Mimi circles answers based on what sounds familiar, although the options are similar, and she keeps second-guessing herself. Mrs. Stern’s tests are murder. She turns back to the first page and begins to fill out whatever she can, guessing randomly.

She glances around. Everyone seems intent on their papers. Tzippy, Ella, Chedvi, Malka, Breindy, Hadassah, Toby… everyone’s focused, everyone’s writing, everyone seems to know exactly what they’re doing. Even the atmosphere… it’s different, hushed, intense, almost like midterms.

Something niggles at the edge of Mimi’s consciousness. Something important. Something about the test and the way her classmates are taking it so seriously, the way Mrs. Stern is patrolling the room solemnly instead of sitting behind her desk grading homework…

“Mimi? Is everything okay?” Mrs. Stern stops beside her desk, leaning over so her sheitel brushes Mimi’s hair as she whispers.

Mimi startles, moving her hand over to cover her sorry attempt at the first page.

“Oh! Um, yeah, I’m fine. I’m just… looking over the test.”

Mrs. Stern looks at her piercingly. Mimi looks down. Finally, the teacher nods and moves away.

She makes sure to leave the classroom as soon as the tests are collected.

“Mimi? Hey, wait up!” Shoshana’s right behind her. “How was the test? You got to study?”

“Not really.” Mimi makes a face. “Whatever. It’s just a test. Are you okay?”

Shoshana looks at her strangely for a moment, but at Mimi’s question, her eyes dart around, and she lowers her voice. “Let’s go somewhere else, okay?”

Mimi opens her mouth to say something — she and Shoshana have hashed things out for hours already, she wants to relax a little, hear how the others found the test — but Shoshana’s eyes are pleading.

“Okay, sure,” she says, and they head up the stairs.

A moment later, she hears Ella’s voice floating up behind them. “Shosh? Mimi? Where did they go?”

She wavers, then shrugs. Shoshana needs her more. Mimi turns a corner, following Shoshana to some deserted corner near the janitor’s closet, leaving Tzippy, Ella, Kayla, the failed test — everything — behind her.

By the time recess is over, Mimi feels like she’s awakened from a long, deep sleep. Shoshana’s misery is so all-encompassing, it makes her forget everything else.

As soon as they enter the classroom, though, it all comes flooding back.

“Oh, my gosh. This is insane!” Breindy’s shrieking, with several others agreeing. “Like, you know the entire test by heart?”

Kayla’s at the center of the commotion, looking bewildered. “Of course. The multiple-choice answers were a, c, d, c, b, a…”

“What about that Rashi about the bnos Tzelafchad, what was the answer?” someone interrupts.

Kayla finishes listing off the string of multiple-choice results before answering. Then she recites the Rashi in question, Hebrew then English.

The class erupts in squeals again.

Mimi feels sick.

“There you are,” says Ella, coming over to her. “We couldn’t find you or Shoshana all recess.”

“Oh, we were around…” Mimi says vaguely. “That test was murder, no?”

Tzippy joins them. “The test? I was actually expecting worse, after everything my sisters warned me about Mrs. Stern’s tests,” she says. “It wasn’t so bad, was it, Ella? I mean, not that I’m a genius like your sister,” she giggles. “But I think I did okay.”

Ella smiles. “Omigosh, Mimi, Kayla’s hilarious,” she says. “We were sitting on the stairs — you know, where we usually sit? — and she came over to ‘hang out with us.’ She literally went through every answer on the test.”

“It was so cool, like getting to see the teacher’s answer sheet,” Tzippy puts in.

Ella lowers her voice. “And, like, I know she can be totally off sometimes, but Kayla… she’s hysterical, you know that? Total entertainment.”

Entertainment. Like a circus animal.

She looks around at her class, still marveling at Kayla’s photographic memory, and her stomach turns over.

Not her best friends, too.

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Mishpacha Jr., Issue 899)