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Elisheva and the Long Car Ride

Ages 6-9 | Story and 9 activities

The car ride to Bubby's house takes four hours.

Elisheva sits in the back seat between her two brothers. Her legs are stiff, and her seat belt is scratchy. They've been driving for forty-five minutes already, and she has counted every single tree outside.

"Are we there yet?" she asks.

"Not even close," says Totty, from the front.

Elisheva sighs. She leans her forehead against the window. The road stretches on and on. Cars pass. A truck rumbles by. She kicks the back of the seat, softly.

"Elisheva," says Mommy, "I have an idea."

"What?"

"Let's play I Spy. But instead of colors, we'll spy on shapes."

"Shapes?"

"I spy something that's a rectangle."

Elisheva looks around. A sign by the road. A truck. "A truck!"

"Yes! Your turn."

"I spy something that's a circle," says Elisheva. Her brother Moishy guesses a wheel. Her other brother guesses the sun. It is the sun.

They play for ten minutes. The time moves faster than she expects.

Then Mommy says, "How about a story game? Each person says one sentence, and we build a story together."

"Once upon a time," starts Totty, "there was a giraffe who wanted to drive a car."

"But his neck was too tall," says Moishy.

"So he stuck his head out the roof," says Elisheva, laughing.

"And a bird landed on it," says her little brother.

They keep going. The giraffe drives to the ocean, meets a very polite crab, and ends up with a soccer team of seals. By the end, Elisheva's stomach hurts from laughing.

When the story finishes, she looks outside. The scenery has changed. Green hills rise in the distance, and cows dot the fields.

"We're in the country," she says.

"Almost halfway," says Mommy.

She takes out her notebook and makes a list of all the animals she sees. Two horses. Eleven cows. One goat on a roof, though maybe it is a statue. She draws each one.

After a while, she gets quiet. She rests her head against the seat. She doesn't feel bored anymore. She watches the clouds change shape: a dragon, a boat, a big fluffy sheep. She listens to the soft hum of the engine and the murmur of her parents talking.

An hour later, Totty says, "Look, we're nearly there!"

Elisheva sits up. She is surprised. The ride hasn't felt like four hours. It has felt like a series of small adventures.

When the car pulls into Bubby's driveway, Bubby is waiting at the door with her arms wide open. Elisheva runs to her.

"How was the trip?" asks Bubby.

"We made up a story about a giraffe," says Elisheva. "Do you want to hear it?"

"I'd love to."

Later, over Bubby's soup, Moishy adds the best part of the story, a sneaky seal who steals the soccer ball. Everyone howls. Bubby says she hasn't laughed so hard in months. Elisheva feels very full inside, and it isn't only the soup.

On the way home, Elisheva brings a new notebook and a pencil, ready for another round.