather nods again, and now Fiona does, too—as if a nod is something that you can catch, like a cold.

But Annie Pat is not nodding. She is angry. “You guys all thought Emma was so brave yesterday,” she says, “and now you’re being mean to her. That’s not fair.”

Cynthia shrugs and shakes the crumbs out of her empty plastic snack bag. Then she folds the bag up, as if she’s really going to use it again. And I happen to know that Cynthia is not a good recycler. “That was yesterday,” she says. “This is today.”

“EllRay isn’t glad that Super Emma saved his toy,” Heather points out.

Annie Pat stomps her foot, and her red pigtails bounce. “Stop calling her Super Emma!”

“Yeah, quit it,” I say, finding my voice again. It’s a little squeaky. I don’t sound very super, that’s for sure.

Heather cringes, pretending to be afraid. “Oh,
please
don’t hit me, Super Emma,” she says. She peeks, at Cynthia to see if she is laughing—which she is.

“You guys are just dumb,” Annie Pat says. “Emma did a good thing yesterday.”

“Emma did a
boy
-thing,” Cynthia says, as if she is Ms. Sanchez correcting one of us kids.

“Being brave isn’t just a boy-thing,” Annie Pat says. She folds her arms across her chest.

“Yeah; you’re right—it’s a
stupid
thing,” Heather zips back. She gives Cynthia another look, and Cynthia is the one to nod this time.

“It’s a stupid thing to you, maybe,” Annie Pat says. “Not to me.”

Cynthia squints her eyes. “Well then, why don’t you and Emma go over there and play with the boys, if you like them so much?” she says.

“We
don’t
like them so much,” I object, but nobody seems to hear me.

“Yeah,” Fiona is saying. “Go play with Jared and EllRay and Stanley, if you like them so much.” And Fiona is usually the shyest girl in class!

I can feel a tickle of sweat creep down my back.

“Come on, Emma,” Annie Pat says, tugging at my sleeve. “We can tell when we’re not wanted. Let’s go.”

I don’t want to go.

I
want
to be wanted by the girls.

But I turn around and leave with Annie Pat anyway. Because what choice do we have? We have been banished.