Super Emma Read Online Free

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“urf.”
And I can’t help it—I cry for a little while, and she rubs my back, saying, “There, there.”
    Sometimes I feel like saying,
“Where, where?”
when she does that.
    “I’m scared,” I tell my mom. “Jared’s so big and mean!”
    “But Emma,” Mom says, “I’m sure he would never really hit you. You’ve stood up to him before, right? You did it just yesterday, in fact.”
    “Mom, I
told
you! I wasn’t thinking when I grabbed EllRay’s toy away from him, so that doesn’t count. See, that’s the trouble,” I tell her.
    “What’s the trouble?”
    “Everyone thinks I was trying to be so brave,” I say, sniffling. “They were even calling me Su-Su-
Super
Emma all day long.”
    Mom gives me a little hug. “Well, that’s not such a bad nickname, is it? I think it’s pretty cool, in fact.”
    “It was bad the way
they
said it,” I tell her.“And then even today, Annie Pat thought I was being brave again when Jared started picking on me and I called him a name. And I wasn’t being brave, I was being mad—mad and scared. That’s not the same thing as brave, is it? So it really doesn’t count, either.”
    “But Emma …”
    “I don’t
want
to be brave,” I interrupt. “I just want everyone to leave me alone!”
    Mom ruffles my tangly hair. “Honey, ‘brave’ is only a word. It can mean a lot of different things. But did you apologize to EllRay the way we talked about—for embarrassing him yesterday?” she asks me.
    “I never got a
cha-a-a-ance
,” I wail. “He was too busy being mean to me! Oh, don’t make me go to school tomorrow, okay? Have mercy!”
    “Well, honey,” my mom says in her most reasonable voice, “you’re going to have to return to school sooner or later, so it might as well betomorrow. Does Ms. Sanchez know any of this is going on?”
    “She knows they’re calling me ‘Super Emma,’ anyway,” I say gloomily, wiping my face on my sleeve. “But she probably doesn’t know why.”
    “Maybe I should go in and talk to her,” Mom suggests. “Perhaps that would help.”
    “No, that would
hurt
,” I tell her. “Ms. Sanchez can’t follow Jared around for the rest of his life, can she?”
    “Of course not,” Mom says.
    “Then sooner or later, he’ll get me,” I tell her.
    “But Emma, if he threatened to beat you up, I—”
    “He—he didn’t exactly say he would beat me
up
,” I admit. “He said he would get even with me. In front of all the kids. At recess tomorrow.”
    “Hmm,” Mom says, thinking.
    “You’ll just make everything worse if you tell Ms. Sanchez,” I tell her. “Promise you won’t.”
    “But listen, Emma,” Mom says, “you’re really in a pickle here, and I think you need some help getting out of it.”

    Mom says “in a pickle” when she means that a person is in trouble.
    Or else she says “in a jam.” She likes food talk, I guess.
    “Well, maybe I could get out of the pickle if I stayed home tomorrow,” I suggest, snuggling up. I am trying to remind her of our long history together. We go way back.
    “That’s no solution,” Mom says, sighing.
    “Then I’m going to be pickle-
relish
,” I tell her. “That’s all. But I’ll go to school if you really want me to,” I add. “I might as well get it over with.”
    It feels as though there is a rock in my stomach.But I climb out of her lap, sit down again in my own chair, stab another bite of meat loaf, dip it, and then chomp it as hard as I can.
    Mom watches me and just shakes her head. “You’re braver than you think you are, honey,” she says.
    Huh
, I think,
that’s easy for her to say
.

7
for No Reason
    My mom pulls our car up under the big pepper tree in front of our school. She reaches over and twiddles with my hair. “Now remember, honey,” she says, “if things look like they are getting out of control with Jared, I want you to tell Ms. Sanchez—at once. Do you promise me?”
    “Okay,” I say, crossing my fingers where she