I look between the three of them pointedly, lifting my eyebrows to ask what they want.

“We came to have a little talk,” Paul, the smirker, says.

I fold my arms to match theirs. “So talk.”

“Stay away from Hannah,” Michael, the frowner, says.

“Who?” I turn the volume down on the portable CD player clipped to my belt.

“My sister Hannah,” Robert says, still glaring.

Who even is she?

“I don’t know who…”

Pale skin. A mass of freckles. Dark brown, tightly coiled ringlets. Looks away quickly every time I catch her looking at me.

“I barely know your sister,” I say with a shrug. “But okay.”

“Let’s keep it that way, Fraction.” Paul laughs.

Fraction. A new one, more inventive than Zebra or Oreo, but just as insulting. Lava percolates in my belly while Big Boi is reduced to a defiant murmur in my ears.

“Yeah, let’s keep it that way.” Robert thumps my forehead and snatches my yarmulke. “You don’t need this messing up your ’fro, do you, Stern?”

“Stop playing.” I reach for the cap, but Robert tosses it to Paul.

Paul’s smirk spreads into a full-blown grin when he catches my yarmulke and twirls it on his finger. “Look, it’s spinning like a basketball. You like basketball, right, Stern?”

All three of them are taller than I am, but I’m the one who would play basketball? I’ve never played in my life. I roll my eyes, but stretch for the yarmulke. Paul holds it over his head out of my reach and tosses it to Michael.

“Give it to me,” I say, my words rattling against the cage of my gritted teeth.

“Take it from me,” Michael counters, his frown lifted, but meanness still shadowing his eyes.

“That’s the problem, right?” I ask, settling back onto my heels, no longer reaching for the yarmulke. “You think I’m going to take something from you?”

“What?” Michael’s spiteful smile slips.

“Yeah,” I say, stepping closer to him until only an inch separates our noses. “You hate that I speak Hebrew better than you do after months when you’ve been learning for years. And you hate that your sister likes me. Well, you can sleep at night because I don’t like her back.”

He pushes me hard enough that I almost fall, but I catch myself before I hit the ground. My hands slam into the concrete, palms scraping, but keeping me from landing on the sidewalk. My will and body overrule the wisdom of my mind, and I spring toward him without thinking, without weighing the odds. Three against one. I shove him back.

“This little shvartze pushed me,” Michael spits, his glare reigniting.

Shvartze.