Only Emma (8 page)

“So, what did you two girls decide about Friday?” Mom asks Cynthia.

“Huh?” Cynthia asks.

Because I told her everything was decided.

“Oh,” my mom says, smiling. “I guess things are still up in the air. But it would be nice if you could come over to our house and help out with Anthony, Cynthia.”

Cynthia doesn’t even look at me. Her mouth makes a straight line on her face, as if a pencil just drew it there. “I’m sorry, Mrs. McGraw, but I can’t come over,” she tells my mom. “I have to play with my cat that night. I’m going to be very busy.”

Just then, a horn beeps, Cynthia spots her father’s car double-parked in front of the school, and she runs off, her shiny hair swinging.

“That girl forgot to say good-bye,” Anthony says, straightening his paper hat. “She isn’t very polite.”

   7   

Triceratops

“Okay,” Mom says to me when we get home, after feeding a
Cartoons & Songs for Little Buckaroos
video into the VCR for Anthony. “What’s going on here?” She leads me into the kitchen and pours me a glass of milk.

“What’s going on where?” I ask her, looking around, but I know what she is talking about.

She’s talking about Cynthia, that’s what.

“What’s going on with your new friend Cynthia Harbison?” she asks, sure enough.

I take a slo-o-o-ow drink of milk, then I look up at her. “I told her a widdle fib,” I say, trying to say it cute, like Elmer Fudd.

“You
lied
?” Mom practically squawks.

See, that’s the trouble with my mom—you can’t fool her by saying things cute.

“What did you say to her, Emma?” Mom asks me.

I give a big sigh. “Okay. I told her that you said I couldn’t go over to her house this Friday. I said I had to stay home and help you babysit Anthony.”

“Emma, I told you that you
could
spend the night at Cynthia’s, if that’s what you really wanted to do,” Mom says, snapping out the words.

“Yeah, but you didn’t mean it,” I say. “You wanted me to stay home.”

Mom scrunches up her face. “Well, maybe I did,” she admits, “but I left the final decision up to you.”

Thanks a lot, Mom
.

“So, why did you decide to stay home with us on Friday?” Mom finally asks me.

“I don’t know,” I mumble. We both listen to Anthony for a minute. We can hear him shouting out a song, along with the video. “Maybe I feel a little bit sorry for Anthony,” I say.

“He misses being at his own home,” Mom says, nodding.

“And he is kind of fun to be around,” I surprise myself by saying. “You never know what is going to happen next with him.”

“You’re right about that,” Mom says, laughing. “Do you know what he did this morning, when I was trying to work?”

See, my mom has an office at home now. Instead of being a librarian for a big company, like before, she corrects books for writers, kind of like an extra-fancy English teacher. Words are her
business
. That’s probably why she’s so fussy about them.

“No, what did he do?” I ask her.

“He got into my hair gel, and he turned himself into a triceratops. Used up the whole tube,”
Mom says. She makes a
too-bad-but-it-was-worth-it!
face. “I should have suspected something was up, he was so quiet.”

“Did you take a picture of him for me?” I ask her.

“No film,” she said, shaking her head sadly.

“Well, next time, take a picture,” I tell her.

But then we look at each other, because—because we both know that there probably won’t
be
a next time. Anthony will be going home pretty soon.

I am surprised that I feel a little bit sad about this.

Mom sighs. “I always wondered what it would be like if you had a little brother or a little sister, Emma,” she says softly. She has a mushy look on her face. As I said before, my
mom and dad got divorced a long time ago, so there weren’t any more babies.

My father lives in England, so I don’t get to see him very often. But he and his new wife haven’t had any babies. And I haven’t ever met her, but I can’t imagine a person with a fancy name like Annabelle changing anyone’s diaper.

Of course, I could be wrong.

“It would be crowded and noisy if I had a little brother or sister,” I say, having now had some experience. “But it would also be kind of fun, at least some of the time,” I add, thinking of splashing, singing, crying, peanut-buttery Anthony.

“Lots of fun,” Mom says, brightening a little bit. “But tiring,” she adds, her eyes suddenly big and serious. “Very tiring.” She rubs her neck.

“I know what you mean,” I say. I take a dainty sip of my milk and try to look like a grownup lady who is also tired.

Mom giggles again. Then she says, “So, what
are you going to do about lying to Cynthia?”

Wham
, I am a kid again. “It wasn’t exactly a lie,” I say.

“Yes, it was,” Mom tells me. “And what are you going to do about it?”

“Um, hope she forgets it ever happened?” I suggest.

“She won’t forget. Not Cynthia,” Mom says.

My mom is right about that, I think.

I stare at the top of the table. “I guess I’d better say I’m sorry,” I tell Mom at last.

“That’s my girl,” Mom says, smiling.

“Okay. I’ll do it tomorrow, at school,” I say.

“You’ll do it tonight,” Mom informs me. “Poor Cynthia,” she adds, making a sad face that is intended to urge me toward the phone. “How do you think she’s feeling right about now?”

How am
I
supposed to know how Cynthia is feeling? What am I, a mind reader? Knowing how Cynthia gets when she is angry, though, I figure that she is probably biting the heads off
animal crackers, or blowing bubbles and then popping them, or yelling at her cat, or something like that. I don’t say this to my mom, though.

But my mother is not waiting for an answer to her question. “Why don’t you use the phone in my bedroom when you call her,” she tells me. “You’ll have more privacy that way.”

“Okay,” I say, taking the hint. I get up from the table. “Um, are you going to punish me? For telling a fib? I mean a lie.
A lie
,” I say, correcting myself in a hurry.

My mom laughs. “I think you’ve already been punished enough, Emma,” she says. “You should have seen the look on your face when Cynthia found out that you hadn’t told her the truth. It was priceless.” And she actually smiles.

“Huh,” I say.

“No,” Mom says, half to herself and half to me. “I don’t think you’ll be lying again anytime soon.”

I don’t think so, either, but she doesn’t have to
be so cheerful about it. So I just stalk out of the kitchen like a flamingo, without saying another word.

Flamingos are pink from eating shrimp, did you know that? Not from blushing, of course.

Anyway, I am not looking forward to this telephone call.

Unfortunately, Cynthia is home when I call her. She even answers the phone. “Don’t hang up,” I tell her. “It’s me.”

“Me, who?” Cynthia says coolly.

Uh-oh
, I think,
this is going to be even harder than I
thought
. She is going to make me crawl. “Me, Emma,” I tell her. “Don’t hang up,” I say again.

She doesn’t hang up, but she doesn’t say anything to me, either.

I clear my throat. “Okay, listen,” I say. “I’m sorry I lied to you—I’m
really
sorry, I mean. My mom said I could make up my own mind about Friday, but I just didn’t know what I wanted to do. And then when I knew, I was afraid to tell you.”