The Story He Could Not Retell

Chapter 1The Hat and the Cat

Uncle Meir told a funny story after the family meal.

It involved a man with an enormous hat, a shopkeeper, and a cat that wanted a warm place to sit.

Aharon laughed so hard at the ending that he nearly missed Uncle Meir's next words.

The cat had ended up in the hat. The man had walked out of the shop without noticing.

Aharon wanted to tell it to his friends tomorrow. He remembered the ending perfectly.

He was less sure about everything that came before it.

Chapter 2The First Listener

At lunch the next day, Aharon began telling Shlomo the story.

"The man came to buy a hat. Or he already had the hat. Anyway, he went into a shop."

"What kind?"

Aharon paused.

He pictured a bakery. That made sense. Cats might sit near warm bread.

"A bakery," he said.

Then he pictured flour on the cat's paws and began adding that part, too.

Shlomo laughed.

Aharon suddenly could not remember whether Uncle Meir had mentioned any flour.

Chapter 3The Invented Bread

Another boy came over.

"What is funny?"

Shlomo told him about the cat leaving floury prints in a huge hat.

Aharon looked down at his sandwich.

The floury prints were funny. They might also be his own invention.

He could carry on and make the whole thing sound certain. Nobody here had heard Uncle Meir's version.

But he had begun by saying, "My uncle told this story."

That was no longer quite the story he was telling.

Chapter 4The Missing Part

"I am not sure the flour was in it," Aharon said.

The boys looked at him.

"I remember the cat in the hat. I do not remember the shop properly. I filled that bit in."

"You can make up a cat story," Shlomo said.

"Yes. But I want to tell my uncle's one properly, too."

Aharon explained the ending he did remember. It was still funny, even without making every missing part sound true.

"Ask him," the other boy said. "Then tell us."

Chapter 5Uncle Meir Again

Uncle Meir came by later that week to return a borrowed book.

Aharon met him at the door.

"Was the hat story in a bakery?"

"A hat shop."

"And was there flour?"

Uncle Meir laughed. "Not in my version. Did you add some?"

Aharon nodded.

"That could be another story. In this one, the cat was asleep on a shelf above the hats."

He told the missing middle again, slowly enough for Aharon to follow.

Chapter 6Two Different Stories

This time Aharon listened to how the man put his own enormous hat down, how the cat climbed in, and how the shopkeeper tried to say something after the man put it back on.

The man hurried away, thinking the shopkeeper only wanted to sell him another hat.

Now the ending fit the beginning.

Aharon told Uncle Meir about the floury paws he had imagined.

"Keep that idea if you like it," his uncle said. "Just call it your version."

Aharon could have a funny idea without putting it into somebody else's mouth.

Chapter 7The Second Telling

Aharon told the hat-shop story again at school.

"This is the part I missed," he said before the cat climbed into the hat.

Shlomo laughed. "Now the flour one."

"That one is mine."

Aharon began his bakery story. He could keep the invention without pretending he remembered it.