Five Minutes Earlier
Ages 12-15
Chapter 1: The Sink
Every school morning, Chaya and her brother arrive at the bathroom sink at the same minute.
It is 6:50. He brushes his teeth with the water running. She waits with her hairbrush. He spits, rinses, and then stays, running his tongue over his teeth.
"You are standing there," Chaya says.
"I'm brushing."
"You finished."
"I'm checking."
Mama says through the wall, "Both of you, now."
Chapter 2: The First Five
On Monday her alarm rings at 6:45.
It is dark. The floor is cold. She puts one foot out and keeps the other under the blanket for a minute.
She is at the sink with the water running when her brother opens the door at 6:50.
"You're early," he says.
"I know."
He stands behind her with his toothbrush. He waits one minute.
She turns off the water and steps aside.
Before she leaves the bathroom she takes a pencil from her pocket and makes one small tick on the inside edge of the tub, where it is hidden when the curtain hangs straight.
Chapter 3: The Cold Light
On Tuesday her alarm rings at 6:40.
The bathroom is empty. The light buzzes. Her breath makes a small cloud on the window and she writes nothing in it.
She brushes her hair for a full eight minutes, slowly, from the bottom up.
At 6:50, her brother opens the door. He stops.
"Oh."
"Good morning."
He brushes his teeth beside her, quickly. He does not stay to check.
In school, she yawns during math and the teacher raises one eyebrow.
On the tub's edge, behind the curtain, there are two ticks.
Chapter 4: 6:25
By Friday, there are five.
Her alarm is set for 6:25. She wakes before it, in the dark, with her face tight. She can hear Totty's chair downstairs.
The bathroom is cold and quiet.
She sits on the edge of the tub with her hairbrush in her lap and does nothing at all. Water drips twice from the tap. The window is gray.
At 6:50 she hears her brother's door.
She has already finished. She is in the hall with her hair brushed and her shoes on when he comes out, hair flat on one side, holding his toothbrush like a pencil.
She holds the door for him.
"Thanks," he says. He sounds surprised.
Chapter 5: No School Monday
There is no school on Monday, and nobody sets an alarm.
Chaya wakes at 8:10 to the sound of water running.
She walks down the hall in her socks.
Her brother is at the sink, brushing his teeth. He has left room on the left.
She takes it.
They stand side by side. He rinses and spits and stays, running his tongue over his teeth. She starts to say something. She lifts her hairbrush.
On the edge of the tub, the five pencil ticks have gone soft and gray at one end.