“Yeah,” I said. “I know.”

There was a nearly empty table in the so-called outcast corner. The only person sitting there was my unappreciative damsel in distress-Ema or Emma-I still hadn’t learned her name.

“So about being your Donkey?”

“I’ll get back to you,” I told Spoon.

I hurried over and put my tray next to hers. She had the heavy black makeup thing going on, shoe-polish black hair, black clothes, black boots, pale skin. She was goth or emo or whatever they called that look now. Tattoos covered her forearms. One snaked up her shirt and around her neck. She looked up at me with a face that could not look more sullen without actually being punched.

“Oh, great,” she said. “The pity sit.”

“Pity sit?”

“Think about it.”

I did. I had never heard that one before. “Oh, I get it. Like I pity you for sitting alone. So I sit with you.”

She rolled her eyes. “And here I pegged you for a dumb jock.”

“I’m trying to be a Renaissance man.”

“You have Mrs. Friedman too, I see.” She looked to her left, then her right. “Where’s your preppy girlfriend?”

“I don’t know.”

“So from sitting with the prissy pretty girl to sitting with me.” Ema/Emma shook her head. “Talk about a big step down.”

I was getting tired of thinking of her as Ema/Emma. “What’s your name?”

“Why do you want to know?”

“I heard a kid call you Ema. I heard Ms. Owens call you Emma.”

She picked up her fork and started playing with her food. I noticed now that she had pierced eyebrows. Ouch. “My real first name is Emma. But everyone calls me Ema.”

“Why? I just want to know what to call you.”