Best Friend Emma
Authors: Sally Warner
my
Best
Friend, not yours!
“Hey,” I say, surprised, as I fling my book bag onto the picnic-table bench.
“Hey yourself,” Cynthia Harbison says. “What are you doing here so early?” she asks me, scowling with suspicion. “Waiting for Kry Rodriguez to show up?”
“I’m just waiting for my friend.”
Cynthia shakes her head in a pitying way. “Kry is not going to be your friend,” Cynthia says, jumping down off the table.
“But you already have two friends,” I point out, trying to reason with her as I back away a little. “And I only have one. If I get Kry, though, it’ll make us even.”
“I don’t
want
to be even,” Cynthia says, nar-rowing her eyes. “I want to win! So, tough. It’s not gonna happen, Emma.”
Other books about Emma
Only Emma
Not-So-Weird Emma
Super Emma
Sally Warner
Illustrated by
Jamie Harper
PUFFIN BOOKS
PUFFIN BOOKS
Published by the Penguin Group
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Registered Offices: Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
First published in the United States of America by Viking,
a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2007
Published by Puffin Books, a division of Penguin Young Readers Group, 2008
3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Text copyright © Sally Warner, 2007
Illustrations copyright © Jamie Harper, 2007
All rights reserved
THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE VIKING EDITION AS FOLLOWS
:
Warner, Sally.
Best friend Emma / by Sally Warner; illustrated by Jamie Harper.
p. cm.
Summary: When a new girl joins her third-grade class just before Thanksgiving,
Emma thinks only about gaining her friendship before the popular Cynthia
can, and hurts her best friend Annie Pat’s feelings in the process.
EISBN: 9781101567449
[1. Best friends—Fiction. 2. Friendship—Fiction. 3. Schools—Fiction.
4. Thanksgiving Day—Fiction.] I. Harper, Jamie, ill. II. Title
PZ7.W24644Bes 2007 [E]—dc22 2006027629
Manufactured in China
Set in Bitstream Carmina
Book design by Nancy Brennan
Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party Web sites or their content.
For little Lucy Parsons, who will meet
her first best friend any day now! — S. W.
For my pal, Al—J.H.
7
A Fight with the Wrong Person
9
It Seemed Like a Good Idea at the Time
10
The Most Terrible Saturday in History?
11
Really, Really, Very, Very Sorry
12
Turkeys Drool, Best Friends Rule!
1
That Empty Feeling“I’m stuffed!” I say, almost gasping.
It is a Monday in November, and Annie Pat Masterson and I are eating lunch at school. We are outside, my favorite place in the world to be.
Annie Pat and I are getting ready for Thanksgiving—ten days away, Mom says—by stretching our stomachs. You have to do this from the inside, with food, because outside stretching doesn’t work. We already tried that.
“I know you’re stuffed. But want another apple anyway?” Annie Pat asks—gloomily, because she is stuffed, too. She holds one out on the flat of her hand, as if I were a horse. Her
red pigtails are usually bouncy, but today they droop.
“Sure,” I lie. “We’re in training for Thanksgiving, aren’t we?”