Abba reached over and gently pulled the pages out of my hands. “You’re seeing and hearing too much, Tovi”

Tovi

I was sitting at Abba’s desk, in the corner where he works at home, and going through the pages they’d faxed to him from the office, looking for my favorite serial, “In the Footsteps of the Anusim.” It’s a real thriller, and it’s a very interesting style — half comics and half regular writing. My friends always like coming over to our house to look at the chapters before they go to print.

I found the latest chapter and started reading. The first half was amazing. The Da Libero family was getting ready to flee Spain in the middle of the night, but the teenage son, Miguel, was refusing to come with them. His parents had told him only a week ago that they were Jews, Anusim pretending to be Christians. He shut himself up in his room, he was so upset. I was very worried about him. I was worried about the rest of them, too, because his mother, Juana, said she wouldn’t leave without him.

Miguel was yelling a lot of angry words through his closed door. I picked up Abba’s red pen. I knew exactly what he would mark there, what he’d cross out and how he’d correct it. You can’t let a boy talk like that to his mother — not even in a story.

“Tovi!” Suddenly Abba was standing in the doorway.

“Look, Abba!” I greeted him happily. “I corrected this for you.”

Abba looked at it. He laughed. Then he looked at me and I could see that he was upset.

“Didn’t I do it right?” I asked him. “You think it’s okay to have someone talking that way?”

“I think it’s not your job to be going over unreviewed material,” he said. “If I don’t want ten thousand young readers reading expressions like that, then I don’t want you reading them, either.”

“But I know they’re not okay!” I protested. “I fixed them! If you want, I could even help you with your work. I know how to make corrections just like you, Abba, and I know what to say to those advertising ladies, too — and which pictures you don’t allow.”

“I don’t allow? The Riboino shel Oilem doesn’t allow.” Abba reached over and gently pulled the pages out of my hands. “You’re seeing and hearing too much, Tovi.”

“Just wait till I have my operation,” I said, trying to make a joke and soften him up a little. “I’ll hear even more then.”

That was a mistake. Abba doesn’t like jokes about my surgery. I had to change the subject quickly.