She turns away, leaning heavily on her cane, and starts moving toward the schnapps table. Ezra breaks away from where he’s standing with Josh and Aaron and takes Aginéni’s arm, helping her along. She shakes it loose and turns back to me. “And tell your mother to take a look at your face. I think you’re having an allergic reaction to that chazerai painted on it.”

Later that night, as I am putting cortisone cream on my hives before I go to bed, I look at myself in the mirror and think about what Aginéni asked me: Are you going to do this too? Is this for you?

I do in fact like the idea of standing at a lectern.

Just not for leining.

“Milla-babe, forgive me, but I don’t think your head’s in the game today.”

“Hmm?” I say, glancing back from the window. It’s Shabbat afternoon, and Aunty Steph is looking at me, one finger on the verse in the Book of Ruth that we are working on. I’m not learning to lein Megillat Rut; we are studying the story and commentaries in honor of my bat mitzvah, and I’ll make a speech about it at my party. But right now, I have another speech on my mind.

“It feels like maybe you’re not so engaged with our learning,” she says. She closes the book, leaving her finger inside to mark the page.

“No, it’s fine,” I say guiltily. “It’s just that the speech contest at school is coming up, and I can’t think of a topic.”

“I told you, Milla, do feminism,” my mother calls from the kitchen, where she’s cleaning up from lunch and eavesdropping. She comes to stand in the doorway of the den, where Aunty Steph and I are learning. “Or antisemitism. It’s good to do an ism.”

“What’s an ism?” Max says, looking up from the Lego he’s building on the floor with Shmuel Yosef.

“It’s the belief in something,” my mom answers.

“How about atheism?” suggests Shmuel Yosef, who has taken to sleeping at the Wines’ and joining us for Shabbat lunch—and the whole afternoon—whenever Aunty Steph is with us.

“It’s just, I want to do something really different,” I say. “Something big.”

“Believing in something is big,” my mother says, shooting Shmuel Yosef a withering glance. There’s a knock on the door, and she goes to get it.

“Hey, Sugaree,” Aunty Steph says to Honey as she joins us on the couch. “Do you know what you’re doing for the speech contest yet?”

“Not yet,” Honey says. “I’m hoping inspiration will strike soon.” Everyone laughs.

I am also hoping for inspiration. Yesterday Mr. Sandler explained the way it works: Everyone in the middle school has to prepare a speech, four to five minutes long. Starting two Mondays from now, each person will present their speech to their class over the course of one week. At the end of the week, we vote for our top three choices in our class. The next week, on Monday, the three people do their speeches again, and the class votes on whose they think is best, second best, and third best. The first best speech will be the class’s representative at the big middle school speech contest.