“So what are you wearing? For the wedding,” Chedvi wants to know.

Mali smiles. “I mean, I’m wearing long, obviously, but I didn’t want to be as fancy as Raizy and her sisters — I mean, they are the sisters… so it’s kind of like a dusty rose color, and the skirt…”

“Omigosh, sounds stunning,” someone says.

Tzippy turns to Shoshana. “How about your gown? We haven’t heard about it in ages.”

Mimi watches Shoshana splutter on a mouthful of soup, casting a desperate look in Mimi’s direction.

“No offense, but I think we’ve heard enough about gowns to last till the end of lunchtime,” Mimi says lightly. “How about we go back to something interesting, like, um, tests and assignments?”

Everyone laughs. Shoshana throws her a grateful look, mutters something about paper towels, and dashes off.

“What’s up with her?” Ella mutters.

Mimi feels something rancid crawl up her gut. She forces herself to swallow. “Dunno,” she says.

Miss Spiegel is not happy. She spends a full five minutes interrogating Mimi about why, exactly, she couldn’t complete the assignment.

If she’d been speaking to the teacher privately, maybe Mimi could’ve tried to explain herself. But hunched over in her seat with a posture that would horrify Tova, Mimi feels dozens of eyes on her, and she can’t speak.

“Tomorrow. In my box in the teachers’ room,” Miss Spiegel pronounces. Mimi thinks of the night ahead: the navi assignment, the math test, the make-up Chumash test that she still hasn’t begun studying for. She has tried the history essay, she really has, but every time she looks at it, she gets more confused, and the three halting paragraphs she’s written don’t make sense even to her.

The lesson drags to a close while Mimi draws an endless loop of stressed-out emojis. I can’t do this.

Miss Spiegel sweeps out, and the girls around Mimi stretch, putting books away, drifting toward the door for a quick breather. A shadow falls over Mimi’s desk.

“Mimi, if you would like, I can assist you with the history assignment,” Kayla announces. She’s talking as if she’s a few feet away instead of standing over Mimi’s desk. “Miss Spiegel said these grades count toward our report cards, and your average is already too low, based on the past two tests.”

Mimi’s cheeks flame. “I don’t need help. It’s fine,” she mutters, although part of her, underneath the utter mortification, thinks that if Kayla could write the assignment for her, it wouldn’t be such a bad thing.

“Hey, Kayla, can you help me next time?” Toby Marcus asks. “I for sure failed that assignment, it was sooo complicated.”

“Yeah,” Malka Subar, Toby’s sidekick, echoes. “Hey, Kayla, wanna tutor us in algebra tonight? There’s no way I’ll figure it out myself in time for the test.”

Kayla looks perplexed. “I can’t tutor, I am not trained or qualified to do so. But we can study together, and I can explain the material the same way we learned it in class.”

“Omigosh, I’m joining!”

“Me too!”

Kayla frowns. “No more than two people at a time, otherwise the environment becomes too distracting.”

“Me and Toby booked you first,” Malka says quickly.

“Hey, no fair, we want to study with Kayla, too!” Chedvi pouts.

Kayla looks surprised, but pleased. Mimi feels nauseous.

They’re using her, that’s all. They need her brains, they want her to do the work for them. And Kayla thinks they like her. She thinks they’re friends.

Then she realizes something even worse. It’s going to be in our house. Kayla’s gonna have all these girls over at our house.

This is going to be a disaster.

To be continued…

(Originally featured in Teen Pages, Issue 902)