Then it came to me, the last time I saw Hebrew letters.

I copied the email text, then opened a new window, and went to Google Translate. In the first box, I selected Yiddish, in the second box, English. Then I pasted the Hebrew into the Yiddish box and held my breath while “translating…” flashed on the screen.

A few moments later, this popped up in the English box:

I just have one thing to say to you:

I could still crush you at everything except baking and getting stuck in elevators.

Respond with your cupcake recipe and all is forgiven.

I laughed. On a day I was sure there would be nothing to laugh about, I laughed.

If anybody had a right to be sending me scary email, it was Keya, and all she wanted was a cupcake recipe.

I hit Reply.

To: [email protected]

From: [email protected]

Subject: Re: Just saying

Keya,

Thanks for clearing that up. Will send cupcake recipe soon. Reply with one for butter tea?

Any interest in Skype baking lessons? My rates are reasonable. Just kidding. I owe you.

Tris

After I hit Send, I went through the rest of my inbox.

I’m not going to lie. There was a bunch of hate mail, but I just dumped it right in the trash and didn’t think about it again.

Getting the email from Keya had made me realize something. Keya knew me, maybe not like Josh or Jeanine, but she did know me; those other people, the ones who sent the hate mail, didn’t. They’d never even met me. Why would I listen to someone who didn’t even know me? They were writing to some kid they’d watched on TV, and that kid was just what they saw, not who I was. I knew what I’d done was wrong and how to fix it. I didn’t need them for that or anything else.

When I was done with all the mail, I started working on the doughnut schedule, pairing our new dairy collective workers with different orders. I’d been at it only a short time when Jeanine and Zoe came in. Jeanine’s eyes were red and Zoe was holding her hand.

“What happened?”

“She’s not going to the Oval House. She’s sad,” Zoe said.

“It’s the White House. The Oval Office,” Jeanine said between whimpers. “And I’m not getting to see either.”

“You didn’t get the scholarship, huh?” I said.

“I…I…I missed the deadline!” Jeanine wailed.

“Wanna hear a duck-duck joke?” Zoe asked.

I couldn’t believe it. Jeanine had never missed anything in her life. “But how?”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I guess it was because I was busy, helping Dad with the paper and writing articles. And then when we were in the city, we were out there every day with our signs, trying to get people to listen to our Petersville pitch.”

“You missed the deadline for your essay about making a difference because you were too busy making a difference?”