Aisle Six

Chapter 1The Scene at the Supermarket

On the Thursday before Pesach, Racheli Stern wanted to disappear into a cart of cucumbers.

It was not a normal Thursday. The supermarket was packed, and the aisles were jammed with carts and sticky floors and every mother in the neighborhood. Racheli was fourteen. She had agreed to come along to help Mommy with the shopping, and to watch her brother Ari, who was eight.

Ari did not like crowds. He did not like noise, either, or surprises. He had a very particular way of doing things, and one of them was the same route through the store every single week. Produce, then dairy, then aisle six, where the canned vegetables were. He always stopped at aisle six. He always lined up exactly three cans of corn at the end of the shelf and looked at them for a few quiet seconds, and then he was ready to go.

Today, aisle six was gone.

Or rather, it was moved. The whole canned vegetable section had been shifted to aisle nine, and in its place stood a wall of paper towels and laundry detergent. The store was rearranging for Pesach.

Ari stood at the end of the old aisle six and stared. Then he began to make a sound, a high, rising, rough sound that started low and climbed. People turned. A woman in a tan sheitel looked over her cart. A group of girls from Racheli's class, who were shopping with their mothers two aisles down, looked too.

Racheli's face went hot. She heard the whisper, "Is that Racheli Stern's brother?"

"Ari," said Mommy gently, kneeling. "Ari, honey. It's okay."

He did not hear her. He was covering his ears with both hands. Mommy was calm, but her shoulders were tight.

And Racheli, to her own shame, took one step backward. Then another. She turned and walked toward the frozen foods, as if she had to check something, as if she did not know these people.

Chapter 2In the Freezer Aisle

She leaned against the cold glass of the ice cream freezer with her heart pounding.

What kind of sister walks away?

She knew the answer, and she did not like it. She had been walking away, in small ways, for months. She did not bring friends home when Ari might be having a hard afternoon. She did not talk about him at school. When people asked, "Do you have siblings?" she said, "A brother," and changed the subject fast.

She loved Ari. She truly did. He was funny in his own way, and he knew every bus route in the city by heart, and he said "Racheli" in a way that made her feel like the most important person in the world. But she was tired of the looks. She was tired of explaining. She was tired of being the girl with the brother who screamed in the supermarket.

And now she had left him, right when he needed her.

A voice in her head said, You could go back. Another said, You could stay here and let Mommy handle it. Mommy always handles it.

She thought about what she knew. She knew that Ari did not scream for no reason. He had said once, in his careful way, that when the world changes without a warning it feels like the floor tilting. She knew he needed his routines because they were the part of the world he could count on.

She took a breath. She went back.

Chapter 3The Missing Cans

Mommy was still kneeling at the end of aisle six. A store employee, a young man in a green vest, hovered nearby, looking helpless. Ari had slid down onto the floor with his back against the shelf. He was no longer screaming, but he was rocking, his hands pressed against his ears.

"Can I help?" said Racheli, in a small voice.

Mommy looked up and her face softened. She did not say, Where were you? She said, "Yes. I think he needs a plan more than a person. Do you know what's bothering him?"

"The cans," said Racheli. "He needs his corn. It's in the wrong place."

"Is that right, Ari?" said Mommy.

Ari nodded against his knees. "They moved it," he whispered. "The aisle's gone."

Racheli sat down on the dirty floor next to him. She did not touch him, because he did not always like that. She just sat close, the way she knew he could feel.

"Hey, Ari. You know what? The cans aren't gone. They just moved to a new house. They're in aisle nine now, probably still lined up. Do you want to go find them?"

He lifted his head a little. His eyes were wet. "Aisle nine?"

"I think so. Do you want to go check? I'll hold the cart."

"Is it a new aisle?"

"It's an old aisle with new cans. We could look and see how it feels."

A long pause. Then Ari said, in a very serious voice, "Okay. But I want to look at the sign first."

They walked to aisle nine together. It was bright and noisy and strange, and Ari stopped at the very beginning and read the sign slowly, moving his lips. Racheli did not rush him. A few shoppers glanced over, and she felt the old heat start to rise in her face. Then she looked down at her brother's small hand clutching the cart handle, and she felt something else instead. It was fierce and quiet.

She did not want to be ashamed of him. Right now, in this aisle, she decided she would stand next to him.

"This way," she said, and she walked with him down the aisle.

Chapter 4Three Cans of Corn

The cans were there. Right at the end of the shelf, in a tidy row, as if they had been waiting.

Ari stood in front of them for a long moment. Then he took three cans of corn from the shelf and lined them up at the edge, exactly the way he always did. He looked at them. His shoulders came down from around his ears.

"Okay," he said. "Now we can go."

Mommy let out a long breath. The young man in the green vest, who had followed them, said quietly, "I'm really sorry. We should have put up a sign. I'll tell my manager. People move things around, and nobody thinks about folks who need a routine."

"Thank you," said Mommy. "That would help."

He nodded. "Is there anything else we can do?"

Racheli, to her own surprise, spoke up. "Maybe a note at the front door that says which aisles changed? So he can read it first."

The young man's face lit up. "That's a really good idea. I'll make one."

On the way out, Racheli saw the girls from her class near the dairy case. One of them, Shaindy Pearl, was staring at her with an expression Racheli could not read. Racheli felt her stomach flip. Here it comes, she thought. The joke. The whisper.

"Hi," said Shaindy. She looked at Ari, then at Racheli. "That was really nice, what you did. My cousin is like that, and nobody ever gets it right."

Racheli blinked. "Oh. Thanks."

"I should have said hello earlier. Is it okay if I say hi to him?"

"You can ask him."

Shaindy crouched a little. "Hi, Ari. I like your corn."

Ari studied her seriously. "It's three," he said. "It has to be three."

"Okay," said Shaindy, a little unsure, and she smiled anyway. Racheli laughed, a real laugh, loud enough to surprise herself. It was not a perfect moment. But it was a start.

That night, after the shopping was put away and the house smelled like lemon and floor cleaner, Racheli sat on the edge of Ari's bed while he lined up his bus-route cards by number.

"Ari?"

"Yes?"

"I'm sorry I walked away today. For a minute. I want to do better next time."

He thought about it, with his careful face. "You came back."

"I did."

"Okay," he said. He handed her a card. "You can hold Route Twelve."

It was the highest honor he gave. She held it all night, and in the morning she put it in her pocket for school.