The Two Tickets with Number Eighteen
Chapter 1A Coat, Please
At the school book evening, Shira helped in the cloakroom.
There were two rows of hooks and two bowls of numbered tickets. Each ticket had a matching half that stayed with a coat.
The white tickets belonged to the left row. The yellow tickets belonged to the right.
Mrs. Stern, whose hair was covered by a navy scarf, showed Shira the bowls.
"Keep each color with its own row. Ask me if there is a mix-up."
Shira nodded.
For an hour, everything went smoothly.
Then a woman brought a ticket numbered eighteen.
Shira took the coat from hook eighteen and carried it to the doorway.
"That is not mine," the woman said.
Chapter 2The Other Eighteen
It was a dark brown coat with a belt.
The woman was certain she had worn a gray one.
Shira looked at the ticket.
Eighteen.
She looked at the half tied to the coat hanger.
Eighteen.
"The numbers match," she said.
The woman did not take the coat.
Behind her, another woman waited with another ticket.
Shira could see its number.
Eighteen.
Her stomach seemed to drop between the two rows of hooks.
"Someone has the same ticket," she whispered.
Then she remembered that Mrs. Stern had gone to help at the book table. Shira could call her, but that would announce a problem in front of everyone.
She held the brown coat a little tighter.
Chapter 3What the Number Missed
The second woman stepped forward.
"That looks like my coat."
Shira nearly handed it over.
Then she stopped.
Looking like a coat was not the same as being its owner. That was exactly how she had reached this doorway with the wrong one.
"I need Mrs. Stern to check," she said.
She put the coat back inside the cloakroom and called Mrs. Stern from the open doorway.
Both women waited.
Mrs. Stern laid the two tickets on the little desk.
One was white. One was yellow.
The white one belonged to the woman with the brown coat. The yellow one belonged to the woman waiting for gray.
Shira had checked the number twice and the color not once.
Chapter 4A Second Problem
The brown coat had a white half-ticket. Its owner took it and thanked them.
Shira turned to the yellow row.
Hook eighteen was empty.
Now there really was a problem.
She had not given away any gray coat. She remembered carrying out a blue one, two black ones, and a child's red jacket.
"Someone took it," she said.
Mrs. Stern kept the yellow ticket on the desk.
"We have not found it yet. Let us check the rest of this row."
Shira went from hook to hook.
At twenty-one, she found a gray coat.
The half-ticket was tied to the hanger with its printed side facing the wall.
Shira turned it around.
Yellow eighteen.
Chapter 5Three Hooks Away
Shira brought the coat to the desk, not straight to the waiting woman.
Mrs. Stern checked the two halves together. Both were yellow, both numbered eighteen.
The woman checked her coat and took it.
"I hung that one," Shira said after the doorway cleared.
She remembered the arrival. A child had asked where to find the picture books. Shira had pointed toward the hall while holding the coat.
Then she had used the nearest empty hook.
"I meant to move it back."
Mrs. Stern checked the two coats still waiting in the yellow row. Their halves and hook numbers matched.
Shira checked the white row with her.
No other coat was in the wrong place.
There had been two different mistakes. Fixing the ticket color had not fixed the gray coat's hook.
Chapter 6The Last Guest
Shira placed each bowl below its matching row.
She made a small sign for each: COLOR AND NUMBER.
She fastened each half-ticket and used its matching hook before answering another question.
If someone needed directions, they waited a moment.
Near the end, a man brought white number seven.
Shira found white seven on the hanger at hook seven. She brought out his coat.
"A quiet job in here?" he asked.
"Quieter now," she said.
Afterward, she boxed the empty hangers.
White eighteen lay beside yellow eighteen.
Identical numbers. Different tickets.
