Chapter Four

On the plane, Laurel takes her aisle seat and Abba his window, with me in the middle.

Laurel and I swap snack bags while the flight attendants run through safety instructions.

“Okay, Elle.” Laurel points to a man in a business suit in the center row of seats.

That’s my cue.

I lean toward her, trying to get a better view. “A CEO.”

“You think?” Laurel’s brows scrunch up. “Why isn’t he in first class then?”

I consider this. “Maybe he was in Atlanta to get a loan for his business or something but the bank said no.”

“Ooh. Good one.” Laurel pops a gummy bear into her mouth. “And now he’s got to go back to Spain and tell his wife the bad news.”

“Yes.” I’ve never liked when our stories have sad endings. “Except what he doesn’t know is his wife just won the Spanish lottery. So he’s going to be very happy when we land.”

Laurel grins. “Perfect.”

It’s easy to feel like it’s just Laurel and me when we make up our stories, even if Madison and Sophie-Anne are only a few rows in front of us, sitting beside Andy.

Once we’ve taken off, Laurel looks over at Abba. “Did you know about the scavenger hunt, Mr. Katz?”

Abba folds his hands into his lap. “Your teacher told us parents during one of the informational sessions, but he wanted it to be a surprise for the students.”

Then Abba did know. A lump forms in my throat.

“So there’ll be clues?” Laurel asks. “Or places we have to find on our own?”

“It wouldn’t be an even playing field if I revealed anything your classmates don’t know.”

“No, but still!” Laurel flops back in her seat, all dramatic. As Abba pulls a magazine out of his seat pocket, she pops another gummy bear into her mouth and leans closer to me.

“You said you found last year’s syllabus online, right?”

“Yes. But I don’t think we’ll be doing anything on it anymore.”

“But maybe it can still give us clues about what they’ll want us to look for.”

I shrug.

“You wrote down all the topics that we were supposed to be learning in your notebook, right?” Laurel tries again.

I give her a stiff nod, because I did more than write them down. I looked up pictures online, printed them out, and spent hours arranging them in my dot diary’s margins to match each day’s agenda. La Sagrada Família. Picasso paintings. A row of stone columns in front of the National Art Museum.

“Okay, awesome,” Laurel says. “Maybe we can read through your notes and get ideas.”

“Before you girls get too involved in this,” Abba cuts in, “there’s something I want to give to Ellen.”

He pulls a case out of his messenger bag and unzips it.

“Try them on,” he says. “I figured they might come in handy on our flights, plus whenever you need some quiet time.”

I look at the matte black noise-canceling headphones, eyes widening. Abba wears them while sketching after dinner each weeknight while Mom sings and I fill out entries in my diary. I slide them onto my ears, then Abba reaches up and clicks a button on the side of the headphones.

Battery one-hundred percent, a robotic voice says. Connected to Ellen’s iPhone.

Then silence, like I’m underwater. The heavy drone of plane engines fades. Laurel’s mouth opens and closes, but I hear almost nothing. I slide them down to my shoulders and look at Abba. “But they’re yours.”

“I’ve got my earbuds for this trip, and I’ll get myself a new pair when I wrap up my next work project. These belong to you now—if you want them.”

He looks at me, and it’s almost like he’s holding his breath. Any hint of betrayal I still feel about the change to our trip schedule dissolves fast.

“Yes.” I give him a quick nod. “Todah rabah, Abba.”

“You’re very welcome, metukah.”

As two flight attendants roll a big metal trolley past us to the front of the cabin, Laurel leans forward and digs through her bag. She sits up, showing me her own headphones. They’re the same brand, but a lighter, brushed silver.

“We can pair both sets and listen to the same playlist. Look.” She pulls out her phone and taps into an app.

I lean over as Laurel scrolls through a list of available devices.

“Which one is yours, Elle?”

“Probably Sheli.” I check the devices list on my own phone. There’s only one flower-related Bluetooth connection that appears. “You’re Bloom?”

“Yeah!”

Laurel taps on her screen and pairs us up. “What’s sheli mean?”

“Mine,” I tell her.

Beside me, Abba looks thoughtful. “Although now that it’s Ellen’s, maybe I should’ve changed it to Shelach, which means—”

“—yours,” I finish.

“I adore that,” Laurel tells me. “It’s like you and your dad have a secret language. Not like with Spanish since everyone in our class studies it.”

I adore it, too. Even at our temple, most people only learn Biblical Hebrew, which is different from the language people speak in Israel. Abba, Mom, and I know Modern Hebrew, so we can talk about anything we want.

“Okay, done.” Laurel’s voice pulls me out of my thoughts. “Put them on again.”

A few beats after the music starts, I move one speaker away from my ear. “This is that song from last winter.”

“Um, yeah! This is our sleepover playlist.”

I pass a meal to Abba, then take mine from the flight attendant. My family keeps kosher, following kashrut rules about what food we can and can’t eat and how it should be prepared. Both of our meal containers have a sticker on them that says KOSHER, so we know the food is okay to eat.

I steal a quick glance at Laurel. She doesn’t seem bothered that it’s been months since our last sleepover. Just thinking about it makes my skin prickle. I put my new headphones back on.

The song’s melody flows through me. I let myself flap my hands in time with the music underneath my table, and my whole body relaxes.

After dinner, the cabin lights dim. The playlist has moved on to a song Laurel and I first heard while watching an online video about the physics behind gymnastics elements. I lean back and close my eyes, imagining an army of Laurels performing handsprings as I drift off to sleep.

It’s only Laurel and me in my dream.

My eyes flutter open. For a moment, everything’s a little dark and a lot silent. I rub my eyes, then blink. Abba comes into focus, asleep in his window seat.

My headphones are silent. I twist in my seat to check if Laurel’s also asleep, then freeze.

“Hey, you’re awake.” Andy’s voice sounds muffled through my headphones. He tugs on the cord attached to his earbuds, and they tumble into his lap. “What’s up?”

I nudge my headphones off with the back of one hand. “Where’s Laurel?”

“Oh, um.” Andy runs a hand through his black hair, then points up the aisle. “Just up there.”

I unbuckle my seatbelt and stand, spotting the silvery strip of Laurel’s headphone band. Next to her, Sophie-Anne wears matching headphones. I drop back into my seat, wondering if Laurel’s sharing our playlist with Sophie-Anne.

“Laurel and I traded seats,” Andy says, even though I didn’t ask. “Gibs passed out just like you, and Madison still won’t talk to me after…” He shrugs. “It just wasn’t fun having to sit by her, but my parents checked me in late, so yeah.”

It takes me a second to realize Gibs must be a nickname for Noah-James. My eyes dart to Andy’s Lynnwood basketball T-shirt, with THRASHERS PRIDE! spelled out in bold capital letters. His hands lie clasped in his lap.

I tilt my head. “Why is Madison—”

“What’s the new kid like?” Andy pauses. “Sorry. Go ahead.”

“I wanted to know why Madison’s not talking to you.”

“Well…” Andy looks at his hands like they might hold the answer. “I kind of broke up with her.”

“‘Kind of’?” You can “kind of” understand a language you’re still trying to learn, but I’m not sure how you can “kind of” break up with someone.

“Yeah,” Andy says. “On the last day of school.”

“Okay.”

When I don’t say anything else, Andy wrings his hands.

“Don’t you want to know why?” he asks.

“Why what?”

“Why I broke up with her.”

“No.” I wanted to know why she wouldn’t talk to him, so that’s what I asked.

“Then you’d be the first. So, the new kid…”

“Isa Martinez,” I say.

“Yeah, what’s up with her? Or is it him? And why did Isa say ‘neither’ when Gibs asked, do you know?”

Okay, that’s way too many questions.

“How would I know?”

Andy’s brows pinch above his nose. “I just saw you talking with Isa and Señor L at the airport, so…”

He trails off as Abba stirs. Abba yawns then looks over at us. “You’re not Laurel.”

“No, sir.”

Abba glances at me, then back at Andy.

“I changed seats with Laurel,” Andy explains, “but I can ask to switch back.”

“It’s fine.” My heart sinks as Abba extends his hand. “I’m Natan Katz, Ellen’s dad.”

“I know.” Andy lights up. “Fisher’s Final is incredible. The illustrations. That plot. I’ve read it like ten times and still can’t figure out how you did the—” He catches himself, then reaches past me to shake Abba’s hand. “Sorry, I’m just a huge fan here. I’m Andy Zhang. Ellen and I had English and science together last year.”

I stare at him. I didn’t realize someone like Andy—popular and an athlete—noticed me enough to know which classes we had together.

“Nice to meet you.” Abba smiles. “Want a sneak peek at what I’m working on next?”

“Seriously?” Andy’s eyes shine under his overhead light.

“Seriously.” Abba pulls out his iPad. Rainbow flag stickers in a spectrum of bright stripes decorate the cover, souvenirs he brought back from a comic convention.

He offers it to Andy. I press back into my seat as Andy leans over to take it.

“Your dad is so cool,” he whispers to me.

Even though it’s not too loud or too bright on this plane, something feels like it’s building inside me.

“Ellen’s already seen most of this stuff,” Abba starts, but I stand up fast. If I were as tall as Andy, I’d have hit my head on the overhead bin.

“I”—I force the words out of my tight throat—“have to use the bathroom.”

“Oh, okay.” Andy unbuckles his seatbelt.

I slip past him before he can stand, heading toward the lavatories at the center of the plane. Then I spot Laurel with Sophie-Anne and Madison. Turning fast, I rush to the very back.

I slip into a bathroom stall and sit on the closed toilet seat, letting myself rock.

Once. Twice.

I count from uno to sesenta.

This trip will be different than I imagined, in so many ways I can’t control. The scavenger hunt is one example, but it’s not the only thing that’s off. It also feels like Laurel and I are growing further apart by the second.