Loving Emily by Anne Pfeffer Read Free Book Online

of cut up apples. They’re wearing the same sad expressions they’ve had since they first heard about Michael, but when they see me, they leap off their stools.
    “Did you have a fight? Did you win?” Maddy is bouncing up and down beside me. She has blonde hair and freckles, while Molly’s dark, like my dad. I was eight when they were born. For a long time, I ignored them, but ever since they saw Michael overdose and almost die, I’ve kind of looked out for them.
    “You poor thing! Does it hurt much?” Molly’s eyebrows come together, and her mouth puckers into a little “O.”
    “I’m fine. I crashed into a guy playing soccer in P.E.”
    “Put this on your head, Ryanito. Then sit down, and the girls will set the table.” Ro brings me a towel with an ice pack in it, and I take a chair.
    “Any chance the rents will put in an appearance?” I ask her.
    “They will come to say goodbye, before they go to dinner.”
    Rosario is taking a roast chicken, surrounded by potatoes and carrots, out of the oven. Molly and Maddy have already laid down just four placemats, for the three of us and Ro.
    They don’t even bother to ask anymore.
    “Ryan,” Maddy complains. “My backhand sucks. Will you help me with it?” She’s into tennis in a big way.
    “I’ve noticed you tilt your head as the ball comes to you,” I tell her. “To judge the shot right, you need to look at it straight on, with both eyes. I’ll show you this weekend.”
    “Well then, you have to do spelling words with me, too!” Molly says. “So I can win the school spelling bee.”
    “You got it.” I touch the ice pack gingerly to my swollen temple
    Rosario serves our chicken and vegetables. We sit at a table in a bay window off the kitchen. Since it’s mid-September and still light out, we can see the garden, the fountains and off in the distance, our tennis court and pools.
    We’ve just started to eat when my parents roll through the kitchen on the way to their real lives. Mom’s got this dress on that’s embarrassingly short, and Dad has these sunglasses that I guess he thinks make him look cool.
    “Mom! Dad! What a nice surprise!” I say in the fake, bright voice that I use for needling my parents. Anger slithers out of my mouth and crawls around the kitchen, like a cockroach.
    “We’re going to a screening,” Dad says. “Then a late dinner.” He takes a closer look at me. “What did you do to yourself?”
    I repeat my soccer story.
    “Thank goodness you don’t play football,” Mom says, making one of her invaluable contributions to the conversation. “Don’t wait up for us.”
    “We wouldn’t think of it!” I use the same bright tone as before.
    Both Dad and Ro have that
Not again
expression on their faces that they reserve for my sarcastic moments.
    “Ryan, you must
respect
your parents,” Rosario says after they’re gone.
    “They should stay home once in a while!”
    I’m sure Ro agrees with me, but she keeps it to herself. “Have some juice.” She fills our glasses.
    “You guys doing okay?” I ask the girls. “Have you been thinking about Michael?”
    They nod. “Miss Ellen says he’s gone to a better place,” Maddy reports. “Is that true?”
    “I don’t know,” I say. “I hope so.”
    They tell me and Rosario about their day. Second grade is hard, because Maddy, who is in a different class from Molly, got the cool teacher, while Molly got Miss Cruella. Her real name’s Miss Priscilla. Molly, at age eight, is bitter.
    “So, today,” Molly complains, “Miss Cruella’s yelling at Cameron Fiske, yelling
maniacally
, but then the door opens and Mr. Palmer walks in, and just like
that”—
she snaps her fingers—”Miss Cruella starts talking in this fakey, sweet voice, pretending like she was being nice all along.” She sniffs in disgust.
    We talk about ways that Molly can deal with Miss Cruella.
    “Why don’t you just be so bad,” Madison suggests, “that they move you to my class?” She’s