Illustration coming soon

The List With Ten Names

Chapter 1The list on the desk

On Wednesday morning, Rina sees a paper on Chaya's desk before class.

It is a neat list in purple ink. Ten names run down the page under the heading Friday baking, 2:00. Rina can read it upside down. She reads it twice anyway.

Her name is not on it.

Chaya turns the paper face down, quickly but not rudely. "Hi, Rina. Do you have the science handout?"

"Yes," Rina says, and gives her the handout.

Her voice sounds normal. Her chest does not feel normal.

Chapter 2The stories she tells

Through math and history, Rina builds stories.

Chaya does not like me. Everybody decided without me. They are laughing about it at recess. I did something at the last trip and nobody told me.

Each story has a different villain. Each story feels completely true.

At lunch, she sits with her sandwich and watches the girls who are on the list. They talk and look ordinary. Nobody glances at her.

Rina realizes she has no evidence for any story. She has one fact: her name is not on a list for a baking afternoon.

Chapter 3What she does not do

On the way home, a plan floats up. It is a clever plan. She could invite eight of the ten girls to her own afternoon on Thursday and make it bigger.

She could say, "Oh, I'm busy Friday, anyway."

She could hand Chaya a polite, icy smile for the rest of the week.

Rina holds each plan in her mind and decides not to use any of them. They are not about the baking. They are about making sure somebody else hurts too.

She walks the last block with her hands in her pockets, unsure what she will do instead.

Chapter 4At the kitchen table

Mama is peeling carrots when Rina comes in.

"You look like somebody carrying an invisible tray," Mama says.

Rina tells her about the list.

Mama does not say, "They probably forgot." She does not say, "How rude." She puts down the peeler.

"That hurts," she says.

"A lot."

"What do you know?"

"I know I'm not on it. I know ten people are."

"What don't you know?"

Rina thinks. "Why. If Chaya's kitchen holds ten. If somebody invited them first. If there is a reason."

"And what do you want?"

"I want to bake. I mean, I want to be asked. I don't know which one matters more."

Chapter 5A small question

Mama does not give her a script. She offers one idea.

"If you want, you can ask Chaya one calm question, privately, without an audience. Only if you want the answer. You might not like it."

Rina turns that over.

On Thursday morning, before the bell, she stands at Chaya's desk.

"Can I ask you something quick? I saw the baking list. I'm not on it. I'm not asking to be added. I only wondered if there was a reason, because it felt strange."

Chaya's face goes pink. She looks at her pencil.

"My kitchen only fits ten," she says. "My mother said ten. I picked the girls I always sit next to at lunch, and I should have thought about who was left out. I'm sorry. It was thoughtless."

Chapter 6What the answer is

The answer does not feel like a warm blanket.

Rina notices that she does not feel better, exactly. She feels more accurate.

"Thanks for telling me," she says.

"I could ask my mother if you could come for the last half hour," Chaya says. "Only if you want."

Rina considers. "I'd rather not walk in late to a finished thing. But thank you."

"Another time?"

"Another time," Rina says. "Maybe we can ask my mother for my kitchen."

Chaya nods. Neither girl pretends it is simple.

Chapter 7Friday

On Friday at two, Rina stays home. The house smells like her brother's burned toast.

She feels a small pinch while the clock moves. She lets it be there.

She finishes her reading, then bakes a plain loaf of banana bread with Mama and a little brother who mostly eats the bananas.

At Shabbos, Chaya's mother sends over a plate of crescent cookies, ten of them, with a note.

Rina reads the note. Then she reads it again, because she wants to be sure of the words, and not the stories.