A Novel

I sink onto the bed, fully dressed, and kick off my shoes.
Bubby blows me a kiss and retreats.
Welcome home. The words echo in the empty space around me.
My last coherent thought, before sleep grabs me, is that home has never felt so far away.

Tenth-grader Ashira Lobel has done many things in her life: cooked Shabbos for fifty, helped host mega kiruv events, and flown halfway around the world.

One thing she’s never done before is sit in a classroom.

She’s also never moved away from her family before, leaving them all behind in vibrant, colorful India, so she could go live in London, with grandparents she hardly knows.

Add to the mix an aloof cousin, an overeager classmate, and notoriously unpredictable phone lines, and Ashira is left feeling dismayed, apprehensive, and unmoored. That’s when she finds a mysterious letter buried in her mother’s childhood bedroom, which suddenly raises more questions than answers…

Will Ashira ever adjust to her new life and become a part of the girls that she just can’t relate to?
Does anyone in her life actually understand her?
And the biggest, most terrifying question of all:
Why has her family suddenly disappeared?

By Rochel Samet