Illustration coming soon

The Steps Beside His Hands

Chapter 1The picture card

The little paper basket has a square bottom and four sides.

Rebbi shows it to the boys. Then he gives each table a picture card with the folding steps.

"Leave the card beside your paper," he says. "Look at one step, try it, then check."

Today is a supervised craft lesson, not a memory test. Rebbi supplies the prepared paper and handles the parts needing cutting.

Yoni likes the little basket. He wants to carry his wooden animals inside it at home.

He looks at the first picture. He makes the first fold.

Then he turns the card facedown.

Chapter 2A basket of his own

Berel leaves his card beside his hands.

He looks. He folds. He looks again.

Yoni folds two corners inward. He thinks those are the corners from the second picture. The paper looks almost right.

"Can you do it without looking?" he asks Berel.

"I haven't tried."

Berel checks his fold against the card.

Yoni wants to say that using the card makes Berel's basket easier. He knows that is the point of the card. Still, he wants his own basket to be something he made by himself.

If the pictures tell him every step, he thinks, perhaps the pictures are doing the work.

Chapter 3The corner that stays flat

One of Yoni's sides won't stand up.

He pulls at a corner. The bottom folds in half.

He smooths it and tries another corner. Now the basket has one wall and a long flat flap.

Berel offers to turn the card over for him.

"No, thank you."

Yoni presses the flat flap harder, as though pressure can supply the step he doesn't remember.

Rebbi comes beside him.

"Which picture are you working from?"

Yoni points to the facedown card.

"I wanted to make it myself."

Chapter 4Who moves the paper

Rebbi asks whether Berel is making Yoni's folds.

"No."

"Am I making them?"

"No."

"Does the card have hands?"

Yoni almost laughs. It has drawings of hands, but they are very flat.

"You can read a step and do that step yourself," Rebbi says. "That is what this lesson asks."

Yoni turns the card over. The third picture shows a small fold he has missed.

Rebbi helps him see where it belongs on his own paper. He doesn't take the whole basket and finish it.

Yoni loosens the wrong corner carefully. The paper keeps a crease. He can still try the missed step.

"Is this the place?" he asks, pointing beside it.

Rebbi nods. Yoni turns his own paper so it faces the same way as the picture. Now he can see which corner belongs in the next fold.

Chapter 5Look, then fold

Yoni places the card where he can see it without reaching across Berel's work.

He looks at one picture. He makes that fold. Then he compares them.

The flat flap becomes a side. Another step lets the last side stand too.

His basket isn't as neat as Rebbi's sample. One corner sticks out slightly. Rebbi checks that it is ready for the next teacher-handled part.

Yoni has not made it from memory. He has made it with his own hands, using the allowed guide.

At cleanup, he returns the classroom card. Rebbi gives the boys a copy they may take home with the basket.

Chapter 6The animals at home

Yoni shows Tatty the basket and the card.

"I tried without this first," he says. "I missed a fold."

"Did the card help?"

"Yes. I thought using it meant the basket wasn't mine."

Tatty looks at the crease on the bottom.

"Whose hands made the folds?"

Yoni holds up his own hands.

They put two light wooden animals inside. There is no room for the large wooden horse, so it stays beside the basket. The guide hasn't promised to make every animal fit.

Chapter 7A guide with a place

On another afternoon, Yoni asks to make a second basket. Tatty checks the paper and follows Rebbi's instructions with him. Any cutting stays with Tatty.

Yoni remembers the first step. He still looks at the next picture before folding.

He doesn't hide the card when his brother comes to watch.

"That tells me the steps," he says. "I do them."

Later, he might remember more. He doesn't need to turn remembering everything into today's job.

The new basket sits beside the old one. The instruction card has its own place beside them, ready when Yoni wants to make another.