The Trouble with Good Ideas

by Amanda Panitch

  * * *

  We hung out for a while, shooting the breeze. I’d always liked that expression, just because it struck me as so impossible. You couldn’t actually shoot the breeze. You’d probably kill someone trying.

  My parents interrupted us with a knock on the door. “Matilda, Jed, your parents are ready to leave,” Mom said softly. Matty—Matilda—and Jed gave me air-kisses and left, their feet stomping down the stairs. I expected my parents to follow them, but they only stepped inside.

  Ambush! I couldn’t even run away.

  “I’m so tired,” I said feebly. “And my poor ankle hurts soooo much.”

  “Nice try,” my dad said. “Leah, we need to talk to you.”

  I wanted to sigh, but it was suddenly like I couldn’t take in any air. Because I knew what they wanted to talk to me about.

  Mom sat down on the edge of my bed. She was hanging most of the way off, so she couldn’t have been very comfortable. My dad stood beside her, resting a hand on her shoulder. “Leah, all of the necessary documents have been signed and agreed upon. Zaide will be moving from the hospital to an assisted-living facility.” Her lips twitched in a sad smile. “Nobody’s happy about this, but we are relieved. They’re going to take much better care of him there than we would be able to out here.”

  I stared at the ceiling. I wasn’t going to cry. I wasn’t.

  Even if everything was over. My plans had failed. Zaide was leaving his house behind.

  “We have some pictures of his new room if you’d like to see them,” Dad continued. “Here. Check them out.”

  If I spoke, I would cry. So I let him swipe through the pictures on his phone in front of my face. The rooms he showed me looked pretty similar to a hotel. More like a hotel than a hospital, actually. They even had a pool.

  “See?” Dad withdrew his phone. “Not so bad, right?”

  “And we’ll still be visiting him every Saturday afternoon. Your cousins, too,” Mom said.

  “But what about Zaide?” I asked. “He didn’t want to go.”

  Mom shook her head. “It’s funny. He totally changed his mind after you had those ten minutes with him,” she said. “You must have said something that made him realize he couldn’t live on his own with a broken hip.”

  Or … he was learning to accept the things he couldn’t change. To make the best of them.

  We would still have our Saturday afternoons. Even if they were a little bit different. And I would keep playing chess with Zaide. I would keep loving Zaide. Lots of other things might change, but that wouldn’t. I wouldn’t let it.

  “We’ll go see him tomorrow?” I asked.

  My mom leaned over and kissed me atop my head. In the very place Isabella Lynch had massaged looking for horns. “Of course.”

  I took a deep breath. “Fine.” It would be hard. I would have to accept it. And make the best of it. Because things couldn’t go back to the way they were, and I hated that, but I couldn’t make it different.

  My head itched thinking about where Isabella Lynch had touched it. Maybe that I could make different. But not by changing how I felt toward Isabella Lynch. I had to work on the feelings I had toward myself.

  My mind began to race. I had a lot to plan before going back.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  I MIGHT NOT HAVE BEEN able to change anything with Zaide, but I could change what happened in school. Maybe not uproot thousands of years of everybody hating on the Jews, or even change Isabella Lynch’s mind. But I could change how they were treating me and how I reacted to it. And maybe also how I treated other people.

  So come lunch the next day, I didn’t hide in the second-floor bathroom. For one thing, I couldn’t climb the stairs on crutches with my ankle in a brace and carry all my stuff at the same time. But that wasn’t the real reason. I was actually glad for my crutches and my ankle. I had to focus hard to get anywhere, and all that focus and work kept me from totally freaking out as I approached Isabella’s table.

  It took a long time for me to get anywhere, so it gave them plenty of time to stare and whisper. Enough time for a cold sweat to break out on the back of my neck and for me to begin quaking on the inside.

  I stopped at the head of their table. Even though the golem was gone, hopefully forever, they’d left her usual seat open. Isabella was staring at me like I was something gross she’d stepped in. “Do you want something?” Her voice was syrupy sweet, of course.

  I took a deep breath. “I wanted to let you know that Jews do not control the media. Or the government. I kind of wish we did.” I let out a deranged sort of laugh. “It would make my life a whole lot easier. No more homework ever, am I right? But no, we don’t. So no, Isabella, I can’t help you become president.”

  Her face fell, but only a little. She managed to hold most of it up in an expression of cautious optimism. “I didn’t think that,” she said. “Of course not. That’s ridiculous.”

  Everybody was staring at us. I cleared my throat so I could speak as loudly as possible. “Also, I wanted to show you that I don’t have horns.” I leaned my head over the table, letting my hair touch the sticky surface. It was gross, but I persisted long enough to run my fingers through it, parting the strands and exposing enough of my head that it was very clear nothing was growing there but hair. “I’m just a person. Like you. With hair on my head. And ears. And nothing else.”

  When I raised my head back up, Isabella’s face was startlingly white. White enough that I’d be worried a vampire had snuck in and drained her of blood if I hadn’t known better. Her throat kept working like she was trying to swallow. Her friends were glancing in her direction, as if they were trying to meet her eye, but she had eyes only for me. “Ridiculous,” she said, but the lightness in her voice sounded so forced I surely couldn’t be the only one who heard it. “Of course you don’t have horns.”

  I wrinkled my brows in mock confusion. “You seem really sure for someone who made fun of me for being Jewish when I went over to your house. Remember how you mocked me for being selfish and for being greedy? Even though I’m not either of those things? And how you called me a monster? Yeah, you definitely said that. It’s seared into my brain. I couldn’t forget it if I wanted to.”

  “Ridiculous,” Isabella said again, but she sounded way less sure. She cast a look around the table. Some of her friends nodded at her, like, How dare this girl accuse you of such things, but others were staring down at the table, or chewing on the insides of their cheeks as they looked at me.

  I lifted my chin up high. Part of me was shriveling inside from all the attention on me—the tables next door were quiet now, too, listening—but another part was basking in it. It was weird and contradictory, and I wasn’t sure I liked it. It wasn’t fair that I had to deal with this. With people hating me. But sometimes you had to do things you didn’t like and learn to deal with it. That was life. “I don’t want anything to do with you.”

  I turned to go before she could react. But turning for me now took ages, so I could easily hear her hurl at my back, “Good because I don’t want anything to do with you, either.”

  I took a halting step. Maybe nothing would change. And then I heard a hesitant voice say, “You know, like, my stepdad is Jewish, Isabella.”

  I couldn’t hear any more. A fire invigorated my steps. I swung myself over to the table in the back where the Three Ds still sat. They were staring at me, too, as I approached.

  I stopped at the edge of their table. As much as I wanted to swing myself into my usual seat and pretend that nothing was wrong, I knew I had to talk to them. Also, Dallas had piled her books and stuff on my seat, just in case I didn’t get the hint.

  “Hi,” I said, staring down at the table between us. For some reason, this seemed much harder than confronting Isabella Lynch. I didn’t care anymore if Isabella liked me or not, but I realized that I wanted the Three Ds to like me—despite my nose, despite the fact that I had been a pretty crappy friend. “You should know that I’m really awkward. I
’ve wanted to be your friend all year, but I didn’t think you wanted to be mine. I guess I’m bad at reading cues.” I glanced up, afraid they were sharing a look over my head. But they weren’t. “I was so busy worrying about my old friends and trying to keep in touch with them that I didn’t think to make time for new friends. I guess … I wanted to be popular because I thought being popular would mean having friends no matter what, but I was wrong. Really wrong. I’m sorry I was a jerk. I want to try again if you’ll let me.”

  I held my breath. Deanna, Dallas, and Daisy stared blankly at me. Maybe they hadn’t heard anything I’d said? I had talked kind of fast. Maybe I should say it all over again. Maybe I should start with the apology this time. I’m sorry, you guys. I want to be your friend. No, that came off as too desperate.

  A loud thump broke me out of my thoughts. Dallas had lifted her books off my seat and deposited them onto the table. I raised my eyebrows at her. She gestured to my spot.

  My heart hovered high in my chest. I limped over to my seat and managed to slide myself in, leaning my crutches against the table. “Thanks,” I said.

  Daisy didn’t so much as bat an eyelash at me. “So you have to tell us what Isabella’s house looked like,” she said. “Is she actually as rich as she says?”

  Just like that? I took another deep breath. She was looking beyond my nose. She wanted to be my friend. Or was she not so much looking beyond my nose as not looking at it at all?

  Had I been using my nose as an excuse?

  I could mull that over later. “I hate to say it, but it was a really nice house,” I said. “She’s still a rotten person, though.”

  “Right?” Deanna propped her chin up on her hands. “You know, we used to be friends when we were little. She’s pretty racist. I should have warned you.”

  I gave her a tiny smile. She gave me one back. I took a deep breath. “Remember what you said about starting a chess club?” I asked. She nodded, her eyes lighting up. “Well, I’m in.”

  Daisy and Dallas groaned good-naturedly as Deanna clapped her hands. “Yessss!” she cheered. “I’m thinking Wednesdays after school? We can ask Ms. Bunce to advise. And I was thinking we’d do outreach to the fifth-grade girls, like in their math classes…”

  Our conversation made me feel warm. Or not so much warm but as though I had been frozen and was beginning to thaw in the sun. Because it wasn’t like one conversation could fix everything, but it felt good. It felt like I was moving in the right direction.

  Even if my nose wasn’t really standing in my way (literally or figuratively), I still didn’t love it. This wasn’t a movie where I’d have a sudden change of heart and swoon into the mirror, magically in love with this feature I had cursed my whole life.

  But maybe I wouldn’t get a nose job the second I turned eighteen. Maybe I’d give it a little time. Maybe I was growing into it.

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  The golem is a well-known figure in Jewish mythology. There are a number of different stories and different interpretations of the golem, but for the most part, they involve a member of the Jewish community sculpting a figure out of clay for protection against those who wish to do the community harm. In some tales, the golem is unable to speak (which would have been a serious bummer for Elsa). In others, the letters of creation weren’t written on a paper and inserted into the golem’s mouth, but written on their forehead or hung around their neck. The most famous tale of the golem is The Golem of Prague, which was the foundation for the golems in this book—but I was inspired by pieces of the earlier tales as well. If you’re interested in reading more about the golem, I encourage you to seek out all of these different and equally fascinating legends!

  So much of Zaide’s character was inspired by my real-life Zaide, Sidney Nevins: climbing onto the roof of his old telephone company building in his nineties; his love of chess; and, sadly, his battle with Alzheimer’s disease. While my real-life Zaide had a very different personality from book Zaide, I have to say thank you to him and Bubbe for being the inspiration for this book.

  Like Leah, I spent most of my Saturday afternoons growing up at Zaide’s house with my extended family, horsing around with my cousins and sitting around the kitchen table scribbling in various fancy notebooks. Thank you to Grandma Roz, who I so wish was here to see this book, Uncle Sol and Aunt Debbi, Uncle Darryl and Aunt Susan, Dave, Dan, and Rachel, Cousins Marcia, Bill, Michelle, and Brandon, my parents and siblings, and my own faraway cousins. Special thanks to Dan and Rachel for being my Jed and Matty. Thank you all for being the heart.

  It was a long, twisty, difficult road to get to this book. Thank you to my agent, Merrilee Heifetz, who stuck with me the whole way through and didn’t let me crash, along with assistant extraordinaire Rebecca Eskildsen and the rest of the team at Writers House.

  I’m so grateful to my publishing team at Roaring Brook Press for making this book the best book it could be. Thank you to my editors, Jen Besser and Mekisha Telfer, for getting Leah and this book, and all of the work you did to make it better. Olivia Chin Mueller, I can’t get over how gorgeous and perfect your cover illustration is, and Cassie Gonzales, same for your book design. Thank you also to Brian Luster, Allyson Floridia, John Nora, and Morgan Kane.

  And thank you to Jeremy Bohrer, for everything.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  Amanda Panitch grew up next to an amusement park in New Jersey and went to college next to the White House in Washington, DC. She now resides in New York City, where she works in book publishing by day, writes by night, and lives under constant threat of being crushed beneath giant stacks of books. You can sign up for email updates here.

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  CONTENTS

  Title Page

  Copyright Notice

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Author’s Note

  About the Author

  Copyright

  Text copyright © 2021 by Amanda Panitch

  Published by Roaring Brook Press

  Roaring Brook Press is a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Holdings Limited Partnership

  120 Broadway, New York, NY 10271

  mackids.com

  All rights reserved

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available.

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  eISBN 9781250245113

  First hardcover edition, 2021

  eBook edition, 2021

 

 

 
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