The Friendship Fight by Sarah Allie

Author:Sarah, Allie
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2023-12-29T00:00:00+00:00

As soon as the bell rang, Raina gathered her things and tore out of the history classroom, Jesse hot on her heels. Lunch was their last chance to review presentation details, and the duo had decided to head to the science lab ahead of time and start setting up. Mrs. Dixon met them at the lab, unlocking the door with a sharp “be careful”, and agreed to supervise from the staff room next door, leaving Jesse and Raina alone in the classroom.

“Grab the burners from the closet,” Raina directed, taking charge. “Each table should have two.”

Following Jesse, she pulled their presentation poster from the bottom shelf of the closet where, after hours of painstaking preparation, they’d stored it for safekeeping.

Jesse cleared his throat. “I have the opening, right?”

Raina nodded, moving supplies as she spoke. “Yeah, we start with general poisons. You talk for a few minutes on that, then I’ll transition to Shakespeare-specific poisons. Next you talk about potions, and we link that to Romeo and Juliet.”

“And then it’s potion making time,” Jesse said gleefully, setting a burner on a table. “Theo delivered everything yesterday, and I checked—they all have that little kosher symbol you showed me.”

“Perfect.” Raina grinned. She ran through her mental checklist, and when she finally realized everything was ready, only then did she relax. “Fun fact -- it's not just the ingredients that I have to pay attention to when keeping kosher. Jewish people who follow the rules of keeping kosher more strictly, like I do, use separate pots and utensils as well to make sure their food never touches something not kosher. So even though the ingredients of our potion are all kosher, the pots we'll be using aren't - they may have been used for non-kosher ingredients in the past - so I won't be able to have any. But it was really sweet of you to think of that.”

“That doesn’t seem fair. Is it annoying to not be able to eat everything?”

“Kind of,” Raina admitted. “But…it’s something I’ve grown up with. Sure, I don’t go out to eat often, and I feel bad when Gracie invites me to sleep over and I have to say no because I can’t eat the food at her house.”

“Did you eat anything at Nicole’s?” Jesse asked.

“I had some snacks, and she had kosher cereal I could eat at breakfast,” Raina explained. It was second nature for her to check everything she ate, especially at someone else’s house. “I used a paper bowl so I didn’t have to worry about her servingware.”

Jesse nodded. “All I remember is rushing to get back to Trinity. But that must be hard. Would you ever consider not keeping kosher? Or doing something else, religion-wise?”

“That’s…” Raina released a shaky breath, working through the answer in her head. “That’s a difficult question. I think there are some aspects of Judaism I don’t agree with, and I’m learning there are alternate options now. At home, everyone is on the same level of religiousness. Here, I’m exploring what religion and Judaism mean to me.

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