Free Another Day as Emily by Eileen Spinelli

her.”
    Dad, chuckling: “She’s grounding herself.”
    Mom: “It’s not funny.”
    Dad: “The surprise should do it.”
    Mom: “Suppose she says no?”
    Dad: “We’ll cross that bridge
    when we come to it.”
WHAT SURPRISE?
    No way can I fall back to sleep.
    What surprise are
    they talking about?
    Hmmm … maybe they are
    going to ship me off
    to Grandma Quinn’s in Oregon
    for the rest of the summer.
    Well, I won’t go.
    I love Grandma Quinn.
    But Emily Dickinson
    doesn’t travel.
NO DOUBTS
    The next morning,
    I’m back to being Emily
    without those
    sad little doubts.
     
    Just let my parents
    try to
    surprise me with
    a trip out west!
AT THE DOOR
    I’m eating breakfast
    when there’s a knock at the door.
    Mom peeks out the window.
    “It’s Gilbert,” she tells me.
    “I can’t see visitors,” I whisper,
    choking on my toast.
    Mom blows out a long
    I-can’t-stand-this-much-longer
    breath.
    She opens the back door.
    “Emily can’t see you, Gilbert.”
    I whisper: “Tell him to leave a note.”
    Mom glares at me. “
You
tell him—”
    and walks away.
THE BIG SURPRISE
    I stay behind the open door.
    “What do you want, Gilbert?”
    Gilbert pokes his head around.
    “I have a surprise. Good news.”
    “What?” I say.
    “I’m going to a Phillies game.
    Against the Mets.
    August eleventh.”
    My heart sinks.
    I try not to show it.
    “Wonderful,” I say. “I’m happy for you.”
    “My dad won tickets from
    a radio talk show.
    He was the thirteenth caller
    with the right answer.”
    “Really,” I say.
    I am ready for this conversation
    to end.
    “Don’t you want to ask me
    how many tickets he won?”
    I’m seeing something sneaky
    in his eyes.
    “And how many tickets
    did he win, Gilbert?”
    Gilbert doesn’t speak.
    He just holds up fingers.
    Four of them.
    My heart is picking itself up
    off the floor.
    “Four?” I say.
    Gilbert ticks them off
    one finger at a time.
    “Me.
    My dad.
    You.
    Your dad.
    They’re great seats too.”
    I’m halfway out the door.
    I want to scream.
    I want to hug Gilbert.
    I want to turn cartwheels.
    But I don’t.
    I’m Emily.
    I say to Gilbert:
    “I’ll have to
    think about it.”

DEBATE
    You can’t go.
     
    Why not?
     
    Emily Dickinson would never go.
    How do you know?
     
    Baseball wasn’t a big deal then.
    Emily probably never even heard of baseball.
    And she never went to a game.
     
    But why?
     
    Too many people. Crowds of people.
     
    Maybe she had a good friend we don’t know about.
     
    Maybe that friend dragged her to a game once—
    just to get her out of the house.
     
    You believe that?
     
    No.
A VOICE
    I go from hugs and cartwheels
    to a rotten mood.
    Dad brings me a note from Ms. Mott.
    I toss it aside.
    I don’t tell him about the baseball game.
    There is also a note
    in the porch basket—from Alison!
    I toss that aside too.
    I tell Carlo:
    “I’m having a really,
    really hard time
    being a recluse.”
    I flop onto my bed.
    I close my eyes.
    I punch the mattress.
    I hear a voice.
    Where is it coming from?
    The hall?
    My head?
    The fish tank?
    It says: Then don’t be one.
DARK
    I think it will
    never come again—
    the dark.
    But it does,
    and I creep over to Mrs. Harden’s
    to talk things over.
BE SUE
    Mrs. Harden beams
    when she sees me.
    She whisks me inside
    and gives me a hug.
    “I’ve been thinking about you,”
    she says.
    She points to her craft table.
    It’s cluttered with paint
    and brushes and rags.
    She holds up a poster.
    Glued at the top
    is a picture of me
    in my Phillies cap.
    I read the words
    below the photo—
    BE SUE WHILE I AM EMILY .
    I stare at Mrs. Harden.
    “Huh?” I say.
IN BLACK AND WHITE
    Mrs. Harden opens a book
    of Emily Dickinson’s poems.
    She begins to page through them.
    “It’s a little piece of advice
    to her best friend whose name is—”
    She looks at me.
    “Susan,” I say.
    “Exactly. Ah, there it is—”
    She points to the first line
    of a poem.
    “Why don’t you read