The Devil's Arithmetic by Jane Yolen Read Free Book Online

to think what mightinterest them. “Well, during the week I go to school, but on the weekends I go with Rosemary to the mall and . . .”
    â€œSchool, too!” Esther said with a sigh. “Only boys are allowed to go to school here. I always wanted to go.”
    â€œYou
want
to go?” Hannah was shocked. “No one I know does. We can’t wait for the weekends. That’s when we can have fun, go shopping, and . . .”
    It was the girls’ turn to be shocked. “Shopping? On the Sabbath?” Rachel asked.
    Esther was still thinking about the school. “I heard once about a girl who disguised herself as a boy and went into a
yeshivah
to study Torah. I do not believe it.”
    â€œI know that story.” Hannah’s voice rose in excitement. It’s called
Yentl
and stars Barbra Streisand in the movie. She chops off her hair and . . .”
    â€œChops off her hair!” Appalled, Shifre put her hands up to her own pale braids. “And not married?”
    â€œWe have never seen a movie,” said Esther. “But I have heard of them.”
    â€œNever mind from movies,” Rachel said sternly, the breathiness gone from her voice for once. “And no more interruptions. Tell us the story of this Yentl, Chaya. From the beginning.”

7
    STORIES SEEMED TO TUMBLE OUT OF HANNAH ’ S MOUTH , reruns of all the movies and books she could think of. She told the girls about
Yentl
and then about
Conan the Barbarian
with equal vigor; about
Star Wars
, which confused them; and
Fiddler on the Roof
, which did not. She told them the plot of
Little Women
in ten minutes, a miracle of compression, especially since her book report had been seven typed pages.
    She mesmerized them with her tellings. After the first one, which they had interrupted every third sentence with questions, they were an attentive audience, and silent except for their frequent loud sighs and Esther’s nervous laughter at all the wrong moments.
    Rachel cried at the end of
Yentl
, when Hannah described Barbra Streisand bravely sailing off to America alone. And all four had tears running down their cheeks when Beth died in
Little Women
. Hannah wondered at this strange power she held in her mouth. It was trueAaron had always liked her stories. So did Rosemary, but as her best friend she had to. And the Brodie twins, whom she’d only started to babysit, could usually be kept quiet with a tale. But she’d never had such a large, appreciative audience before.
    Walking through the woods behind the wagons, the girls kept jostling one another for the place of honor by Hannah’s side. Hannah wondered about
that
most of all. In New Rochelle, except for Rosemary and two other friends, who had all been together since first grade, she was not very popular. There was even one clique of girls—Rosemary called them “the Snubs”—who never spoke to her, though three were in her Hebrew class and one was actually Rosemary’s cousin. She remembered vividly standing with Rosemary at the school’s water fountain, giggling and splashing each other. The Snubs came over and called them babies just when Jordan Mandel went by. He’d laughed at them and Hannah had thought she’d die on the spot. Yet here, wherever
here
was, she was suddenly the most popular girl on the block. Except there wasn’t any block. She realized that she couldn’t have made up that powerful memory. She
was
Hannah. But these girls, who were hanging on her every word, believed she was Chaya. And it was great to be so popular. She wasn’t going to spoil it by trying to convince them she really was someone else.
    â€œSo let me tell you about
The Wizard of Oz
,” she said. She couldn’t remember which was the movie and which was the book. Shrugging her shoulders, she began a strange mixture of the two, speeding along until the line “Gosh, Toto, this sure doesn’t