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The Envelope With the Change

Chapter 1Ten checkmarks

On Tuesday, Faigy collects five dollars from every girl in her class for a baby gift for Mrs. Rosen.

She keeps a list on the inside cover of her notebook. Ten names. Ten checkmarks. Fifty dollars in a white envelope.

Rivky hands over her bill last. "Did you count me?"

"I counted you," Faigy says, and draws the tenth checkmark.

She is fourteen, and nobody asked her to be treasurer. She volunteered during homeroom because her hand went up before she thought. Now the envelope sits in her bag like a very small, very serious animal.

Chapter 2The blanket

On Wednesday after school, Faigy walks to the baby store with Mama. Mama carries her own shopping list and stays two aisles away.

Faigy finds a soft yellow blanket and a wooden rattle. She adds the prices on her fingers, then again with pencil and paper.

The blanket is thirty-three dollars. The rattle is eleven dollars and sixty cents.

She counts again.

Forty-four dollars and sixty cents.

The cashier takes the cash from the envelope. She gives back five dollars and forty cents and a long paper receipt.

Chapter 3The extra money

Outside the store, Faigy holds the change in her palm.

Five dollars and forty cents.

"I could buy a snack," she says out loud.

Mama looks at her.

"I mean, I wouldn't," Faigy says quickly. "I'm just saying I could."

Mama waits.

Faigy thinks about the way it would go. She could buy a small bag of pretzels. She could tell herself the girls would not mind. Nobody counted the change. Nobody asked for the receipt.

But nobody said the change was hers, either.

"It isn't my money," she says. "It is ten girls' money. It is just in my envelope."

Chapter 4What she knows

At home, Faigy spreads the receipt on the kitchen table.

She writes three lines on a clean page.

Collected: $50.00. Spent: $44.60. Left: $5.40.

She stares at the last line.

Mama sets down a glass of water. "What do you want to do with it?"

"I don't know. It's not mine, so it's not my decision."

"Then whose is it?"

"The class's." Faigy frowns. "But that's ten different opinions."

"It can be a short opinion. You don't need to be the judge. You only need to tell them the numbers and offer choices."

Chapter 5The report

On Thursday, Faigy waits until the girls gather before the bell.

"I need two minutes," she says. "I have the gift for Mrs. Rosen. It was forty-four dollars and sixty cents. We collected fifty. There is five dollars and forty cents left. I have the receipt if anyone wants to see."

Chaya waves her hand. "We trust you."

"Thanks. But I'd rather you see it." Faigy holds up the paper. Three girls glance at it. One reads it all the way down.

"Here are the choices," Faigy says. "I can give back fifty-four cents to each of you. Or the class can put the money in the tzedakah box. Or we can add something small to the gift. You decide."

Chapter 6The vote

Rivky speaks first. "Tzedakah box. Fifty-four cents is not worth counting."

"I want mine back," says Dina quietly. "It's not much, but I am saving for something."

Nobody groans. Faigy opens the envelope and counts out fifty-four cents in coins and gives it to Dina.

"The other nine shares, mine included, would go in the tzedakah box," Faigy says to the class. "My share is one of them, so my hand counts too. Raise your hand if that's okay."

She raises her own. Eight classmates raise theirs. That is nine hands for nine shares.

Faigy writes the last line: $4.86 to tzedakah, $0.54 returned to Dina.

Chapter 7The note in the notebook

At the end of the day, Faigy pushes the coins through the slot of the class tzedakah box, one at a time.

The sound is small.

She tapes the receipt inside her notebook, beside the list of names. The page looks plain, which is the point.

Mrs. Rosen's yellow blanket goes into a bag the next morning with ten names on a card.

Faigy does not feel like a hero. She feels like somebody who counted correctly.

She counts again anyway.