“Are you back for good?” Natalie asks.

“Well, I’m back for now—and in this life, maybe that’s as much as we can ever know.” He raises his eyes to the ceiling, and even though his grin is playful, I think he means that God is in charge of the rest. Or maybe just what Honey said on the massage table: Some things aren’t in our hands, so all we can do is control what we can.

“All right, who can tell me the theme of Cashews?” All the hands in the class shoot up. “Milla, go for it.”

“It’s like in my favorite book, Most Likely To … Daisy,” I say. “It’s all about choices and the extent to which you can control your life.”

Mr. Sandler clears his throat, and I catch a funny expression cross his face. “I am familiar with that series, Milla,” Mr. Sandler says. “But I was asking about Cashews.”

“Oh, right.” I blush. “Well, um, I guess you could say it’s about a boy who feels ordinary, but also, um, extraordinary. It’s also about something he can’t control, which is being unlucky. And how he changes his destiny.”

“Interesting interpretation, Milla,” Mr. Sandler says, looking closely at me. “But I like it.”

A little light turns on inside my heart, and when its beam comes out through my smile, I don’t try to hold it in. I’m so happy Mr. Sandler is back.

I’m still thinking about external and internal choices as the bulletin board above my mother’s computer station in the kitchen fills up with invitations: bright ones, pastel ones, shiny ones, and glossy ones.

Rivkie Feuerstein’s father is a rabbi, and for her bat mitzvah, her parents sponsor a kiddush in their shul the second Shabbat after we come back from winter break. Since none of us live near Rivkie, her mother invites all the girls in our class to sleep over. On Friday night, we sit at long folding tables in her living room eating steaming bowls of neon yellow chicken soup, dry roasted chicken, maroon meatballs, and potato kugel. Rivkie doesn’t say a word throughout the whole meal, but her dad leads us in singing Shabbat songs that we belt out at the top of our lungs. It’s like being at camp. We sleep in sleeping bags on the floor of her basement, and the next day, we all go to shul bleary-eyed, earlier than I’ve ever had to go before—because Rivkie’s dad is the rabbi!

“Aren’t you going to eat something?” I ask Honey at the kiddush, finding her sitting on a chair against a wall by herself. I’ve loaded up my plate with potato kugel, herring, cholent bean stew, chips, and my favorite, eire kichel cookies with big crystals of sugar sprinkled on top.

“You can share with me,” I say, passing her my fork and nudging her over so I can share her chair.

“I’m fine,” she says, pushing the fork back to me.