“Chana, let’s go! We are going to be late for temple!” Mom called from the bottom of the stairs.

“Coming!” I yelled back from my room. I brushed my wild curls into as sleek a ponytail as I could manage, took my favorite Elvis Presley record, Loving You, from my record player, and ran down the stairs where the rest of my family was already finishing breakfast.

“Finally, any longer and we would have had to leave you to babysit your cousins,” Dad teased. “And your aunt called this morning, poor Antoni has the flu and has been throwing up since seven this morning. Probably because of that new Elvis record.”

My older brother, Bartek, snickered and mumbled something to our sister, Malka, who giggled and turned to our baby brother, Feodor.

“Do you think Chana should get puked on, today?” she cooed, smiling when Feodor giggled and looked at me. “Yeah, I think she should, too.”

“Shut up, morons,” I grumbled, grabbing a banana and wolfing it down quickly. “You’re just jealous Aunt Lena trusts me more than you to watch Antoni and Liliana.” I stuck my tongue out at Malka, who scoffed and threw a handful of Cheerios at me. We started chasing each other around the kitchen, laughing hysterically and throwing cereal at each other, while our father just rolled his eyes and tried not to smile.

“CHANA AND MALKA ANDRYSIAK! CO ZROBIŁ WY ROBI DO MOJEJ KUCHNI?” Mom screamed. Malka and I froze and looked at each other.

“Uh oh..,” we both muttered.

“Clean this up now, before we leave for temple, rozumieją?” Mom growled. We both nodded, rushing to grab the broom and clean up the scattered Cheerios before she really threw us in the cooler. We finished cleaning in two minutes, throwing on our jackets and rushing out the door to Dad’s favorite chariot.

* * * *

“Bartek come on, we’ll be late for school!” Malka pounded on the bathroom door,

“Relax, sis, don’t flip your wig. We still have ten minutes. You’re achin’ for a breakin’,” Bartek snapped back.

“If you two don’t hurry up, I’m going with Danny in the flip-top and leaving you here!” I yelled. I walked out to sit on the front stoop of our apartment building while I waited for him to come, daydreaming about ditching those two ankle-biters and driving with Danny. Boy, he was one dreamboat. I’d love to be his girl one day. As I thought about Danny’s beautiful blue eyes, I saw my best friend, Avivi Kleinman, walking down the street with a girl I hadn’t seen before.

“Hey, Viv!” I called, jumping down the steps to greet her.

“Hey Dolly!” Viv grinned back. “Jak są wy robiący?”

“Czekanie na tamtych idiotów przyśpieszać !” I grumbled as Viv laughed.

“Ana. this is Zofia, she just moved here from Manhattan. She lives in my apartment building,” Viv explained.

“Hello, Zofia, it’s nice to meet you. I’m Chana,” I gave her a big smile as I reached to shake her hand. She grinned back and took my hand.

“Please to meet you, do you go to the same school as Viv?”

“Yes ma’am, P.S. 46.”

“Come walk with us,” Viv grabbed my arm. “Maybe we’ll see Danny on the way,” she smirked. We laughed the whole way to school, giggling about Danny and telling Zofia all about our neighborhood. We split up in the school hallway, Zofia walking to her classroom while Avivi and I walked to ours. We sat and waited patiently for the teacher to come in and call roll, Viv nudging me when we noticed another new student entering the room.

“Ona patrzy bogaty,” Viv whispered. “I wonder if she knows Polish.”

“If she’s that wealthy, I wonder why she’s even here. This is a Polish neighborhood,” I whispered back. Just then, Mr. Levi walked in and began to call roll, stopping when he reached the new girl.

“Mary Anderson?” he called in his thick Polish accent.

“Present, sir,” she called, her nose scrunching disdainfully at the way he pronounced her name. Mr. Levi didn’t seem to notice, and continued calling out names.

“Chana Andrysiak?”

“Tutaj!” I raised my hand. Mary turned to me, and I smiled brightly at her.

“What kind of name is that?” she snapped. I felt my face fall.

“It’s Polish…”

“It’s weird. It sounds like you have to sneeze. Why don’t you have a normal name? No one will be able to pronounce a name like Chana.” I felt like my whole world had just come crashing down. Was my name really that weird? Sure, Avivi was easier to pronounce, and not many people outside of our neighborhood could say it, but Chana couldn’t be that strange. “You should change it to Hannah,” Mary spoke again, “it won’t sound as crazy.” Maybe my name was that bad. Should I have changed it years ago? I didn’t want other people to have to struggle to pronounce a far-out name like mine. That would be rude! I slumped down in my seat, not wanting to hear my name again for the rest of the day.

* * * *

“Mom?” I called when I arrived home.

“Chana! How was your day?” she questioned excitedly. I tried not to cringe at the sound of my name in her heavy Polish accent. Mary was right, it did sound strange.

“Mom”? I asked timidly, “can you call me Hannah from now on?” She turned to me in shock.

“Why?”

“Because, my name isn’t normal. It’s crazy!”

“Your name isn’t crazy, your name is completely normal!”

“NO! It sounds weird, and people have to struggle to say it! It doesn’t sound American, it sounds like gibberish!” I stormed up to my room, sliding Loving You into the record player and playing Elvis Presley as loud as I could.

“Chana?” Bartek knocked on the door. “What’s wrong?”

“My name is Hannah now,” I responded. “I want to be American.”