“Can you believe he said that?” I waited for Zeydeh to look as mad as I still felt.
I’d spent the night at Megan’s and fumed about it for hours with her. Megan said it was obvious that Devon needed a good butt-kicking, and I was just the person to give it to him. I hadn’t had a chance to tell Zeydeh the whole story, so I’d gotten up early for Juice Duty. I figured I could tell him every detail before it was time for camp. I didn’t count on his putting me to work.
“Careful,” Zeydeh ordered, looking over my shoulder. “Scoop gently.”
The early morning sun slanted through Zeydeh’s kitchen window, turning the batter a pale yellow.
Zeydeh lived five houses down from us in the smallest home on our street. It was tucked back—almost like an afterthought. When it came on the market after Bubbe died, Zeydeh said it was perfect—he didn’t want to get in anyone’s way. Mom laughed at that. She said Zeydeh’s greatest pleasure was getting in everyone’s way.
I sighed and slid my fingers into the mixture of matzo meal, eggs, salt, pepper, and Zeydeh’s seasonings. I cupped a palm full of the batter and rounded it into a lumpy circle. When the matzo balls cooked up, they would be light and fluffy—like melt-in-your-mouth dumplings. But right now, the batter was gooey and stuck to my palms.
“It’s not a baseball in your hands,” Zeydeh snapped. “And if you’re not gentle, it’ll taste like one.” He gestured for me to keep working. “So, this Devon Yeats sounds very sure of himself.”
“It’s because of that stupid topic yesterday. I still can’t believe it. Everyone else gets books or movies, and I get Christmas trees.”
“I told you this camp was not for you.”
“It’s just bad luck.” I dropped a sticky ball into the pot of soup. “Explain to me again why you’re cooking matzo balls at eight in the morning?” I held up my hands, coated in batter. “Make that, why am I cooking matzo balls at eight in the morning?”
“It’s only three weeks until the contest—I have no time to waste. If I could roll the batter myself, I would, but you know my arthritis is bad in the mornings.”
I sighed and dug back in. “Why did Mrs. Yeats have to pick that minute to stop in our room?” I paused, suddenly noticing Zeydeh’s orange juice on the counter. It had separated so the top half was a lighter orange than the bottom. “Zeydeh, you didn’t drink your juice!”
He rolled his eyes. “Always with the juice.” He reached for the glass and took two swallows, swishing it around his mouth like mouthwash. “There, happy?”
Then he squinted down at my hands. “Smaller, Ellie.” He wagged a finger. “That’s the secret. Smaller balls in bigger pots. You mark my words: they’ll fluff up like your Bubbe’s hair in a windstorm.” Suddenly, he leaned forward and looked out the window.
“What?” I asked.
“I caught Mrs. Zuckerman spying on me yesterday. I wouldn’t be surprised if she’s skulking in the bushes.”
I dropped another ball into the soup. “You think she’s spying?”
“I don’t think. I know.” He went into squint mode. “I caught her walking by the house this morning, as if she likes to take morning walks.”
“Zeydeh,” I said, “she does like to take morning walks.”
Mrs. Zuckerman lived across the street at the end of the block. She used to walk with her husband every afternoon. After he died, she shifted to mornings. I saw her all the time on my way for Juice Duty. Like Zeydeh, Mrs. Zuckerman also entered the Har Zion Cooking Contest every year. But unlike Zeydeh, Mrs. Zuckerman won the Har Zion Cooking Contest every year.
“Hoomf,” he muttered. “It’s a cover. She’s sniffing around to see what I’m cooking. She knows, Ellie. She knows this year it’ll be Samuel Levine’s name on the plaque.”
“Just don’t let your blood pressure get out of whack,” I warned.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said, shrugging. “Either I win or I die trying.”
I stopped rolling the batter. “Is that supposed to be comforting?”
“Quit worrying and keep rolling,” he retorted. “You’re the one whose blood pressure is off the charts today.”
I squeezed a hunk of batter, feeling it squish out between my fingers. “Devon Yeats is going to eat his words.”
“And what is the speech about for Friday?”
“I don’t know,” I said. “Mrs. Lee will tell us today.”
“Whatever it is, I’ll be there to watch. You’ve been wearing Bubbe’s necklace?”
I shook my head. “I don’t want to lose it.”
“You won’t lose it,” he said. “Wear it. It’ll bring you good luck.”
I rolled a finger around the tip of the mixing bowl, dropping spatters of mix back to the bottom. “I could use some luck after the whole Christmas tree disaster.”
“Enough already,” Zeydeh snapped. “I’m tired of hearing it.”
I blinked up at him, startled. Zeydeh never snapped at me. He never got mad at me for real. But now his jaw was sticking out and his eyes were glaring.
“If it was so important, you would have opened your mouth.”
“What do you mean?” I said. “I did open my mouth. Just nothing good came out.”
“I’m not referring to the words that came out of your mouth. I’m referring to the words that did not.”
I stared. “What are you talking about?”
“You could have asked for another topic. Explained why you wanted one.”
“I would have looked like a whiner.”
“No,” he said, pointing a finger at me. “You would have looked like a Jew.”
I gasped. “That doesn’t have anything to do with it.”
“Doesn’t it?” he retorted. “It seems to me you had a choice. Look like a Jew, or look like an idiot. You chose to look like an idiot.”
“I didn’t choose anything!”
“We all choose, Ellie,” he said. “Sometimes by not choosing at all.”