But also . . . Aviva was really, really bad at writing in English.
It surprised Lara. Her cousin spoke with an accent, sure, but every word out of her mouth sounded so precise and correct. This essay was anything but.
“SEE ME,” Aviva’s teacher had written. Hmm. Lara flipped to the back of the essay. When she saw the grade her cousin had received, she instinctively cringed. That was very, very not good. The teacher had written another note: “If you rewrite this essay, you may receive a higher grade. You can do it!”
Lara frowned at the paper. Did Aviva’s teacher mean to be comforting? She herself couldn’t imagine being comforted by such a thing. Then again, she’d never received that kind of a grade on a language arts assignment.
The sound of Aviva’s voice caused Lara to jump a good inch. Lara slammed the drawer shut, wincing as it banged. She rushed over to her spot on the floor and did her very best to appear as though she hadn’t just invaded her cousin’s things.
“Hi,” Lara managed to say.
“Oh!” Aviva’s mouth fell into an O-shape. “Hello. I did not know you were here.”
“We, uh, talked about it. You’re tutoring me in math. Remember?”
“Yes, yes. So sorry you had to wait for me. I hope you were not bored.”
If it were possible to disappear into the beige walls of the Finkels’ guest room, Lara would have done so. As it was, she could only smile and try to look normal, or at least normal-ish. “I’m never bored,” she said. “So, uh. I guess we should get to work?”
Aviva nodded with more-than-usual vigor. “Yes! I know I can help you.”
And so for the next fifteen minutes Aviva helped Lara with her geometry homework. She actually was a good tutor. Maybe Lara had a chance of understanding the Pythagorean theorem after all.
Lara tried to ignore the twinge of guilt that had taken up residence in her stomach. At this point, it was not so much a twinge as a bowling ball–sized lump of awfulness. Aviva, as much as she might be annoying, was actually, genuinely nice. Nicer than Lara, for sure. Lara felt pretty sure that spying on a nice person officially made her a terrible person.
Maybe she could try and make it up to Aviva.
“I can help you with language arts if you need it,” Lara offered.
Eyes fixed firmly on the floor, Aviva began to flap her hands against her knees. At first, the flaps were slow, but they soon intensified. Lara had to repress the urge to flap herself.
“I don’t need help,” Aviva said.
“Are you sure?” Lara asked. “You did just help me. A lot. I owe you.”
“Okay,” her cousin said, her voice rather small. “I guess you can help me with this essay I need to write. About a book we read.”
She fidgeted while handing Lara a piece of paper. Lara did her best to look, well, nice.
The essay was a little better than the one Lara had found in the drawer. Still, nearly every sentence had an error. What help could Lara be, really? She had no idea how to explain the difference between there and their, or when to use a comma.
Chewing her lip, Lara grabbed a pen and started making corrections. Next to her, Aviva continued fidgeting.
“I know it seems like I’m not a good writer. But I am very good at writing in Hebrew,” she said.
“I’m sure you are,” Lara agreed. “You should see my Hebrew letters. Last year my Hebrew teacher said my alephs looked like the poop emoji.”
That hadn’t actually been what her teacher said, but it was close enough. Aviva gave a weak smile as Lara mentally congratulated herself. She could be a good cousin. Despite strong evidence to the contrary.
“It is strange how you write backwards in English,” Aviva said. “Sometimes I do not remember which way to write and I end up writing things backwards.”
“Ekil siht?” Lara asked, quirking her eyebrows up.
“What?”
Okay, so maybe this wasn’t the best moment for that particular joke.
“I just said ‘like this’ backwards,” she explained.
“Oh.”
A long silence filled the air. Lara rushed to fill it. “You know, I find that confusing with Hebrew. It always takes me a while to remember that I’m supposed to read things from left to right, not right to left.”
“Actually,” Aviva said. “It is the other way around.”
Of course Aviva would correct Lara when she was trying to offer some kind of comfort. Lara sighed, but did her best to ignore her irritation. She thought about what her sister would do. Caroline would be nice, no matter what.
“Right,” Lara said, waving a hand. “I get left and right mixed up a lot. It drove my ballet teacher up the wall when I took lessons.”
“You were a dancer?”
“Sort of? I took lessons. My parents let me stop when I accidentally head-butted another girl during a recital.”
Lara had been about seven at the time. Even so, she shuddered at the memory. Aviva gave her a small nod. Her hands had stilled.
“I’ve never been very good at dancing, either,” Aviva said. “I suppose we have some things in common.”
“I guess we do.” Lara gestured toward the paper. “So, I’ll correct your essay and you can make the changes before you turn it in. You need to redo the essay for your language arts teacher, so you must be really busy.”
About a nanosecond after the words were out of her mouth, Lara remembered that she wasn’t supposed to know about Aviva’s language arts essay. Fidgeting with her pen, Lara reflected on the fact that Georgia Ketteridge would never reveal investigation findings to a suspect. Not that Aviva was a suspect, exactly, but it was the same general idea.
“How do you know that I need to redo my language arts essay?” Aviva asked.
Lara’s mind raced, searching for a good enough lie. Unfortunately, she could only come up with the most unconvincing thing ever. “I just . . . I just guessed.”
For a moment, Aviva didn’t respond. She just kind
