Free Hush by Judy Brown, Eishes Chayil

looking up at heaven or the stained ceiling but never directly at Kathy. And we hoped Hashem didn’t mind too much.
    “I don’t love Hashem,” I said. “I’m only scared of Him.”
    Kathy sighed. She pressed her pudgy cheek into the palm of her hand. She told me that it wasn’t true. Hashem was good.
    I thought of that. “I’ll go tell Devory,” I said.
    “Gittel. Oh, Gittel.” Kathy stood up heavily. The floor creaked under her feet. She threw her hands up in the air. “Why’d you stop coming here for so long?”
    “My mother, she didn’t let me.”
    “Why?”
    “Because…she…because.”
    “Is it because I’m a gentile?”
    “Yeah.”
    “She don’t like when you come up here talking with a goy?”
    “No.”
    “But still you came up. Why’d you come up?”
    “ ’Cause you’re a gentile.… You won’t tell anyone. Also because Devory is here.… She likes to come here.”
    Kathy looked around the room. She looked at the empty space between us. She smiled happily, as if she had finally noticed something she hadn’t before. “Oh,” she said. “That’s good.”

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
2000
    School wasn’t good that day. Aside from not having my Super-Snack anymore and my fearful jabs at my stomach, Devory got kicked out of class twice: once in Hebrew class when she was caught scribbling all over the chumash— the books of the Torah—with a black marker and once during math when she was caught reading a book. A goyishe book.
    I was sitting at my desk at the time, disturbed by a sudden thought that had occurred to me. Miss Goldberg was talking about the afterlife and how every Jew had an assured place in paradise. Did that mean that my principal was going to be there too? Because if it did, then there was no way I was ever going to let myself die. And if I had no choice about that, then I figured that wherever my principal was going to settle herself in heaven, I was going in the opposite direction. Then I remembered my grandmother, my teacher from last year and the year before, and Sarah Leah, who always fights with me, and Shany, who never shares, and all the other annoying people who were going to crowd in on paradise and I wasn’t quite sure I wanted to go up there at all. I was thinking that this called for an urgent discussion with Devory when Miss Goldberg’s loud voice cut across the classroom to the back seat where Devory sat.
    “Devory Goldblatt! Not only are you not listening, not only are you eating taffy—a forbidden snack—not only is your desk a wreck and your head in the clouds, but you are reading a book in the middle of class!” Miss Goldberg grabbed the book and stared at it, horrified.
    “A goyishe book!” She pointed an angry finger at Devory. “Where did you get this book? Get up now! Go to the principal! Immediately!”
    Still munching, Devory took out a piece of cake from her desk and ran toward the classroom door.
    “Your shoes!” screamed Miss Goldberg. “Where are your shoes ?”
    Everyone stared at Devory’s shoeless feet. Devory looked down curiously at her stocking feet as if discovering her toes for the first time. She then giggled quietly and continued walking.
    Miss Goldberg furiously grabbed Devory’s shoes from the floor and dumped them into her hands along with the book.
    “Go! Go right now to the principal with this book and the shoes and tell her what you did! I will speak with her at recess time!”
    At recess time Devory skipped into the classroom humming happily. I asked her what happened, and she giggled again and said, “Oh, she just gave me a whole long speech.”
    But that wasn’t the end of it. At the end of class Miss Goldberg gave us back our writing assignment. When she called up Devory, she stared at her sternly and handed her a white envelope with the assignment inside.
    “Give this to your mother,” she said.
    I went home with Devory that day; my mother was at the dentist with Yossi. Devory hummed all the way home. She slammed