The Opposite of Hallelujah by Anna Jarzab Page B

car yourself. Got it?”
    He and Mom stared at me. I relented.
    “Fine,” I said, taking a bite out of my bagel. It might’ve smelled like bribery, but it tasted like coercion.

    Pawel surprised me at my locker that morning. “Hey,” he said, leaning against the wall. “Did you get all that physics homework done?”
    I nodded. “It took me forever, though. Didn’t you do it?”
    He shrugged. “I considered doing it. I finished a couple of problems. It was really boring.”
    I laughed and stood up, slinging my bag over my shoulder. “It’s homework. It’s supposed to be boring. Come on, we’re going to be late for class.”
    “Do you always do your homework?” Pawel asked, matching my speed as we walked through the hallways.
    “Usually,” I said.
    “You’re a straight-A student, aren’t you?” His voice had a note of amusement in it.
    “Pretty much,” I said. There were lots of things I didn’t like about myself, but the one thing I was never ashamed of was my dedication to school. Both of my parents believed in the value of a good education, andthey had passed that belief on to me. On to us, I mean to say. In the flickering nickelodeon of my early-childhood memories was a short clip of me standing in front of the refrigerator while my mom cooked dinner. I was staring at the various tests and papers sixteen-year-old Hannah had brought home with big red As on them.
    Your sister is such a good student , Mom said in my memory. Are you going to be a good student, too?
    Yes , I told her firmly. At five I was already determined to be just as good as Hannah was. I’m going to get straight As .
    At least, that was how I remembered it.
    “Your parents must be proud of you,” Pawel teased.
    “Sometimes,” I told him. “Mostly they’re just annoyed with me.”
    “Why’s that?” he asked.
    “They think I have a bad attitude,” I said. “But I maintain that it’s the other way around.”
    “And you’re the youngest?” he guessed.
    “How did you know?” Almost everybody who knew I had an older sister had forgotten years earlier, yet he picked up on it immediately, without knowing a thing about me. “Does my bad attitude scream ‘spoiled baby’ to you?”
    “No,” he said, smiling. “First of all, I don’t think you have a bad attitude. Second of all, you don’t act like a youngest child at all. You work hard, you don’t coast. You don’t have a car of your own.”
    “Reb has a car, and she’s the oldest,” I said.
    “Who?”
    “Reb. My best friend. She’s in our French class.”
    “Oh, right. I’m not saying that all youngest children have their own cars, or that no oldest children have their own cars, but in my experience a younger child is more likely to have one than an older child.”
    “I could be one of the exceptions,” I said.
    “You could.”
    “Or I could be an only child.”
    “You’re not.”
    “How could you tell?”
    “You’re just not. Only children might as well be wearing Christmas lights made out of fluorescent bulbs for how easily they stand out at school. You’re the youngest. But you’re not spoiled. Curious.”
    “What are you, some sort of aspiring anthropologist?”
    “Not really. This is just a game I like to play.”
    “Okay, so what made you think I was the youngest?”
    He scrunched up his face, as if debating whether to say what he was thinking, or trying to think of a better way. “You don’t seem desperate for attention, I guess.”
    “Thanks?” I wasn’t sure how to take that, although it sounded like a compliment, or at least a non-insult.
    “There’s more,” he said. He searched my face as if to see if I was interested in hearing it. I gave him an expectant smile and he continued. “You’re friendly and outgoing, but you’re also really secure in your friendships,so you don’t seem to care very much if strangers like you. I could tell when I first talked to you that you weren’t putting on a show. You were just being