On the Friday of our third week of the school year, Ms. Sett looks excited and smiles a lot. We’ve moved our desks into pods again, which feels a lot less like college and a lot more like kindergarten, but it’s what we’re used to and it helps for group work. Denis hasn’t slouched in three whole weeks and Marci has stopped talking about women’s rights during social studies class because we aren’t learning history anymore, only geography.

Yesterday, Ms. Sett said Mexico was part of North America but “not quite the same as North America.” I raised my hand to protest, but in three short weeks, she has learned to ignore my knack for discussing the truth of things.

Fact: Mexico is a bona fide part of North America.

Fact: There are three big, mysterious boxes on Ms. Sett’s desk.

After a half-hour-long lesson on North American topography, which includes having to listen to Aaron James talk about how the Earth is flat for two minutes, arguing that the Rocky Mountains should cast shadows on the clouds above them if the Earth was really round, Ms. Sett finally walks to the boxes on her desk and opens them.

Note: She doesn’t correct Aaron James, who says the Earth is flat.

“It’s our first lit circle day,” she says. “I’ve broken you into groups based on the titles you all chose—we’ll have six novels and six groups!” She points to the board, clicks her remote control, and shows us our names broken up into six groups.

She continues, “The idea is to read the book together, silently, during lit circle time or at home, and discuss with one another after each chapter or section. There will be worksheets to make sure you’re reading, vocabulary lists, and quizzes to make sure you’re understanding what you read. The trick is to not read ahead.” When she says this, she clicks the remote control again and a slide appears, black background and red letters—DON’T READ AHEAD!

Denis, Marci, and I land in the same group, which is awesome. We all rush to the pod of tables that Ms. Sett said was for group six. Aaron is in group six, too. And Hannah Do, who usually stays very quiet on account of her being half the size of the biggest kid in the room, who also happens to be Aaron. Seeing Aaron and Hannah sit next to each other is like seeing a T. rex and a piece of bread sit next to each other.

“I don’t even know what book I picked,” Aaron says.

“I’ve read this book before,” Hannah says. “It’s good. You’ll like it.”

Aaron looks at the four of us and smirks. He thinks we’re all losers for believing that Earth is round. I doubt he’ll like any book.

Marci asks Hannah, “If you already read it, why’d you pick it?”

“I’ve read all of them before.”

Marci nods. Denis sits up straight. I make a nervous cough. Aaron farts and doesn’t say excuse me.

Ms. Sett moves from desk pod to desk pod, handing out books from her boxes. She comes to us last and hands each of us a copy of The Devil’s Arithmetic by Jane Yolen. I’m relieved at how short it is, and the cover intrigues me. It says Winner of the National Jewish Book Award under the title, and under that is a yellow six-pointed star patch—the kind that Nazis made Jewish people wear to mark them during World War Two. I know right away the book is about the Holocaust and I wonder if Denis will feel sick when the Nazis in the book do Nazi things.

I also wonder how Aaron will react. Did he know what the book was about when he chose it, or did he think it was a book about satanic algebra problems? One time when we talked about going to the Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC, Denis said he wanted to see the moon lander, and Aaron told him that the moon landing was fake. I look at him now and wonder if he’ll say the same about the Holocaust.

I try not to judge. Mom always says not to judge, and that no one knows the reality of another person. But looking at Aaron James and his smirk, I feel like something bad is going to happen in group six. I just don’t know what it is yet.

The alarm bell rings for a fire drill, and we all leave our copies of The Devil’s Arithmetic on our desks and march outside single file.

Classic timing.

During club block at the end of the day—Marci is off singing in chorus and Denis is at chess club—I pick up the novel again and start reading the opening pages. There is a word on the first page that I have to look up. Ms. Sett still makes us use old-style dictionaries. The definition of Seder is: a Jewish feast and related ceremony on the first night or nights of Passover. The definition of Passover is: the Jewish festival commemorating the Israelites’ exodus from Egypt.

I write the answers down on the vocabulary worksheet, but have no real idea what they mean. My family doesn’t have a religion, really. Grandad celebrates Easter, but only because of jelly beans and chocolate. We celebrate Christmas, but only the tree-and-Santa-Claus kind. I’ve never been to church, except one time for a spaghetti dinner to support Grandad’s friends who fought in the Korean War. Religion never really interested me before, but for some reason, this book by Jane Yolen has me interested in learning more. In this case, I’m interested in what it was like to be Jewish at a time when it meant you were in serious danger. More danger than I can imagine.

It’s so hard for me to wrap my mind around. The Holocaust was a Nazi Germany–sponsored genocide—mass murder—of Jewish people from 1941 to 1945. Six million European Jewish people died, which was two-thirds of the Jewish people in Europe. The Nazis and their allies also targeted other people—disabled people, gay people, European Roma people, political enemies—and murdered millions of them, too, but most of the people they killed were Jews. The Nazis built enormous camps called extermination or concentration camps—places where they would ship the people they captured by train. The Nazis invented large deadly gas chambers where they would take a group of people to have a shower, but sometimes when they got into the shower rooms, lethal gas came out of the showerheads and killed them. That’s just one way they killed Jewish people and people from the other groups I mentioned. They had a lot of ways, but that way was the one they used on millions and millions of people.

I can’t think of a more horrible thing, really. And the longer time goes on, the less we talk about it. But we can’t pretend it didn’t happen—because when you pretend a thing didn’t happen, that means it can happen again.

Anyway, the rest of the questions on the worksheet are about the book cover and the description on the back. I’m about to start filling it out, but Denis walks back into the classroom and gives me a fist bump on his way to his chair, which means he beat an opponent at chess club. Then Marci comes in and waves at me, and I put the worksheet and the book in my backpack and zip it in.

I don’t read ahead.

Not yet.