The Greenhouse Door

Chapter 1The Leaves at the Edge

The first thing Chani noticed was the smell. The greenhouse usually smelled of damp earth and warm leaves. This morning it smelled like the garden outside.

Cold.

The second thing she noticed was the door. It stood open the width of her hand.

On the nearest shelf, a row of young bean plants drooped over their pots.

Chani put down the empty tray she had brought from the house.

Her cousin Raizy had been the last one in yesterday.

Chani knew because she had called goodbye through the glass while Raizy was still watering.

Bubby had trusted them with the little plants for the neighborhood seedling sale. The money would help buy groceries for families who needed them. Every pot had a neat paper label. Every plant had been counted.

Chani counted the drooping ones.

Nine.

By the time Raizy came down the garden path, Chani had decided exactly what had happened.

Chapter 2Yesterday's Goodbye

"You left the door open," Chani said.

Raizy stopped beside the tray.

"I didn't."

"Then why is it open?"

Raizy pushed it shut. It met the frame with a soft wooden knock.

"I closed it just like that yesterday."

"You obviously didn't."

Raizy looked past her at the bean plants.

"Are those ruined?"

"Maybe. Bubby will have to tell us."

Chani meant to leave it there. Instead, she added, "You said you'd do the door."

"No. You said something about the door as you were leaving. I thought you were saying you'd checked it."

Chani remembered turning toward the path, with a watering can in each hand. She remembered Raizy turning off the tap.

She also remembered being perfectly clear.

"I said, 'Door when you're finished.'"

"I heard 'Door's finished.'"

Neither sentence sounded like the same sentence now.

Chapter 3A Knock Is Not a Click

Bubby came from the house with her garden notebook under her arm. Her tichel was dark green, almost the color of the healthy leaves.

She looked at the pots first.

"Don't move them yet," she said. "I want to see which ones were nearest the draft."

Chani explained about the door.

Raizy explained about yesterday.

Bubby listened without choosing one version.

"Show me what you did," she told Raizy.

Raizy opened the door, then pushed it shut. The wood knocked against the frame.

"That's closed."

Bubby rested one hand against the door and gave it a gentle push.

It swung outward.

Raizy stared.

Chani leaned closer to the latch. Its metal tongue sat just below the little opening it was supposed to enter.

Bubby tried it once more. The same knock. No click.

"The door meets the frame," she said. "But the latch isn't catching."

Chapter 4What the Door Proved

"Then it wasn't Raizy," Chani said quickly.

Raizy looked at her.

Bubby kept her hand on the door.

"We know the latch is loose now. We don't know when it first stopped catching. It may have shifted yesterday. Neither of you needed to invent an answer before we looked."

Chani wished Bubby had stopped after the first sentence.

"But she did close it," Chani said.

"She showed me how she closed it. And you showed me that you each heard a different goodbye. Both things matter."

Bubby wrote a note in the book.

"Zeidy will handle the latch. Until he says it's ready, neither of you should use this door alone. Come through the house and ask me."

"Can we tie it with string?" Chani asked.

"No. We'll leave the repair to him."

Raizy picked up the empty tray.

"What about these?"

Bubby looked at the nine bent plants.

"Some may recover. Not all. We will give them time before we count them for the sale."

Chapter 5The Row Without Labels

The sale was on Thursday. This was Tuesday morning.

Bubby moved the damaged pots to a sheltered shelf. The girls helped with the healthy ones while she checked the soil.

Chani had already written labels for the bean row: six pots for one table, six for another.

Now there weren't twelve healthy plants to put under them.

She held the labels in a small stack.

"We could use the bent ones if they look better by Thursday."

"Only if I say they're ready," Bubby said. "The people buying them need plants that have a fair chance."

Raizy fetched clean saucers from the lower shelf.

Chani watched her make two trips without asking for help.

Yesterday they had laughed about the enormous roots of one tiny plant. Today Raizy put down the saucers and stepped away.

Chani slid the labels into her pocket.

The door was not the only thing that had stopped working properly.

Chapter 6Not About the Latch

"Raizy," Chani said, when Bubby went inside for another tray.

Raizy looked up.

"I said you obviously hadn't closed it. I didn't know that. I'm sorry."

"You said it before I even saw the plants."

"I know."

"And when I told you, you kept saying I hadn't."

Chani pressed the corners of the labels together in her pocket.

"I wanted it to be somebody else's mistake."

Raizy was quiet.

Chani nearly added that the latch had been broken anyway. She stopped. That would explain the door, not the way she had spoken.

"I should have checked with you," she said. "And I should have made sure you heard what I was asking yesterday."

Raizy set one saucer on another.

"I heard the tap more than I heard you. I could have asked you to say it again."

"Next time we can answer each other. So nobody thinks a job is finished when it isn't."

"Maybe," Raizy said.

It was not a cheerful answer. It was an answer Chani could leave alone.

Chapter 7Nine Is Not Twelve

By Wednesday evening, three bean plants had straightened. Six still bent toward the soil.

Bubby said the three could stay under observation.

She would not put any of the nine on Thursday's sale table.

Chani's stomach sank. She had imagined all nine making a remarkable recovery just in time.

Bubby brought out a tray of herb plants she had planned to keep for her own kitchen.

"We can offer these," she said. "With the right labels."

Chani took her bean labels from her pocket.

"I'll need to write new ones."

"Yes."

Raizy pulled a chair over to the table.

"I'll tell you which is which. Bubby showed me yesterday."

Chani looked at her. "Will you check each one after I write it?"

"All right."

They wrote basil, parsley, and mint. The greenhouse smelled warm again, although the damaged shelf still looked sad.

Zeidy had repaired the latch. He showed both girls the click and the gentle check that proved it had caught.

They did not use the door without Bubby that evening. She had not changed that rule yet.

Chapter 8One Answer Back

On Thursday, a woman at the sale asked about bean plants. Her head was covered with a soft blue tichel.

"We don't have any ready today," Chani said.

She did not say the beans had sold out. She did not point at Raizy.

"Are you growing more?"

Chani looked at Bubby before answering.

"We can tell you when we know," Bubby said. She wrote the woman's name in her notebook.

Later, the girls carried the empty sale trays back through the house.

Bubby asked Raizy to bring in the herb labels. She asked Chani to leave the trays on the kitchen table.

"Labels inside," Raizy answered.

"Trays on the table," Chani said.

Raizy glanced at her, then smiled a little.

The six bent plants had not straightened. Chani's first words could not be unsaid. The day had not turned into the day she had planned.

But when she called goodbye from the garden path, she waited for Raizy to answer.

This time she knew they had both heard it.