Or Hencha.

Or Devorah.

Not even Debbie.

She has written Deb.

Deb?

I snort with laughter.

“Psst,” I try to catch her attention. “Psst,” I say again louder. Honey turns to me, and I mouth, “Ha-ha-ha,” pointing to her name card and making a silly face.

“Excuse me,” Mr. Sandler booms, striding toward our desks. “Excuse me—Milla,” he says reading my name card. “And—Deb,” he says, reading hers. My stomach drops.

“I love jokes, and it seems you two have one about the name cards. Care to share?”

He waits expectantly. My face heats with shame, and I shake my head mutely.

“Milla thinks what I’ve done with my name card is funny,” Honey says calmly, even though the tips of her ears are pink again.

“Is it?” Mr. Sandler asks.

“Not really,” she says.

“Okay, so then we won’t laugh,” he says. “Names are very sensitive. Lots of emotional baggage in names.”

I want to sink into the metal chair like a lump of putty. I feel a swelling in my throat, and I know that tears are brimming just behind my eyes.

“All right, kids,” Mr. Sandler says, striding back to the front of the classroom. “Don’t worry, we’ll have lots of time for good jokes, good ideas, and good work this year.”

I swallow. Honey stays facing forward in front of me, her back straight, paying rapt attention to Mr. Sandler. If writing Deb on her name card wasn’t some kind of joke, then what was it?

“Deb?” I splutter as we wait in line to get on the bus, raising my eyebrows all the way up. “I don’t get it. Your name is Honey.”

“What’s there not to get? Now it’s Deb.” She shrugs like this is no big deal.

“But your name is Honey,” I repeat helplessly. “You’re Honey Wine.”

“Honestly, Milla, who names their kid after a kind of alcohol?” She shakes her head.

I just look at her. I never knew her name bothered her. Well, sure, Hencha might. But what’s wrong with the name Honey?

“Anyway, it’s not even like Honey is my real name,” she continues when she sees I have no response. “And the only proof I’m Hencha is that that’s what my father named me when he was called to the Torah on the Shabbos after I was born. You’ve seen my birth certificate: My parents couldn’t be bothered to name me, so why shouldn’t I name myself?”

I feel like it probably isn’t worth mentioning that it’s essentially Giveret Griswald who has named her.

“Bye, Deb!” Natalie Aronovich calls from an open window of a sports car driving past us.

“See you, Nat!” Honey calls back with a wave and a smile. “What?” she says to me in response to my look.

“Nothing,” I say quietly, kicking a stone with my toe.

“How was school?” Mom asks the second I walk in the door from the bus stop. How’d it go? my dad texts me. I get messages from Aunty Steph and both my grandmothers—the one who lives in Miami and the one who lives in Israel—asking me the same thing.