The Many Mysteries of the Finkel Family

for approximately the seventy millionth time. “Those kids were being awfully rude.”
Still nothing. Lara glanced over at her sister’s tablet and saw that Caroline was deeply involved in a game of Candy Crush. She made no move to open her speech app. Okay. Fine. Maybe Caroline was mad now. But she couldn’t possibly ignore Lara forever.
Yet as the evening wore on, it became apparent that Caroline’s irritation had not gone away. Even Kugel, who usually favored Caroline, stayed clear of her.
Lara found her sister outside on the swing set, although she was not swinging so much as she was kicking her feet into the dirt.
“Hi,” Lara said, staring at her sneakers.
Since this was a rare occasion when Caroline didn’t have her tablet, she couldn’t say anything back. That meant Lara could talk all she liked without worrying about being interrupted. Normally she didn’t like to take advantage of this. But right now she had quite a lot to say.
“Look. I’m sorry. Well, I’m not sorry that I told those jerks off, because they deserved it. I’m sorry that you’re hurt. Anyway, if you want to talk, you know where I am.”
Lara trudged back to the house, fully expecting Caroline to stay put. To her surprise, footsteps followed only a few strides behind her. She turned to see Caroline flash a hand signal—the one that meant “wait.”
As she waited for Caroline to retrieve her tablet, she considered how best to approach the situation. Clearly, she’d messed up. But if Caroline would just understand that she was only trying to help, then maybe . . .
“I don’t need you.”
Lara flinched at the words, even though Caroline’s tablet-voice spoke without judgment. How could Caroline not need her? She was the older sister!
“I didn’t ask for your help,” Caroline continued.
“I had to!” Lara protested. “You’re my sister and the way those kids were talking about you just wasn’t right.”
Lara could have said more. She wanted to say more. But Caroline was tapping furiously, and Lara doubted whether she could have said anything to make her slow down.
“You always try to fix things. But you can’t fix everything, Lara.”
Unbelievable! Lara just didn’t get it. One minute Caroline was asking to share her tree—her personal tree!—and then the next she got all annoyed when Lara tried to do something nice for her. Sometimes Lara felt like she didn’t understand her sister at all.
“I don’t understand why you’re so mad at me for trying to help.” Lara tried to keep her voice even, like Caroline’s computer voice. “I just thought that maybe if I told them that they were being rude, they would, you know, talk to you like a normal person.”
“I am not a normal person,” Caroline said. She continued to tap away furiously at her screen. “And I know how to deal with people being rude.”
“Yes, but you shouldn’t have to! I just wanted to help.”
Caroline drew her face into a pout and did not touch her tablet for eons, although Lara supposed the silence probably only lasted for mere seconds. Finally, she started typing again.
“You don’t know anything, Lara Finkel. You can’t help anyone. You definitely can’t help me.”
Lara opened her mouth. Tried to think of a smart comeback. Failed. And so she closed her mouth. Meanwhile, Caroline pranced away somewhere. She was probably off to bake challah with Aviva or something. Lara scowled at the very thought.
Never mind Caroline.
She, Lara, had plenty to do on her own.
Unfortunately, she failed to think of a single thing at the moment.
So she did what she always did when her feelings started to be too much. She went to her bookshelf and pulled out one of her Georgia Ketteridge books—number three, the best one in the series.
She tried to concentrate on the plot—a terribly exciting mystery that involved a series of kidnappings. But she couldn’t. Thoughts of Caroline and school and everything that had been said kept invading her mind.
How would Georgia handle a moody little sister? It was hard to say. Georgia was an only child. Lucky her.
Ugh. There was no way Lara could concentrate on Georgia’s adventures.
Glancing around the room, Lara’s eyes landed upon her brand-new FIASCCO notebook. She’d only intended to use it for real mysteries, but of course she didn’t have a real mystery yet. Besides, this was a mystery of sorts, wasn’t it?
Before she could talk herself out of it, Lara grabbed her favorite purple pen and started scribbling in the notebook. Maybe Caroline wasn’t a mystery exactly, but she might as well get in the practice of making detective-ish observations.
Lara began to write.
LOCATION: Pinecone Arts Academy, approximately 3:00 p.m.
EVENT: I, Lara Finkel, attempted to rescue C. from potential criminals (rude middle school students, which is practically the same thing). C. very irritable in response.
ADDITIONAL OBSERVATION: C. also mad that she wasn’t included in establishment of FIASCCO. This suggests that she does, in fact, want to do things with me. Except she also said she doesn’t need me.
CONCLUSION: C. makes no sense.
QUESTION FOR FURTHER INVESTIGATION: Why doesn’t my sister realize that I am trying to help her?

CHAPTER FOUR: SHABBAT RUCKUS
Caroline waited for Lara to apologize, but no such thing occurred. The day after their fight, Lara admitted that she “could have handled the whole situation a little better, maybe.”
It was something. But she still didn’t say the words Caroline really wanted to hear: “I’m sorry.” She certainly didn’t say “I’ll try not to do that again.” Apparently, such words were not in Lara’s otherwise large vocabulary.
Whenever Caroline thought about it, she just got mad all over again. So she tried not to think about it. She had far too much to worry about as it was. In less than a week, she’d be going to middle school for real. For now, she preferred not to continue fighting with Lara. She wanted to enjoy these last few days of summer.
Tonight’s order of business: Shabbat dinner with the whole family.
The state