Mimi’s still trying to process Ella’s revelation. Her friends… knew? They’d guessed?

“S

omething fun.” Ella folds her arms and stares around at the others, as if daring them to disagree. “I feel like all we do is study, study, study. We need different. Fun. We need a break.”

“We just had midwinter,” Shoshana comments. “That was fun.”

“And different.”

“And a break,” Tzippy ends with a grin.

Ella waves a dismissive hand. “That was what, two weeks ago? Doesn’t count.”

“So nu, what do you have planned for us?” Shoshana asks, scooping some lettuce out of her salad. The four of them are spending lunch period perched at the top of “their” staircase, something they’re not exactly supposed to do, but sometimes you just need to chill, away from a hundred other voices and lunches and cramped benches in the lunchroom.

Ella lifts her eyebrows and drops them again, dramatically. “Ah, I thought you’d never ask.”