Just when life was turning out the way I wanted it to, Aviva Bernstein had to go back to Israel. Everything had changed for me since the year before, mostly for the better, but it was still hard to get used to. Mom and Dad’s fancy foods boutique in the Adams Morgan section of Washington, DC, Adam’s Bounty, was finally a wild success after nearly going out of business, and I was in a new school where there were a lot of kids from all over the world.

We had moved out of the old Victorian house that belongs to Minerva Wentworth O’Toole, who invented a flying car that runs on fuel made by living plants. I love Minerva, but I was happy to move to my own old Victorian house. I got everything I like in my new bedroom—walls painted robin’s egg blue and white and a scrumptious quilt and frilly pillows to match. I finally had my own TV and computer station and my own phone, too.

School started to be fun even though I still didn’t make friends so fast. We had a great library, as well as good, new computers that actually worked and were hooked up to the Internet all the time. One day I visited this natural history Web site, all about marine mammals, dolphins and whales. It was with this French scientist who kept calling the dolphins “dauphins.” I got so interested, especially in those dolphins, I didn’t realize that everyone else left to go to another class. When I looked up, I was completely alone. I logged off, grabbed my books, and dashed out into the hall. My next class was French and I didn’t want to be late. I had been getting in enough trouble for being late to French.

I arrived in Ms. Birnbach’s room while everyone was still getting out their books, so all I got from Ms. Birnbach was a stern look. I smiled sheepishly and slid into my chair, which was next to Aviva Bernstein’s. Aviva is from Israel and she was visiting Washington and was in both my homeroom and my French class. Aviva and I had become very tight friends. In fact, she was still the only friend I had made in my new school.

“Hi, Tali, how’s everything going?” she said, much too loudly.
“Shh,” I said, getting out my cahier (that’s French for notebook). I love Aviva, but she is very noisy and I didn’t want to push my luck with Ms. Birnbach. So of course, wouldn’t you know, Ms. Birnbach called on me.

“Mademoiselle Reimer,” she said sternly, “Qui est vôtre père, s’il vous plaît?”

“Mon père est un dauphin,” I said.
Ms. Birnbach put one hand on her hip. “Your father is a dolphin?” she said.

“Oh, no,” I yelled, but it was too late. The whole class exploded in giggles and loud laughs. I wanted to die. I felt a tap on my shoulder. Aviva was looking at me with sympathy. She was the only one not laughing.

After class, she and I walked back to our homeroom to pick up our jackets. Ms. Farrell, our homeroom teacher, was looking at a piece of paper on her desk when we came in.

“Talia, here’s something you might be interested in,” she said, picking up the paper. “It’s a contest called Worlds to Come where you can do a project on a scientific theory that may be used in the future. I know you love science, so I thought you would like to try this.”
Aviva and I had the same idea at the same time. “Dolphins,” we said together.

I reached for the paper that Ms. Farrell was holding out. “I believe I do have an idea,” I said. “I have a very good idea.”

Aviva and I walked out of the room together. “You know,” she said, “there is a really great place for learning about dolphins in Israel. It’s in Eilat. I was there once with my parents and brother. Maybe . . . Do you think you could come to Israel? We could go to this place, it’s called the Dolphin Reef, and you could do your project there.”

I stared at her. It was as if she was suggesting that I take a short trip on the next space module to, say, Venus. “Sure,” I said. “Right away my parents are going to let me go to Israel, or anywhere further than New York, without them.”

“No, but Talia, you would be with me. With my mom and dad. It would be so cool. And, anyway, I am going back next week.”

My heart dropped down to my shoes. “What? Why? I thought you were here for the year.”

“No,” she said, “it was only for six months and now that’s over and I am going back home.”

“That’s terrible. I will miss you so much.”

“So you are going to do something about dolphins for this contest. What about them are you going to do?” she asked me.

I stared at her. “Do you have any ideas?” I asked. “I just know they’re really great at helping people who are drowning. And they are pretty good swimmers. And because they are so smart, they can learn to do anything. Did you know people have actually been catching them and selling them to water shows?”

Aviva gasped. “No, who would do that?”

“Terrible people,” I said.

“If you could come to Israel, you could swim with the dolphins and figure out there what your project would be. I bet you’d win.”

“Oh, Aviva, I’m going to miss you so-o-o much.”

* * *

I thought about it for a very long time. In my mind, I could see it all. I would tell my parents that this was the chance of a lifetime and when I won the contest, they would be so proud of me and they would be proud of themselves for allowing me to go with Aviva. And Aviva’s mom is a professor at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She was in DC as a visiting professor at George Washington University. They certainly could trust her to make sure I was all right. I’d E-mail them about what I was doing every day. And so on and so on. Pretty soon I had myself convinced they would say, “Sure, Tal, no problem. Let’s get started on plans.”

But that wasn’t the way it happened.

What happened was they were both standing on ladders painting the trim around the top of the wall of our newly redone lemon-yellow kitchen when I walked in from school.

“Looks cool, guys,” I said.

“Thanks, Tal. You have homework?” Dad said.

“Yes, but I wanted to ask you about something first.”

“What?” asked Mom, sounding distracted. “Jon, this isn’t coming out right.” She pointed to a big white smear where there should have been a fancy Greek scroll. She was painting through a cutout.

I considered putting my request off until they were on the floor and not worrying about a paint job or something else that kept them from listening to what I had to say. But time was getting short. Aviva and I had just about decided that I was going to Israel for spring break. That would be the best time to go to Eilat especially, she told me, because in the summer it gets too hot, even to swim.

I had met Aviva’s mom and I liked her a lot. She was originally from the United States. Aviva’s father and brother, Dan, hadn’t come to the U.S. with her mom and Aviva. Her dad was an orchestra conductor and her brother was a student at the university. I had seen a picture of him and he was great looking. I couldn’t wait to meet him in person.

I spoke up. “Well, it’s like this. Aviva Bernstein invited me to go to Israel and stay with her and her family and travel around to see the country. And there is a special contest for kids my age called the Worlds to Come contest. You know how I am so interested in dolphins? Well, there’s this dolphin place in Israel, where they are having a one-week camp to swim with the dolphins and learn all about them. I figure I could do a project on the dolphins for the Worlds to Come contest. Aviva is already signed up for the camp. So could I go?”

There was silence. I held my breath. The first one to speak was Mom.

“No,” she said. “You can’t go to Israel.”

“Just like that? No? Why?” I was really upset. I had hoped for a little more understanding. “I’m going to stay with Aviva’s family. They have a great apartment in a beautiful place near Jerusalem. Her mom is a professor at Hebrew University. And her dad is an orchestra conductor. They will take me everywhere. What’s wrong with that? And I know I could win that contest if I could stay at the Dolphin Reef. You just don’t want me to win, that’s what.”

Mom slowly backed down her ladder. Dad kept on painting, without turning around or saying a word. When Mom got to the bottom, she turned to face me and sighed. “Tal, you are only twelve years old. You are not going on a plane to a foreign country all by yourself, especially a country like Israel, which is too far away.”

“So come with me.” I really didn’t want to say that, but it was all I could think of at the moment.

“Impossible,” she said. “Maybe when you are in high school and there’s a group going . . . ”

“I want to go now,” I said. But I knew that, for the moment at least, I wasn’t going to make any headway with my parents. I’d have to do some heavy campaigning and think of someone or something that could convince them to let me go.

I didn’t mention it again for about a week and all I could do was complain to Aviva by E-mail. She was sympathetic, and even offered to have her mom call my mom and reassure her that everything would be okay if I went. I accepted the offer, and Mom did have a long conversation with Dr. Bernstein, Aviva’s mom, who is called “Doctor” because she has a PhD in biblical archeology. But nothing helped. Mom would not agree, and every time I brought up the subject, she got angry.

“You are just not old enough. Talk to me next year,” she would say.

“Next year they won’t have the contest.”

“There’ll be another contest.”

“I’ll be safe. Stop worrying about me, Mom.”

This bickering went on for another week. Then Lady Luck smiled on me and I heard from an old friend. Minerva Wentworth O’Toole, to be exact. I hadn’t seen Minerva for a while. She was, I knew, busy with her work at the Institute for Botanical Technology, working on another project with alternative energy resources.

“Talia, my dear, how are you and your parents?” she said into the phone. “I’ve been thinking about you all, but I was so busy with the people from the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot, Israel, that I . . . ”

“Israel?” I screamed. “You are doing something with people from Israel?”

“Yes,” she said. “Why are you so excited? Do you know anyone from Israel?”

“Do I,” I said, much more calmly. I didn’t want her to think anything was wrong. I then proceeded to tell her about my plan to go to Israel, sightsee with Aviva, and do my research at the Dolphin Reef in Eilat. “It would be so perfect, if only someone could convince my parents to let me go,” I said. “And Minerva, they would listen to you, if no one else.”

There was a good reason for that. Minerva had helped me get through a very tough time in my life. She had helped me with a science project and with friends in the school I had started out in in Washington. She had also helped make my parents’ fancy foods boutique famous, though she hadn’t wanted to do it the way it was done, by my taking her flying car for a trip over the landmarks of Washington by mistake. But that hadn’t been her fault. And it had all come out great.

“When do you want to go to Israel?” Minerva asked.

“I’ll go whenever I can, but I would love to go for spring break.”

“I will certainly speak to your parents, my dear. And I will tell them that I, too, plan to be in Israel, just about the same time as you would like to be there.”

I really screamed then. “Minerva, I could go with you, couldn’t I?”

“I don’t know, but let me think about it,” she said.

“Could you finish thinking by dinnertime tomorrow? And could you come for dinner then too?” It occurred to me that Minerva in person would be more convincing than Minerva on the phone.

* * *

We had a great dinner. Mom really outdid herself with my favorite dish, pasta and her special meatballs. Minerva brought one of her special desserts, raspberry mousse with chocolate stars on top. Everything was great. And Minerva brought us another gift, a fancy mug with a picture of a dolphin on it.

“This mug comes from the land of Israel,” she announced. “It’s special.”

“How so?” asked my dad.

“Look,” said Minerva. She poured hot water out of a pitcher that stood on the table into the mug. As she poured, the picture of the dolphin began to disappear. When the water got to the top of the mug, the last bit of the dolphin’s dorsal fin was gone. We all watched as she put a tea bag into the cup with two packets of sugar.

“Wait a few minutes and then drink the tea when it’s cool enough,” she said.

I kept staring at the mug as my parents and Minerva talked, but the dolphin remained disappeared. I almost didn’t realize what they were saying because I was dreaming of what it would be like to actually be in Israel, at the Dolphin Reef.

I woke up from my reverie when Minerva’s voice said, “Talia, I’m sorry.”

“Huh?” I said, jolted back to our dinner table. “Why are you sorry?”

I looked around. They were all staring at me.

Mom said, “Tal, I have told Minerva that I need a lot more time to think about sending you to Israel. More than the three weeks until Minerva has to leave.”

“That’s not fair,” I said.

“Hey, Tal, you can drink the tea now. I’m sure it’s cool enough. Let’s see what happens when the mug gets emptied,” Dad said.

“You drink it,” I said, putting my head on my arms.

“Wow,” I heard Mom say from outside the black space I was in. I lifted my head. Dad was holding the mug straight out before him. It was empty because he had drunk the tea.

The dolphin had reappeared.

“It’s a miracle,” said Mom. “I’ve never seen anything like that before.”

“Dears, this mug was made in Israel. Israel came into being as the result of a miracle. But I believe that miracles, or what you call miracles, happen everywhere and all the time.”

Was she trying to give me some hope, I wondered? Because right then it seemed like it would take a major miracle to change Mom’s mind about letting me go to Israel.