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"My God you look fantastic!" cried out Albina as Tikvah modeled a pair of red tights that she has scrunched into under her blue skirt. The tights were comfortable and Tikvah imagined them with her red polo shirt. The match was nearly exact. She had both blue and gray skirts so that made two outfits. The light green tights came from a different manufacturer. They too matched the light green and navy blue striped polo shirt that went inside Tikvah's light green sweater. Her mother hated that color. "Too bad," thought Tikvah who tried on the royal and the burgundy tights next. They all fit. "Five for five," chirped a happy Albina. They stood in her room. Kadie, who was more like a gym teacher in a secular school than like a mora, was watching the rest of the suite. Tikvah's package of tights from Amazon gave her undivided and precious attention. "OK, put the tights away and meet me upstairs," Albina ended the meeting. Attention came only in short spurts. Tikvah thought of the day's swim class. She was again swimming down to the end of the pool with the very dark skinned black girl who must have been in high school. The girl wore a black bathing suit and splashed a lot when she did the crawl. She also sometimes swam without going anywhere in the water, a trick, that would have made Tikvah think of sinking, except Tikvah hadn't sunk yet. She didn't even worry about drowning when she swam in water over her head. She really did that now. She wondered how she could explain her triumph to tati. Would he even care? He tended to think everything that happened at Kotiah-Yovanovitch was bad because it was secular. Good things happened in secular schools too. The really bad stuff happened on TV, at movie theaters, and in fast food and somewhat expensive restaurants that pretended not to be fast. School might be the best thing the secular world had to offer. Of course school, secular school, probably didn't exist when the rabbis wrote the Bible or the Talmud. That was why they overlooked it. Secular school was a modern, American thing. It was HaShem, offering Tikvah one more way to survive. Yes, that was it, when she really thought about it.

"There is a sore on the leader's face," Zia began with Mr. Wachiru Wednesday afternoon. "How would you translate that into English?" Mr. Wachiru asked. "Not literally," Zia began. "It is like the emperor in the story about the Emperor and his New Clothes. Do you know the story?""I did not have your good, English upbringing, Zia.""OK, two swindlers sew an emperor a magical suit. Only those who are fit for office and not fools can see it. Everyone else...sees nothing. The emperor of course does not want to be a fool so... And the queen...and the court... and I guess they put it in the wall newspaper or on TV, because when the Emperor wears the 'new suit' in a parade, only one little boy who doesn't read yet sees the obvious, and he cries out 'The emperor doesn't have any clothes.' "In the Andersen story, everyone comes to their senses, but that's not how it really happens. Someone would slap the little boy for making a fool of himself and the parade would go on. Well the sore is the same way. It's there but nobody who doesn't want to be a fool sees it, even if they do see it." "OK....you understand." "It's a sad thing.""What's so sad. Where did you read about the sore on the ruler's face?""On the Building New Kenya forum. Everyone has to pay petty officials for various things.""Bribes," Mr. Wachiru switched to English."Kickbacks," Zia was not sure where she had learned the expression. "How do we say it in Kikuyu?""Feed the dogs," answered Mr. Wachiru. "The dogs are very hungry.""Are there big dogs and little ones?" Zia liked this play of metaphors. "What do you think?""I am not sure.""You want be honest...""I try to be honest.""Then keep your ears open for the sounds of the honeycreeper. She will lead you to the bees." "And the bees honey may be contaminated with in-sect-i-cide," Zia needed English again. "How do I say that in Kikuyu." "Pest-killer," Mr. Wachiru replied. "What do you do if the honey is poisoned?""Maybe it won't be or only a little.""How much is acceptable?""I'll have to see won't I? Anyway, I'm supposed to be learning Kikuyu. That's what my parents' arranged." "What language have we been speaking.""Yes, but reading and writing.""You've been doing your translations, Zia. Let's make sure you work on your grammar. You're good with the past tenses, but let's bolster those irr-reg-ul-ar verbs, shall we...""Mr. Wachiru is the snake in the gourd patch," thought Zia to herself and then realized she was thinking in Kikuyu about something other than her mother scolding and herself arguing back.

LBD Dinner 9/16/20Main LinePeruvian Beef Stir-FryShanghai Chicken and BroccoliBaked Flounder with Black Bean SauceVegetable Egg RollsWhite RiceAsian Green Bean MedeleyCold BarTropical Cole SlawMixed Vegetable Kim-ChiCanned PineappleFresh FruitAssorted Baked DessertsSpecialty Station 1 -- Quick Bread BarRye BunsApricot-Cherry BreadSpecialty Station 2 -- Deep Fried DelitesKale ChipsYucca FriesThree down and two to go!Albina mused on how Kadie might deal with this menu. Albina did not have to deal with anything except Suri and Shayla complaining. Jupita was too cool to complain and headed off to the bread and junk food bar to vote with her feet and mouth. Tikvah went to the dry cereal and junk food bars as a matter of principle. Albina got salad with chick peas, whole wheat bread and butter, and Tropical Cole Slaw as a matter of habit. Most of her Kadie's girls had either the beef or the chicken with rice and green beans or a salad and a piece of pastry. Tikvah as usual had Cinamon Apple Jacks, pecan sandies, milk, and orange juice. "What are those green things?" Suri pointed to Corianne's plate. "Kale chips," the girl answered. "This is your last hurrah for deep fried delites," commented Albina. "They'll have something different on Friday. They always change on Friday," Corianne replied. "It's usually carbs or crap," Kadie told everyone. "Crap is the staff of life," taunted Albina. "Depends what kind of crap," interjected Jupita.Kadie asked: "Are any of your girls going to services for Rosh HaShannah. "Yes," Albina replied. "Tikvah is doing Thursday night on campus and Friday and Saturday at Young Israel of White Plains.""How is she going to get there?" "I walk," Tikvah did not like being talked about as if she wasn't there. "How far is that?""Four miles." "You going to do that both days. I guess there are some really religious kids here.""You guessed right," mocked Corianne. "Do her parents know she is living on cereal?""One does and he approves. The other hasn't asked. By the time she does, they'll bring pizza back. Remember policy. They serve cereal so someone can eat that.""Are they really going to bring pizza back?" asked Tikvah."Who knows," Albina replied. "There's no reason they won't. The school year is a long time.""The fried stuff is weird," complained Lianne. "It's pretty good," Corianne answered. "Lots of variety." "You liked it when they had beans," Suri commented. "Bean salad is good," Corianne responded. Meanwhile, one of Kadie's girls who had spent the afternoon in detention told her tale of woe. There had been two high school students stuck in detention for smoking cigarettes. The detention hole was in Oberto-Magorian which meant the high schoolers looked big and out of place at their desks. Humiliation came as part of the punishment."What did high school kids do to get into detention?" asked Suri."I think they were smoking cigarettes in the bathroom," the detention victim replied. "Don't you get thrown out of school for smoking?" asked the second detention victim."Not the first time. And it always depends on how the teacher feels. Ms. Gross has her bun screwed where it shouldn't be." "Girls!" Kadie was a stickler for propriety. "I didn't say anything wrong," the girl answered.  "Ms. Gross was the one who made me miss flag football." "Yes, but she can make you do it again. She can make you scrub the floor with a toothbrush.""They'd really do that," Albina asked."They can. It's community service. The rules around here are simple: 'Don't offend the people in power.'"

Albina's girls, minus the two who were happy to get passes to the high school library, played flag football on the quad against Kadie's suite which did not cream them as badly as Albina suspected they would. Nelia and Jupita were both good gym students and put their knowledge to use. Kadie made a reset to first down six adult size paces. All the girls were good with that. About half way through the game during which Jupita kicked a field goal that impressed several boys passing by, throngs of kids began to filter across the quad. Most of them were polite enough to circle the "playing field." The problem was that they were heading to dinner in Landon-Burchard-Durren. Several of Kadie's girls forgot about the game and craned their necks after the suites full of kids heading for the line. Albina reminded herself. It was a line, not dinner. It was just a line. "Come on we've got a game!" snarled an actually, enthusiastic Kadie. "Can we go early tonight?" wheedled Lianne. "Positively not," Albina answered. "We go between 5:45 and 6:00pm. That's our schedule. You want to play games or wait in line?""I'm hungry," another girl whinged. "Let's play!" yelled Albina. "It's second down and six paces now go..." Albina's suite was on offense. Suri threw the ball to Shayla. It was a short pass and Shayla knew what to do. She was fast and had sense enough to dodge a raft of "it's" who were after her flags. "Nice," commented Kadie. Albina's bunch were on first down once again, and the goal was actually close. Within a couple of plays they managed to score a touch down and another Jupita kicked another nice "field goal" and they were ahead ten to seven. They'd probably lose their lead, thought Albina. The teams were evenly matched, and football was really  nobody's sport. Still the girls were serious and kept their eye off the "lucky" students on their way to the line. They even ignored the high school girls who ogled them as if they had never seen kids play flag football before. So it went. At 5:45 the game was over, and Albina's suite lost by one field goal or three points. Kadie had her own star kicker, a small kid named Malia who had learned to place kick from her older brothers, one of whom was at prep school. The other brother had developmental issues, but he could still kick a football. Albina pulled out her phone and checked the app. Two green dots, Corianne and Tikvah were on their way from Crosby-Magnoni at the deliberate speed of hungry girls. "We're on time!" Corianne proclaimed. "No problem," answered Kadie. "I'm starved," complained Lianne. "[color=#004bbdd]Rupinder[/color] and Jetta it's your turn to set up the table! Use the football to mark it.""Let's line up at the main bar!" called out Kadie. "We don't have to do that do we?" asked Tikvah. "Of course not," Albina told her. "Do you think I'd waste your time?""Thanks mora," Tikvah forgot that Albina was not a teacher. Albina thought of Tikvah's Amazon package nestled in her backpack. Facing a half way contented bunch of ten year olds is much easier than facing middle school girls in abn ugly mood, Albina told herself as she headed to the menu.

Tikvah knew where she wanted to be. She would have to do homework tonight before two precious hours of free time, but homework here or in the Penthouse was about the same. The library had treasures. The high school library had atlases, though it might lack a really good map of Israel, and it was Israel Tikvah wanted. Tikvah approached the library mora, who was called a librarian. She really was a mora, but a knowledgeable one. "Are you interested in modern or ancient Israel?" she asked Tikvah. Eretz Yisorel was in the Torah and Tanach and the books that men and boys studied in Yeshiva. Tikvah guessed that had to be ancient. Would a secular school have a properly drawn map of those times? Tikvah remembered what happened to the sages who translated the Torah into Greek. The atlas the librarian pointed out was in English. Its first pages had a map of the entire Middle East including the Cannanite tribes. Out in the secular world, one had to give them equal time. There was no map of Jerusalem and the Beit haMigdash, the First or Second Temple, but there were maps of Judeah and Samaria. "Maybe I'll go to Israel when I turn eighteen," thought Tikvah, though she'd have to come home to New Square. They'd want her to marry by then, and who would marry her? It was weird to be thinking about marriage at age ten. Her parents hadn't thought about marriage until they were past twenty-two, but they had met in college and both knew what they wanted even then. They were kindred souls, peas in a pod. Too bad it had all gone so sour. "Mom," Tikvah asked as she stared at the map and felt it dissolve into the past. "Why did you have to change your mind. You changed everything." Mom was not there to answer. Grandma and Grandpa had just made things worse, and Dad, how could he know what to do. It took an outsider like Albina to give Tikvah her hand to squeeze and remind Tikvah of the police. Albina had her self interest in the matter. She'd get fired if Tikvah ran away, but Tikvah remembered the State Troopers, so Albina happened to also be right. Dad was willing to take chances with the State Troopers because they would not be driving him away or if they did, he would be in jail only a night or two. Tikvah wished her father would realize this. She would see him Sunday. She could talk to him then and tell him not to ask her to escape or try to make her run away. She could suggest that he keep seeing her and that he write to the judge. Maybe Albina could write to the judge to explain that Dad was doing well with supervised visitation and needed to move to unsupervised. Gradually he'd get more and more privileges and maybe by high school, Tikvah could return to New Square or at least visit for several weeks in the summer. "But Dad, you have to work in the system!" Tikvah told her father rehearsing the words she needed to say in her mind. Of course this was not what a kid was supposed to be doing before Rosh HaShannah, but none of Tikvah's teachers, not even her social studies teacher mentioned the upcoming Jewish holidays. They were just there on the calendar. A nonOrthodox rabbi was going to do the Thursday  night service on campus, and then on Friday and Saturday, Tikvah would walk with the other really observant kids to White Plains. "I can walk. I can wait. If nothing really bad happens, I have a chance," Tikvah said in her mind as she stared down at the Israel of the late Tanach. Nebuchanezzer's kingdom was there and the Assyrians had already taken over the north. The world even back then was a dangerous place, and being a Jew was always a precarious proposition.

Kadie approached Albina as they waited in line at the mail room window in Landon-Burchard-Durren in the middle of Wednesday afternoon. Above them the sounds of cafeteria workers' radio tuned to a Latin Hits station drifted down. As Albina strained her ears, she realized the music was reggeaton. "How long has it been since I danced?" she wondered. "Maybe I can get the girls interested in social dancing, especially line dancing." "You OK?" Kadie intruded. "Glorious," snarked Albina. "Two of my girls are in detention after Team Project, and  maybe more if this keeps up." "I'm sorry. I had a girl in detention on Tuesday. She took it badly.""Of course she did. This school is so big, strict, and impresonal.""What did your girls do.""Act like kids....Ms. Grosse who teaches social studies on Team Two is a bitch. I'm sorry, but this is the second kid this week she's sent to detention...and then there's Ms. Darling who teaches math. I swear no where else do kids have to memorize times tables, fractions, decimals. No wonder they complain." "Is that what Ms. Darling does?""All the math teachers do it and Treya is a spirited girl. No wonder she rebelled." "So you have one kid who's in detention from social studies and another from math.""Yeah.... it sucks. Plain English." "I somewhat agree with you." "You think the teachers are right.""Teachers have to keep order.""Well I'm down two girls so what do I do with six?""Wolves and bunnies, Break through the Gate, Ms. Albina May I." "With six kids, that's not quite enough.""You should have been a gym teacher.""I was a government major.""I was a religious studies major."Kadie rolled her green eyes. "So what am I going to do in a half hour when Team Activity lets out?" "Just choose a game from the menu. You can even pretend to feel nostalgic back to when games were all you wanted to play.""I preferred real sports by the time I was ten...say, how would your girls like to play flag football.""It would be eight on six.""Two of your girls are couch potatoes, if you don't mind my saying so.""Really....""Haven't you noticed, the little one who wears tights and her friend are always there in body only when you have games.""You mean Tikvah and Corianne. Tikvah walks four miles each way to synagogue every Saturday and Corianne is taking Advanced Aquatics. ""Well, lah ti dah.... Why not give those two library passes and we can have a six on six game. You must be awful sick of little girl games.""I enjoy Suite Advisor May I.""You're a closet sadist, Albina." "The girls enjoy a challenge too." "Yeah, but I still prefer real sports.""How are we going to measure downs?""Approximate it, or just have two chances to move the ball a decent amount. You can always adjust the rules.""OK, we can play on the Quad since the real football players will probably be using the field.""Yeah, I was thinking that too. I'll get the flags. You get the ball and we'll meet outside Oberto-Magnorian with the girls." Albina was glad she had passes in her backpack. She would not miss either Corianne or Tikvah's low grade sulk. "Thank you Kadie," thought Albina.

The Story God is switching web hosts and the Domain has to propagate which it should be doing right about now. Hopefully by next week things will be better.

Corianne knew that number theory in math would effect Team Project because you cannot do word problems with prime numbers. Corianne was half right. Team project Wednesday afternoon was a combination of geography and math. The math for the least advanced kids was still fractions, decimals, and times tables. The math for the middle students was fraction and decimal word problems or a choice of more geography, since most kids did not know where any foreign countries were, and for the advanced kids there was still a choice of word problems or geography. Corianne, who thought grammar was baby stuff, and who liked number theory too, enjoyed geography. There had been international students at the school in Vermont, which was where she and her mother lived in faculty housing, before mom got a job in the Emirates and the school closed. "I can make more money abroad, Cori," Corianne remembered her mother's words. Corianne knew where the Emirates were, on the east coast of Saudi Arabia that dangled like a....boot, from the Middle East where Israel, Lebanon, and Syria all fronted the Mediterranean Sea where octopuses lived in their octopus gardens. Geography would give Corianne a chance to catch her breath because she was still tired from swimming. It was hard work treading water, blowing up your sweats, and lying on them like a big, ill fitting raft. "Great job!" the Aquatics teacher had cried. It was really pointless to be learning water safety when noone would give you credit, but it was better than being last for every stupid ball game in creation. "Over here," Mr. Vicente called Corianne to his table. Tikvah followed because she did not want to be alone. "Yes...." Corianne said feeling nervous. "If you don't mind I'd rather do geography." "You don't need geography," Mr. Vicente answered. "Ms. Gottfried says you ace it, but you probably can use more math." "How does an adult know what I can use?" Corianne wondered. Still she picked up a problem packet from the orange, plastic, milk crate and a wad of scrap paper for writing and figuring. Fifth graders in enrichment mathematics were too advanced for work sheets. As the packet said: "show all work." The packet looked like it contained word problems. Though word problems were not a terrible fate, Corianne felt a twinge of disappointment after number theory this morning. Sitting at a seminar table across from Tikvah, Corianne read the first word problem. "You will need a prime number sieve to do all these problems," it said at the top of the sheet. Corianne kept reading. "Problem 1: Ilse is thinking of the smallest prime number that is one larger than a number divisible by seven. What number is she thinking of?" "Well???" thought Corianne. "I guess we just solve the first problem by counting along the sieve." "We need a ruler," Corianne answered. Adults could write all sorts of math problems. There was probably no end of word problems. For some reason, Corianne found that comforting.

Tikvah went over the political map of Asia in her social studies class. Geography had stopped being more like math and more like...well geography. Tikvah had not studied geography in either New Square or Brooklyn. Corianne, who had fiddled with road maps and a puzzle of US States and a globe, found it fascinating. Tikvah, however, knew there was something missing. She raised her hand not-so-timidly. Ms. Godfried, the Team Six, fifth grade social studies teacher, said "yes?" "I don't see Israel on any of these maps." "Israel is in the Middle East.""And where is that?" "Western Asia. You need a good size map. There's an atlas on the bookshelf in the back of the room. The bookshelf was for reference and some free reading to do later in the year.""Go get the atlas and look it up," Ms. Gottfried was impatient and maybe just a bit angry. It was hard to guess school discipline anywhere, and Tikvah was definitely going to avoid "the shitter" as Suri called it when you got in bad trouble. Bad trouble meant after school detention or worse, and Lianne had gotten in trouble on Tuesday for mouthing off in geography. True, the teacher was not Ms. Gottfried, who could never pass for a proper mora. Ms. Gottfried had round shoulders, yellowed uneven teeth, and dirty golden blond hair that hung straight to her shoulders. She also had an expressive, wind burned face. Tikvah found the atlas. She looked for middle east. She also looked for Asia. She found Israel, a tiny sliver of land, tucked under Turkey which stuck out like a horse's head into the Mediterranean. For a few seconds Tikvah wondered if anti-Semites made the maps. Why else would Israel be so small. Or maybe Israel was really small like some US states were small, but teaching that fact could be used against Jews everywhere when one thought about it. Of course Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon, Arab countries, some of which were Israel's enemies were small too. Iran which was a real enemy and Egypt, where the Jewish people had endured slavery until Moses rescued them were large. Of course away from the Nile, Egypt was all desert, so maybe land was sometimes just so much sand. There seemed something oddly profane about comparing Israel's physical size to other countries two days before Rosh HaShanna, but in a secular school, the holiday did not exist at all. They had had one day off for it in Brooklyn, and her grandparents and mother took her to the American Museum of Natural History in Manhattan. In New Square, religion (about half the classes in a day though they had only one mora for everything) dealt with the upcoming holiday. At Kotiah-Yovanovitch, there were one to two days off, but the holiday did not exist. It was something for which one got a pass and a nonOrthodox rabbi came to campus for the kids who could live with that kind of service. Tikvah had new tights, polished her shoes, asked for cookies to keep her from starving and prepared to walk and walk and walk, because she still believed. Being able to walk and walk was free will and autonomy according to the mora, Albina. Albina was half right. She could not be all right, because all that walking was awful, though there were way more awful things. It was awful in the way of after school detention for Lianne. She could get her homework done early and be none the worse for wear. Tikvah could get to an Orthodox synagogue if she shut up and put one foot in front of the other, and maybe ten year old girls were not so delicate after all.

The boys had snagged a big banquette in the corner and Mounish stood guard holding the rag with the tips of both hands' fingers. Marion threw her backpack on the seat and told the boy to go get lunch. Zia was already perusing the menu: LBD Lunch 9/16/20Main LineCorn Beef Egg RollChicken Italian Sausage and PeppersFish-O-Filet SandwichPlain QuicheLeaf SpinachStew VegetablesCold BarPickled BeetsAuthentic Caesar SaladCanned PearsFresh FruitAssorted Baked DessertsSpecialty Station 1 -- Quick Bread BarRaisin Cinnamon Roll-upMiripoix LoafSpecialty Station 2 -- Deep Fried DelitesGinger Panko Carrot SticksCorn Crisp CauliflowerHappy Hump Day!Deep fried delights made most lunches and dinner this week no brainers. Farley  scowled at the menu: "Nothing fucking to eat today," he sighed. "What about the sausage?" asked Zia."You know what goes in Sausage," Farley posed a rhetorical question."Chicken," Zia replied. Farley made a face. Then he asked: "What are you having?" "Fried veggies and fancy quick bread," replied Marion. "Corned beef egg roll and stew vegetables," answered Zia. "Corned beef is disgusting," was all Farley could reply. "Well what do you like?" Marion asked. She had younger siblings like this. Farley was really mature. "Real food, burgers, pizza, hot dogs, potato chips." "You're batting .250," commented Marion. "Shit," Farley summed up the menu offerings once again. They drifted out to get their food. When Marion arrived with her fare, Farley held forth: "... And the speakers always think all we want to do is make money. If I wanted to make money I would find a part time job down on Central Avenue instead of learning Assembly and differential equations." "I don't think they realize who their audience is," Mounish considered. Marion wondered if they were discussing speakers for the STEM club. She was glad she'd be in the art room after school again, helping with the last round of silk screening. In her mind she thought of the odor of silk screen ink and the memory took her back to cleaning silk screen frames with gasoline back in Malta, a year ago "Eighth grade sucked," she sing songed in her head. "So how do you tell a dumb adult to make a speech more technical without hurting their poor, sensitive, adult feelings?" Farley asked. "Why not read up on what they do and ask them to talk about it. If they make the trains run on time, look up the engineering and math of trains. If they are doctors that do medical research, look for their research," Zia offered an answer. "Shit, that just might work," Farley replied.