Super Emma (9 page)

Also, like I just said, we both want to be scientists when we grow up. Pretty ones, with awesome clothes.

Also, Cynthia Harbison won’t let us eat with her anymore.

Cynthia is the bossiest girl in our class, and
the most popular. She always scrapes her chin-length hair back from her forehead with a plastic headband so that it looks perfectly neat, while my curly brown hair goes wherever it wants. And everything Cynthia wears looks new, while I sometimes look as if I got dressed in the dark.

It’s not that I’m a slob, but my mind is on other things, my mom always says.

Cynthia also has the loudest voice of any girl in our class. In fact, I can hear her talking right now. She is sitting at a table with some of the other girls in our class. “Fiona is my first-best friend today, and Heather is my second-best friend,” Cynthia is saying—mostly to Fiona and Heather. She takes a dainty nip at her sandwich. Its crusts are trimmed off, and it has been cut into triangles. Her mother is very well trained.

“Oooh!” Fiona says, thrilled. She blushes a little and flips her long, light-brown hair back over her shoulders.

“Oooh,” Heather says, sounding like a mourning dove. She looks as though she’s about to cry.

That’s Cynthia’s thing lately—rating her friends. And she sometimes also lists her enemies. But I guess she doesn’t feel like it today.

Annie Pat and I swap secret looks.
Relieved
looks.

But even though Cynthia didn’t announce this Monday that Annie Pat and I are her first-worst enemy and her second-worst enemy, and even though we have eaten enough lunch for two much bigger kids—or for four normal, us-sized kids—I have that empty feeling inside.

The feeling that comes when you feel left out—like the little lost fish who swims just outside the swooping school of matching fish.

Or left out like the migrating bird who gets separated from its flock somewhere in New Jersey and never gets to visit South America.

Or left out like the smallest, weakest hyena who does not get even a
taste
of the zebra feast. And none of the other hyenas even cares.

I have seen all these things—and worse!—on nature shows, which, in spite of the sad parts,
are my favorite things to watch on TV. Annie Pat likes those programs, too.

“Let’s go, Emma,” she whispers to me, tugging at my sleeve. I can tell that she doesn’t want Cynthia, Fiona, or Heather to notice us, because they can be kind of boring, to tell the truth. Especially since they don’t want to be our friends anymore.

And school this afternoon is probably going to be boring enough. Why invite even
more
boring into our lives?

“Okay,” I whisper back. “We’ll throw our trash away and then go run around on the playground.”

This is an excellent idea I just had, because it is a cool-hot California day, and the November wind is blowing just the right amount, and my legs feel twitchy inside. They want to
move
.

Also, Cynthia hardly ever runs around on the playground. I guess she’s too busy rating her friends.

Annie Pat clutches her stomach. “I’m not so sure about the running-around part,” she tells
me. “I think I ate too much to run
anywhere
. In fact, I feel kind of funny.”

“Then we’ll walk,” I say, hurrying her along—because Cynthia Harbison’s eyes are now sparky, the way they get when she is looking for something to do.

Or someone new to bore.

“Ow, my stomach really
hurts
,” Annie Pat says softly as I slam-dunk our lunch sacks into the trash can and high-five myself.

“Come on,” I say, dragging her away from the third-grade lunch area. “It can’t be that bad, can it? All you ate was—”

“Two tuna-and-pickle sandwiches,” Annie Pat says, “and a hard-boiled egg and a sack of oatmeal-raisin cookies and a container of blueberry yogurt and two green apples. And some milk.”

And then she moans.

“Well, I ate that much food, too,” I point out, “and I’m even littler than you. How come I feel okay?”

“I don’t
know-w-w
,” Annie Pat says, turning her last word into a howl.

A couple of fifth-grade boys turn to look at us. Annie Pat is bending over now, and she is clutching her stomach even harder than before. “She’s gonna hurl,” one of the boys tells the other. And then he steps back to enjoy the show.

“She is not,” I yell.

Although if Annie Pat
does
throw up, then she’ll have that empty feeling, too, I guess. And then we’ll match.

“I need to go to the nurse,” Annie Pat tells me in a begging voice.

“I’ll take you,” I say bravely, even though I usually do not like going anywhere near the principal’s office.

But my best friend needs me!