Anat and I didn't speak again about her family. I had known for a long time that this was a sensitive subject for her, and now, after the revelation of the letter, I was more cautious than ever. Besides, I was sure that if she felt a need to talk, and if there was something to tell me, she would share any new discovery with me.

I must admit that Chagit's joining us at our table - a development I had been so afraid of at first - turned out to be a refreshing change for me. It was just the opposite of what I had expected. Instead of Anat, it was I who began to become friendly with Chagit. Now, as before, I enjoyed sitting by Anat, learning from her deeds and behavior, but I'd been lacking a certain electricity in the air, the chance to break out of the routine once in a while. Chagit solved that problem for me. From the very first day, she caught on right away to what kind of people she was dealing with. She realized that she couldn't expect to get any reaction out of Anat, while I, on the other hand, was a lot easier to entice into joining her escapades - at least as an observer from the sidelines.

From her first days among us, she tried to get the attention of the girls of our class through various and sundry antics. Studying she had no use for, and generally didn't listen to the lessons. Instead, she would sit and draw - terrific pictures! I used to peek into her notebook as she filled it with doodles, fanciful sketches, landscapes; and I was amazed by the immense talent unveiled in front of my eyes. She told me she had never taken drawing lessons. "What do you think, that my parents have extra money to send me to an art teacher?" There was a certain bitterness in her voice. I suppose she certainty must have wanted to develop her talent, but she covered up her disappointment about not being able to do so, declaring: "I know how to draw by myself; I don't need an art class! What's the matter, my drawings aren't nice enough?"

"They're wonderful," I affirmed sincerely.

All her notebooks were filled with drawings. Instead of doing homework, she would draw. And when she got tired of exercising her fingers, she would start exercising her brains to plan all kinds of adventures. Every day she would come to school with a new scheme. The first few days, we found her very entertaining. We got excited, laughed, and enjoyed it when she bounced a ball in the classroom in the middle of a lesson.

"Chagit, give me the ball," commanded the science teacher angrily.

"But why?" Chagit asked innocently. "I didn't do it on purpose. It bounced out of my desk."

"If so, put it back immediately. Or better yet, in your schoolbag. So that it won't bounce out 'accidentally' again."

Chagit began pursuing the ball - of course, with the aim of not catching it. Whenever she got near it, she made sure it would get away from her. A tiny unnoticed touch of the foot whizzed the ball under the desk of Batyah and Orly, the top students in the class. Just as she almost captured it there, "by mistake" she knocked it with her finger, and it flew straight under Chedvah's desk. Chagit, down on all fours, neck stretched out ahead of her, crawled around the floor to catch it. At this point Chedvah saved her some effort, giving it a kick that sent it flying right onto the teacher's desk.

"Enough of that game!" The teacher's face was red with anger. She nearly lost control of herself, and no wonder. "This is not a soccer field! Chagit, forget the hot pursuit and get back to your place!"

"But, Teacher," protested Chagit, who also enjoyed a talent for very successfully acting innocent "the ball will disappear and be lost for good unless I catch it now."

"Let it be lost!" the teacher yelled. "Sit down immediately in your place - otherwise, I'm putting you out of the class, and writing it down in the mechanechet's journal!"

This threat had its effect. Chagit returned to her seat, mumbling with feigned sorrow and indignation.

The rest of us laughed, of course. We enjoyed Chagit's comical chase after the ball. We also enjoyed the fact that ten minutes had been wasted at the expense of the science lesson.

"We're going to have to replace the janitor," Chagit announced to me in a whisper when she came back to her place next to me. For a moment I didn't catch the connection. "Look how I'm covered with dust; it's a sign that he didn't mop the floor..." I couldn't keep myself from laughing. In front of my eyes again I saw Chagit crawling on all fours from one end of the classroom to the other.

"Chagit!" The teacher's voice rang out again.

"What did I do?" Chagit raised a pair of long-suffering eyes to the tall figure that was approaching her. "They always pick just on me!"

The teacher was thrown slightly off guard. "Stop talking. And you, Tammi..." She turned to me. "I don't want to see you laughing again in the middle of a lesson."

I managed to restore my usual attentive expression. Chagit, too, went back to business as usual. This time she chose to draw the science teacher with her face puffed up in outrage. The drawing was terribly amusing, and I had to summon all my strength to keep from bursting out laughing. I was afraid of the teacher's wrath.

Every day Chagit came to school with a new idea. At first we enjoyed this very much, but after a few days we too began to feel that she was carrying things too far. And some of the girls weren't shy to tell her what they thought about her. But she wasn't impressed. "What do they care?" she asked casually. "I want things to be fun in our class."

"It's not hard to understand why they transferred her out of the other class," the girls whispered to each other. "What a trouble-maker!"

Ours was known as the best and quietest of the three ninth-grade classes. Ever since the incident of the "get-away to the beach," we had learned our lesson. The moderate and reasonable element in our class had prevailed over the reckless and light-headed side, which constituted a very weak minority. Apparently the administrative staff had hoped that Chagit would be influenced by us to change for the better.

I sensed that it was not easy for Anat to sit at the same desk with Chagit, but she didn't express her feeling out loud. I, on the other hand, wasn't bothered so much. Even if I didn't listen well, I could always ask Anat for her notebook, to copy down her summary of the lesson, and that way I would know what had been taught. Chagit didn't even bother to do that.

It happened in a Torah lesson.

"Did everyone prepare the homework?" the teacher asked, surveying the class with her glance.

No one answered.

"I asked, did everyone prepare the homework? Any girl who didn't do so, and doesn't tell me now, will be severely punished if I find out afterwards!"

Two hands went up hesitantly. "Edna...Yael - why not?"

Both of them gave rather lame excuses. The main thing was that they apologized and promised that at the next lesson they would show the teacher well-prepared homework. She forgave them and didn't punish them.

"I repeat," the teacher declared for the third time, "if anyone didn't prepare the homework, this is her last chance to tell me about it without getting punished!" No more hands were raised. I glanced at Chagit's notebook. Under the heading, "Answers," which was written in fancy curly- cue letters, bobbed a battleship on the waves of the Atlantic Ocean - complete with full rigging, all sails spread, and a deck thronging with people in the dress of five hundred years ago. The Spanish flag even waved at the top of the main mast.

"You'd better tell her now, before it's too late," I whispered to Chagit.

"Nonsense," she hissed, also in a whisper. "What for?"

We began reading the homework. Rinah was asked to read the first question. Anat read the answer to the second question.

"You see?" Chagit said calmly. "Anat was the representative of our table. The teacher's not going to know at all that I didn't do the homework!"

I don't think the teacher heard her words, which were spoken in a barely audible whisper. And I don't think the teacher was a mind-reader. All the same, she called on Chagit, saying: "Chagit, question number three, please."

I thought that Chagit would become confused, turn red, lower her head in embarrassment and not know how to escape from her difficulty - but I was wrong. With exaggerated self- confidence she picked up my notebook, stood up, and with great naturalness began to read out the answer which I had written late the previous night, after deep study of the commentaries of Ramban and Ibn Ezra, while my eyes were closing and I was already yearning to climb into my bed... I didn't know whether I should get mad, or enjoy the original idea.

"Very good, Chagit!" the teacher praised her. "I see that when you want to, you know how to study! It seems I should let you take part more often in the lessons. Rachel, the fourth question."

Chagit pretended to be mad at me. "Couldn't you have written a less successful answer? Now she's going to start making me take part in the lessons!" She was worried that she might be disturbed in her occupation of decorating her notebooks with artistic drawings.

The first time Anat spoke to me about Chagit was when she said to me: "Tammi, I don't want you to get angry with me. Don't think that I'm jealous - I know you're capable of thinking that. I hesitated a long time about whether I should say anything to you, until I decided that I have to do it, for your good. Lately you're getting too friendly with Chagit. You're very much influenced by her, and not for the good."

"How do you know?" I asked defensively. "I can see it," she answered in a quiet voice.

"You can see it!" I attacked her. It's a time-tested defense mechanism. "Do you know anything at all about me lately? You spend the whole day with Peninah. Walking with her, talking, sharing secrets, doing homework with her. You invite her to your room at the dorm and the two of you study for tests there. What did you think, that I didn't know?"

She listened to my onslaught in silence. When I was finished, she said: "I knew that's what you would say, Tammi. Apparently you didn't notice that only after you became so tied up with Chagit did I strengthen my connection with Peninah."

"Not true!"

"Come, let's not argue about it," she said in her calm - but authoritative - voice, which made you want to obey her without another word. "I also don't want to dwell on the point that Peninah very much needs the attention she gets from me - or from you, or from anyone else in the class. What I wanted to tell you is that your new friend has a bad influence on you."

"And that bothers you?" I tried to criticize her. "Very much," she answered simply.

I felt ashamed for my aggressive behavior. "But Chagit needs someone to make friends with her!" I tried to justify myself. "You yourself once told me that when a person feels herself on the fringes of the group, she tries to get attention by abnormal, exceptional behavior - that negative actions are usually caused by lack of self-confidence, a feeling of weakness which the person is trying to hide and cover up. That's how it is with Chagit, and I'm trying to be friendly with her and help her! And here you come and start scolding me for it..."

"It's very good that you're trying to help her. But it's impossible that such help can come about through damaging yourself. Have you counted how many times you've been thrown out of class in the past week? And today, for the first time this year, you didn't have your homework done!"

I put my head down and fought a quick battle with myself. To tell - or not to tell? Chagit had forbidden me to reveal her secret, did I have to hide it even from Anat? I decided to guard my tongue. All the same, I understood that Anat had the right intentions and only wanted my good. And besides, what she said was true.

"You're right," I admitted. "But what can I do? The mechanechet is the one who seated Chagit next to me. You have to understand, Anat, that even if you happen to be an angel, not everyone is. I'm not ashamed to admit that I'm an ordinary girl, and when someone sits next to me whispering jokes and telling entertaining stories all through the lesson - I laugh! And I didn't have time to do the homework, because Chagit asked me to come with her to a certain place, we were there until late, and when I got home I was very tired, and couldn't concentrate, and I thought I would get up early in the morning and do my homework. But I didn't have time..."

Anat's eyebrows went up in surprise. "Where did you go with Chagit?"

I began to stammer. "It's, uh, I can't tell you, Anat. Chagit told me I mustn't tell."

"You even have secrets with her already?" she exclaimed, half joking and half pained.

"As far as I'm concerned it's not a secret. Chagit's the one who doesn't want it to be known." "I think I'm going to ask the mechanechet to move Chagit to a different seat," she said after a moment of thought.

"All the better. Do that." I agreed to the idea. I understood that only good could come from it. "Shall I tell you the truth? I'm the first one who'll be happy about it. But I'm not capable of going to the mechanechet and asking something like that. You're brave, and these grown-ups, for some reason, treat you like their equal."

She couldn't hold back a smile. I smiled too, and the tension that had held sway between us since the beginning of our conversation eased.

I brought up a new subject. "What's happening with Peninah?" Too late, I regretted it. I was afraid that this topic would cause another short-circuit between us, and I didn't want that. But once something is done, it can't be undone. I made up my mind to be moderate and restrained.

"Thank G-d, her situation has considerably improved." Anat hadn't noticed my inner struggle at all. "Soon they'll receive a new apartment, from the government housing company. With the money we collected we bought essential things for the winter, warm blankets, sweaters and coats for the children..."

"I've noticed that Peninah's wearing much better clothes," I commented, but I didn't get an answer. Anat was glad that Peninah was better off, but I could well imagine that it wasn't that - the nicer clothes - that was causing Anat to be friendly towards her.

"They're also eating better, and her father has a new job, which is easier, and also pays better. Our mechanechet has done a lot for them. She's really a wonderful woman!"

"Were you with her all along the way?" I inquired.

"You could say so."

"Now I understand how it is that you can say you'll speak with the mechanechet - about Chagit, I mean - and be sure she'll do what you ask. You've become good friends, I see."

"Call it that, if you want, even though your definition is not accurate..." After a moment of silence, she changed the subject. "I have something to tell you, Tammi. I spoke with my mother. I couldn't stop myself, and I asked her." Right away I guessed what she was talking about. "It's true. I have a sister in America, and her name is Margaret - Maggie for short. She's twenty - six years older than me - and studies at one of the biggest universities in the United States..."

"How did your mother react when you asked her? Did she get mad?"

"She wasn't angry at all. Just a tiny bit shocked. When I told her that I had read the letter, she thought a little while and then told me in a quiet, calm voice that if I already knew, there was no reason to hide it from me, and in fact she had been married earlier, before she met my father. 'I married at a relatively young age, for America,' she told me. 'I was just a little girl of eighteen. At nineteen, I gave birth to Margaret, and when she was three I separated from her father. Our marriage hadn't worked out. Two years later, I met your father. When we decided to marry, I sent Maggie to be with her father. He's a good man, is devoted to his daughter, loves her very much. The problem was ours, between us, we didn't get along.' "

"There are so many cases of divorce in these times," I sighed, trying to share in Anat's feelings, even though I couldn't have defined what they were exactly. Sorrow? Pain? Embarrassment? Wonderment? Maybe nothing at all? Or perhaps all of those at once?

"Maggie grew up in the home of her father, who remarried. My mother kept up a steady correspondence with her. They also met from time to time, until we moved to Israel. From here she also continued writing to her. It seems that Maggie has no complaints about her life, which is a very comfortable one - except for her fierce desire to meet again with the mother we share in common, and with her new sister - me."

"Would you want to get to know her?" I asked curiously. "Maggie? Of course! Wouldn't you want to know all your brothers and sisters? I asked my mother to let Maggie come for a visit, now that I already know of her existence. But Mother completely refuses. She also won't explain why. What's the reason for her strange stubbornness? There's something hidden behind all this. I feel it, Tammi."

"Maybe you're just imagining it. Probably your father is the one who's not interested in having your mother's daughter visit. Maybe he's worried that..."

"It's true that my father also doesn't agree. But my mother also refuses. And her reason is not connected at all with my father. She has her own motivation! I have the feeling it's because of me...that she's worried for me, trying to protect me from something hidden... one of these days I'll clear up the whole mystery - you'll see!"

"Have you told Peninah... about all this?" I asked hesitantly. I had to get the situation completely clear for myself.

Anat looked at me with wide, very grey eyes. She was angry at me. "Are you crazy?" was all she said, but the way she said it, and her tone of voice, were enough for me. I was filled with a great feeling of relief. After all was said and done, I was still her best friend, and she told her hidden secrets only to me...

Due to an incident with a piece of elastic and a safety pin, the mechanechet moved Chagit from our shared table to a seat at the back of the column. There she was given a desk of her own, where she sat by herself and engaged in her private business - drawing - with no one to disturb her.

The day after our conversation, Anat informed me that she had spoken with the mechanechet and had requested that Chagit be given a different seat. "She didn't promise to do it," Anat explained. "She just said she would think about the matter and decide what to do." It was Chagit herself who - without meaning to - speeded up the process.

That day, the grammar teacher had decided to give a surprise quiz. She called the girls to the board one at a time and asked us to write a few sentences, add all the correct vocalization marks, divide the words into "open" and "closed" syllables - and all the rest. The truth is that grammar is not my favorite subject, but I more or less make an effort to understand it. I can't say the same for Chedvah, who sits at the desk in front of us. She harbors a genuine hatred for the subject of grammar, including the grim-faced teacher whose job it is to make us wise in its ways. When she heard about the unexpected quiz, Chedvah turned around towards us and with a pale face announced: "I'm done for! Pray for me that I don't collapse beside the blackboard and faint from fear that I don't know anything!" Chagit looked at her with pity, and suddenly a broad grin spread over her face. "Don't worry," she reassured Chedvah. "Everything will be O.K."

"How?" Chedvah couldn't understand her. "I promise you, I don't know a thing!"

"Turn around now, before the teacher gets mad at you and decides to call you up to the board first. If I tell you everything will be O.K., you can depend on me."

Chedvah turned around, and I, who was keeping an eye on Chagit, saw her open her briefcase, take out a not-so-large piece of elastic, a safety pin... "This girl comes prepared for any emergency," I thought to myself. "What are you doing?" I asked, but the only answer I got was: "Shh... shh," and no more. I kept a watch on the situation. While the girls went up to the blackboard one by one, Chagit opened the safety pin and stuck it through the piece of elastic. The other end of the elastic she fixed firmly to the leg of Chedvah's chair. No one except me noticed what was going on. Even Chedvah didn't feel it when Chagit, with great care, opened the safety pin and used it to fasten the elastic to the belt of Chedvah's skirt.

"Now wait and see what will happen!" Chagit told me, beaming all over with satisfaction, when she had finished all her preparations. I could imagine what was about to take place, and waited in great suspense. I glanced at Anat out of the corner of my eye. She hadn't noticed anything. Or was she deliberately ignoring it?

"Chedvah, come to the board." Our friend stood up, shaking from head to foot. She darted an accusing glance at Chagit, and tried to lift her leg and take a step forward. The chair jumped with her.

"What's this?" Chedvah said in surprise. She took another step forward. A grating sound was heard. The chair moved, too. It had decided to accompany Chedvah to the blackboard. Perhaps it was worried that she might faint to the floor, and had decided to position itself in the right place to save her.

"What's going on there?" the teacher demanded. "Chedvah, why aren't you coming to the board?"

"Go! Go!" Chagit urged, and Chedvah took two more steps. So did the chair. Every eye in the class turned towards the two inseparable partners, Chedvah and her chair. Both of them were approaching the blackboard. Giggles and smothered laughter were heard here and there. We were afraid of the grammar teacher, and didn't dare laugh out loud.

"Do you need an escort, Chedvah?" the teacher's voice mocked. "Why are you dragging the chair with you?"

"It's... not me!" Chedvah began to realize what was happening, but played the game well. "I don't understand why... the chair's dragging after me!"

The teacher came closer. Just one quick glance was enough for her to catch on to what was happening. "Immediately unfasten the safety pin from the skirt!" she screeched. With trembling hands, Chedvah searched for the safety pin. Since she hadn't put it there, she didn't know where it was, and searched for it in vain. "Wait, I'll help you!" Chagit generously offered, standing up.

"Why did you do that, Chedvah?" the teacher asked angrily.

"Not true! I didn't do it... I didn't even know!" And suddenly Chedvah burst out crying. She covered her face with her arm, pulled the chair back to its place with her other hand, sat down on it, put her face on the table - and disconnected herself from everything that might happen in the lesson until the end of the hour.

"Chedvah, wipe your tears and come to the board," the teacher requested, after fixing a threatening glance on Chagit, who wasn't at all flustered. Chedvah didn't show any sign of being willing to obey. Her shoulders were still shaking. She was crying.

"You did this, Chagit." It wasn't a question. The teacher was stating a fact. Chagit shrugged her shoulders indifferently and lowered her eyes.

"For now, leave the classroom," the teacher told her. "I'll discuss this with the mechanechet. An act of this kind can certainly not be allowed to pass without a reaction." Then she continued calling girls up to the board. Chedvah, of course, she didn't call. She remained bent over her desk until the end of the lesson. Chagit had kept her promise, Chedvah had been rescued from the quiz.

During the next lesson, Navi, Chagit was not in class. She had been summoned for a talk with the mechanechet. At the following break, she came into the classroom, went up to Chedvah, and I heard her ask her to come to the storage shed. "I have to bring a desk," she explained. "The mechanechet told me to move to a new place at the end of the column."

When she came back with the desk I asked her: "Is that all the mechanechet told you? She just moved your seat?"

Chagit laughed. "That's what you think! She warned me that if I don't act right in my new place either" - she was imitating the mechanechet's voice - "she'll be forced to take more serious steps..." As if I'm scared. What can she do to me, anyway?"

All the same, from that day on we hardly noticed that Chagit was in the same class with us. Every once in a while I would go over to her desk and exchange a few words with her. A heap of papers was always piled there, all of them filled with drawings and decorative designs. "I'm practicing," she explained to me. "A teacher I'll certainly never be. Maybe I can illustrate books for a profession. Or maybe, later on, I'll study graphics... when I have enough money to finance my studies myself," she added after a pause.

I thought of that afternoon when I had accompanied Chagit to look for work, going by a list of addresses that she had copied out of the newspaper. I had come home late and hadn't had time to prepare all the homework for the next day. Anat had reprimanded me for not having my homework. That day, Chagit hadn't succeeded in finding work. Either the jobs didn't appeal to her, or she wasn't qualified for them.

"Have you found work?" I asked cautiously. "Yes," she answered. "I've already been working a week."

"Where do you work?" I was interested. Chagit turned slightly red, but immediately overcame her embarrassment, and with the feigned indifference so typical of her, told me off- handedly: "In a shoe store. I help the proprietor take care of customers."

"Do you like it?" I probed further.

"Yes..." A slight pause. "It doesn't matter how much I like it, the main thing is that I have money, that I'm not dependent on my parents, who certainly don't have enough to provide me with everything I need and want."

That was why I admired Chagit. She took care of herself, knew how to get along on her own strength, without turning to others for help. She had already told me that she bought all her clothes, books, notebooks, and writing supplies with her own money. "I've always found some kind of work to pay for my needs myself," she said to me once, in a moment of openness. "I take whatever job comes along - babysitting, helping the neighbors with housework, but the best and most interesting work I ever did was when I illustrated a childrens' book written by the mother of one of my friends in eighth grade. That friend liked my drawings very much and suggested to her mother to give me the job. I enjoyed it very much. But what can you do? You don't always find work like that. So I do anything. Whatever I can. And now I sell shoes."

She took life naturally, with wonderful simplicity, and yet with a seriousness not usually found in a girl her age.