“The couple-in-love peel?” I pretend to make goo-goo eyes at another person, my face all moony as I peel my orange without looking at it. I do a fancy-lady peel, a military peel, and a bus-driver peel, pretending to throw the peel out the window. Everyone is laughing at all the right moments. Just where I planned for them to, where I wanted them to. I can hear Mr. Sandler’s loud guffaws.

When I pause for dramatic effect like my mom does, the class is so still, staring right at me, all I can hear is Eitan Moses’s heavy breathing. And when I finish in exactly four minutes and forty-five seconds, just like I practiced, everyone bursts out clapping. They are looking at me like I am a different Milla Bloom than I was four minutes and forty-five seconds earlier.

When I walk back to my seat, Honey smiles at me, but it isn’t the big grin from before.

The rest of the day it is the elephant in the room. All Mr. Sandler said when I was done was “Two different takes on the same subject. That’s art, that’s life.” But I can’t bring myself to say anything light or funny or anything at all to Honey about us both doing a peeling-an-orange speech, and she doesn’t say anything to me either. It feels like the elephant is not just in the room but sitting on my head.

As we are at our lockers packing up, Natalie says, “So, I gotta know: Who stole the idea from who? You guys should’ve done the speech together once you had the same topic.” She laughs.

“We’re best friends, not the same person,” I say as Honey narrows her eyes and gives Natalie a death stare.

“No one stole anything from anyone,” Honey says.

“Oh yeah, no, of course not,” Natalie backpedals. “I just thought it was funny. Well, anyway, you were both really good. In your own way and all.”

Honey and I sit next to each other in silence the whole bus ride home.

“It is kind of funny, Milla,” Honey finally says as we are getting off the bus. “And like Mr. Sandler said, it might be the same topic but we do it really differently.”

“I guess,” I say.

She looks like she’s waiting for me to say something else, but when I don’t, she shrugs and starts walking toward our houses. I follow her. I can tell she is kind of mad at me too, but what can either of us say to the other? Natalie was just trying to stir things up like she always does; Honey and I both know that neither of us stole the other’s totally original creative idea. Neither of us even claimed dibs on it when Aunty Steph mentioned the peeling-an-orange speech. But still. I feel like Honey did in fact steal something from me. Does she always need to hog the limelight?