The Rain Door

Ages 9-12

It is raining at recess, and the rebbi gives Yossel the door.

"Hold it, and let them in," he says. "One at a time."

The yard is wet and gray. The boys have been running in it, and now they come in a stream across the stones, with their hair stuck to their heads. Yossel stands in the doorway with his back against the frame and his arm across the opening.

They pass under his arm, and go in. Each one drips on the mat. He counts them without meaning to. Thirty-one, thirty-two.

The rain comes in sideways, onto his coat. He feels it go through the cloth at the shoulder, and then down to the elbow. He does not move his arm.

The last boy is Dovy, who stops to pick up a hat that blew off. He walks over the stones with it in his hand. Yossel waits.

Dovy goes in. Yossel steps in after him and pulls the door shut, and the rain is against the glass.

By the time he gets to the basin, the others are already at the tables, and his bread is the last on the tray.

Yossel takes off his coat, and hangs it on the radiator by the window. It hangs there, dark, with water running off the elbow. After a minute a thin line of steam starts to come up off it.