I start in surprise and wonder if that is true. Yezer is very evil. I look out the window again for a minute so that I don’t look at Aginéni’s arm even though it is covered. Another thing all the neighborhood kids know about Aginéni is that she has a number on her arm because she is a survivor from the Holocaust.

“Ella Draggon-Hart is not about the Nazis!” protests Honey. “It’s fantasy.”

“Have you read it?” asks Aginéni.

“No, but—”

“Then, what do you know?”

“Well, I’ve seen the movies.” Honey scowls.

“So nu, what’s Daisy’s secret?” Aginéni asks me.

“I don’t want to spoil it,” I say.

“Oh, just spit it out,” Aginéni commands.

I take a gulp. “She’s been meeting with her grandmother.” Aginéni’s eyes widen. Daisy is a Jewish character. Her parents grew up Hasidic but left their sect before she was born and now don’t keep any Jewish laws or customs. Her dad even fries bacon for breakfast! In butter! Eating pork and mixing meat with dairy is as non-kosher as you can get. And they don’t have anything to do with her grandparents, who won’t talk to her family and have disowned them.

“I knew it!” Aginéni says with a satisfied smile. “You see, Hakadosh Baruch Hu works in mysterious ways.” She points her finger to the ceiling, talking about God. Honey picks up the book and starts scanning the back cover. “That Daisy has a Yiddishe neshama no matter her parents’ own choices,” Aginéni says.

Aginéni means that Daisy has a “Jewish soul.” Daisy’s parents so badly want her to have a “normal” life and not the ultra-Orthodox one they grew up in, where they always had to hold themselves separate from the rest of the world. But Daisy goes searching for her roots because she doesn’t know what it means to be Jewish, and she wants to feel a part of something and understand where she comes from.

To be honest, until I read Most Likely To … it was something I hadn’t even thought about before. Maybe because almost everyone I know is religious, and being Modern Orthodox, we observe the laws like keeping Shabbat and keeping kosher, but we also go to college, have jobs, and are part of modern life. The series made me realize that being religious guides everything I do—from what I eat, to what I wear, to where I go to school. Sure, when I see kids on TV, I realize that my life is a little different. But in other ways it feels a lot the same—especially inside. Where it matters.

“I guess,” I say finally, feeling like it’s complicated.

Honey has put the book down and is pulling a long strand of her hair in and out of her mouth. She’s not a reader.

“Okay, girls,” says Aginéni, drawing her hand to the hip of her pink housecoat. “As my dear husband, Imre-batchi, used to say: ‘Guests are like fish, they start to stink.’ ”