Free A Life Worth Living by Pnina Baim

well, and stood in front of the mirror. “Hey, where did you get that jacket from? It’s so vintage,” Serena asked, running a brush through her thick black hair.
    “From this Army-Navy store in Manhattan Mall,” Gaby said.
    “Cool.” Serena outlined her blue eyes with black eyeliner, and then looked through her metal locker, bursting with clothes. “Maybe I should also go vintage tonight. Hmm, what to wear, what to wear?”
    “Five seconds,” Rikky said. “Five, four, three…”
    “Got it.” Serena put on a black long-sleeved t-shirt, a gray short-sleeve cable sweater on top of it, and a black knee-length A-line skirt printed with big red flowers. She put on a purple hat, pushed it to an angle on the side of her head, and then sat down on her bed to zip up a pair of purple boots. “Ready.”
    “It’s about time. Let’s go.”
    “One sec, shouldn’t we invite Sarah?” Gaby asked, reluctant to leave anyone out of their fun.
    “Um, I don’t think she’d want to come,” Serena said.
    “Anyway, we have to go, there’s no time left!” Rikky said, her voice rising with each word.
    The girls put their hands together, and yelled out, “One two three, Brooklyn in da house!” to the otherwise empty room. Although they’d done their little cheer a dozen times before, it never failed to make them laugh. Serena had taught the cheer to Rikky before Gaby had arrived on the scene, and with Gaby part of the crew, it seemed even more appropriate to use that as their leaving-the-building cheer.
    Then they ran out of the building before any of the dorm counselors could see them and question where they were going so close to curfew.
    “Are we taking a cab?” Serena asked, stepping into the street to hail one.
    “Nah, let’s just walk,” Gaby said. She knew Serena and/or Rikky would offer to cover her share of the fare if she admitted she didn’t have any money, and she wanted to limit the charity handouts as much as possible. Her mother had sent her to school with a one hundred shekel bill, and she needed to conserve that for emergencies. Until she could figure out a way to make some money, she was going to have to be as economical as possible.
    “Yeah, it’s such a nice night.” Rikky linked arms with Serena and Gaby and started walking. “Rechavia is such a beautiful neighborhood.”
    Gaby nodded. Their seminary was located in Rechavia, a leafy, upscale neighborhood, as befitted the neighborhood of the President of Israel, whose official residence was only a few blocks away. This was a fact that some of the girls took full advantage of, climbing to the school’s rooftop and flashing messages and more to the snipers guarding the nearby high-rise apartment buildings.
    Gaby was the one known as the out-of-control child, the one that required constant supervision, weekend retreats to entice her to behave, and long whispered phone calls between her mother and school administrators, but at least she wasn’t flashing the presidential security unit, or smoking tampons as if they were cigarettes, or intentionally overdosing on Benadryl, or whatever those girls came up with next to relieve their pent-up, locked-up energy.
    If she was the teenager-at-risk, she would love to know what this risky behavior was that she was engaging in. In all likelihood, Gaby could probably be voted most conservative girl in the entire seminary. She hadn’t communicated with any boy in any medium since she entered the school, she dressed like a nun, and she was usually in her bed by eleven. The only fun she had in the past week was hanging out with Serena and Rikky on whatever PG schemes they thought up. 
    They walked along the elegant, residential streets of Rechavia, enjoying the colorful flowers blooming from every fence and balcony and perfuming the soft night air with a heady scent. They turned onto haMefaked and continued to the Old City. As they reached the Old City walls, a car passed by and through the open window, a vague