Free Super Emma by Sally Warner

1
for No Reason
    “Let me see that, stupid,” Jared Matthews says to EllRay Jakes. “Give it here.” If Jared were a lion, he would be growling right now. His twirly brown hair even looks a little like a lion’s mane, if you squint your eyes.
    But that’s not fair to lions, one of my favorite animals.

    “My name’s not ‘Stupid,’
stupid
, it’s EllRay,” EllRay tells him, trying to be brave. But he hands over the plastic figure he was playing with to Jared, who grabs it and starts twisting the movable arms back and forth.“Don’t break the wings,” EllRay says in a loud and nervous voice.
    I have said it before: EllRay is small in size but large in noise. He is the first littlest kid in the third grade, and I am the second littlest. Also, I am the second shyest, after Fiona.
    I don’t like to hear EllRay sound scared. I think he’s pretty cool, but that’s a secret.
    “I’ll break the wings if I want to,
Lancelot
,” Jared says.
    Lancelot!

    See, I think the trouble started this morning when we had this substitute teacher, Mrs. Matheson. She’s short and wide, and she was wearing an orange dress that made her look like a big chunk of supermarket cheese.
    Well, she still is. Wearing the dress, I mean.
    Anyway, she called EllRayby his real name. She said, “Lancelot Raymond Jakes?” while she was taking roll. And I guess EllRay’s name was supposed to be a secret, because he never said it out loud before.
    A lot of kids laughed when the substitute called his name, but Jared Matthews laughed the loudest:
“Haw, haw, haw.”
He is the biggest kid in our third-grade class, and he is not very nice.
    “My name is EllRay,” EllRay shouted politely to Mrs. Matheson, but it was too late—the damage was done. Now, everyone in class knows that EllRay is probably short for L-period-Ray, which is probably short for Lancelot Raymond.

    Some people’s mothers and fathers shouldbe more careful when they name a baby, that’s what I think.
    Jared pinches the toy’s purple wing, which is webbed like a bat’s. It is as if he is holding a teacup he is about to smash on the ground. He looks at EllRay, just daring him to say something. And Jared is smiling a little. “I think wings look dumb on action figures,” he says to EllRay.
    EllRay’s eyes get big. He looks scared—or at least very wide awake.
    Wide awake is a good way to look in our class, especially after lunch on a warm California day. It is very easy to fall asleep then, even if you pretend that you are only reading up close. And doing that just makes me sleepier than ever, which is why we get a recess like this in the afternoon—to run around and breathe some fresh air, in other words.
    Oh, that reminds me! This boy Corey Robinson, who sits next to me, really fell all the way asleep in class last week. He even drooled on his book,which is official school property. I felt sorry for him, but it was kind of funny.
    It was
especially
funny when Ms. Sanchez, who is our regular teacher, glided up behind him and pinched him on his hot red ear. Even though it was a gentle pinch, Corey squawked like a stepped-on cat, and he rose straight up into the air as if his chair was a giant slingshot that had decided to see how far Corey and his floppy green hair would go.
    The answer was—pretty far!
    In case you are wondering, Corey is not an outer-space alien, even though he has green hair. He is training to be a swimming champion, which is another classroom secret, but he told me about it once. Anyway, Corey swims a lot, and sometimes the chlorine in the pool turns his whitey-blond hair green.
    He always smells very clean, though, and I think he is going to be in the Olympics someday.
    You have to start early for that.
    During EllRay’s fight with Jared, Corey is standing behind EllRay, and a bunch of girls stand beside Corey, including me. Corey is moving from foot to foot as if the Oak Glen Primary School playground is as hot as a barbecue grill. He is glaring