The Red Card He Expected

Chapter 1The Fox in the Bag

Rebbi's story bag held two large cards, one red and one blue. He showed both before the class game began.

A red card meant the next sentence should include a fox. Blue meant a duck. After each choice, Rebbi returned the card and mixed the bag again.

No prizes depended on the color. Everyone would have a turn adding a sentence.

Yanky loved fox stories. He had already thought of a fox who borrowed a duck's boots.

Chapter 2Duck Again

The first boy chose blue.

"A duck came to the market," he began.

The second choice was blue, too. The duck bought an enormous cabbage.

The third boy chose blue and sent the duck home in a wheelbarrow.

Yanky shifted on his chair.

Three ducks in a row. Surely his turn would bring the fox.

He whispered his boots sentence to Berel.

"How do you know red is next?"

"Blue has had enough turns."

Chapter 3The Fourth Blue

Yanky reached into the bag without looking and held up blue.

He stared at it.

"That cannot be right."

Rebbi asked what he meant.

"We had blue three times. Red was supposed to come now."

"What cards were in the bag before your choice?"

"Red and blue."

"Was the blue one removed?"

Yanky looked at the card in his hand. It had been returned each time, just as Rebbi had explained.

The bag did not keep a promise to balance the last three choices.

Chapter 4A Duck with Boots

Yanky still wanted his fox.

He could not use red merely because he had expected it. The other boys had followed the same rule.

He looked at the growing story on the board.

The duck had a cabbage and a wheelbarrow. It could also have boots.

"The duck put on enormous boots so it could carry the cabbage through a puddle," he said.

Berel laughed.

"Boots bigger than its feet?"

"Much bigger. It sat down inside one."

The sentence earned its place without changing Yanky's blue card.

Chapter 5When Red Came

The next boy chose red.

Yanky almost said, "I told you!"

But he had predicted red on his own turn, not this one.

The fox arrived to ask why a boot was quacking.

Yanky listened. His friend had found a fox sentence he had not expected.

Rebbi returned red to the bag. Both cards would be there for the next choice again.

Nobody could claim the next color because of what had just happened.

Chapter 6The Waiting Fox

At the end, the duck shared its cabbage with the fox. The fox refused to sit in the boot.

"A sensible fox," Yanky said.

He saved his unused borrowed-boots sentence in his own writing notebook.

It could belong to another story.

For this one, he had drawn blue. His turn was still his turn, even without the color he wanted.