The Village with the Very Narrow Road
Chapter 1The Tiny Bakery
Dina's model village had seven houses, a bakery, and a school.
The bakery was her favorite. Its little window displayed rolls made from brown paper. A striped awning shaded the door.
Rivky had built a delivery wagon from a matchbox and four cardboard wheels.
"It can bring flour to your bakery," she said.
Dina pushed two houses closer together to make room for a flower garden.
"Put the wagon by the gate. I have one more fence to finish."
Tomorrow their class would show the models to the younger girls. Each group would explain how its village worked.
Dina had already written a label: A VILLAGE THAT HAS EVERYTHING.
She set it beside the bakery.
Chapter 2The Wheels Stop
Rivky put three paper sacks in the wagon.
She rolled it through the entrance gate and along the road.
It stopped between two fences.
Dina lifted it over them.
"There."
"The driver cannot lift a real wagon over a garden."
"It is only a model."
Rivky put it back at the gate.
"We are showing how the village works."
Dina looked at the fences. Both had neat white posts. One belonged to the bakery yard; the other surrounded her new flowers.
She moved the flower fence outward.
It reached the edge of the board.
The wagon still could not pass.
Chapter 3The Long Way
There was another path behind the school.
Dina tried it herself. She guided the wagon around the houses, past the well, and toward the bakery's back door.
One wheel dropped over the edge of the board.
She caught the wagon before the paper sacks fell.
"The road can go outside the village," she said.
"On what?"
Dina held the wagon in the air.
The table was not part of their model. Tomorrow their board might stand on a smaller table. A road drawn there would not travel with it.
Mrs. Berger came over. The scarf covering her hair had a pin shaped like a little leaf.
"Show me the delivery," she said.
Dina did not want to demonstrate a wagon that needed to fly.
She set it down at the gate.
Chapter 4A Place for Wheels
Mrs. Berger watched until the wagon stopped.
"Which things need to reach the bakery?"
"Flour," Rivky said. "And people."
"People fit," Dina said.
She put a little paper figure between the fences.
It fitted very well. It was much thinner than the wagon.
"We built the road for these," Dina said.
Mrs. Berger took a scrap of card. She placed the wagon on it and marked its width, leaving a little space on each side.
Dina cut the scrap along the marks.
They moved it along the road without the wagon.
It caught at the flowers, the school corner, and the well.
Dina had been looking at each pretty building separately. The strip of card kept meeting the spaces between them.
Chapter 5The Garden on the Roof
The bakery could not move. Its wall was glued down, and the awning would tear if they pulled it.
The school and two houses rested on small card bases.
Dina moved the school back. Rivky shifted the houses.
The well still blocked the turn.
"It can go in the square," Rivky said.
Dina put it beside the seven houses. There was room for people to stand around it there.
Last came the flower garden.
Dina picked up its tiny red and yellow flowers. She had made every one.
The bakery had a flat roof behind its awning.
"Roof garden?" she asked.
Rivky held the flowers while Dina added a low paper border. They left the bakery window clear.
The card strip passed through the village.
Then the wagon did too.
Chapter 6Everything, Almost
The next morning, Dina gave a younger girl the wagon.
"Bring the flour to the bakery. Keep the wheels on the road."
The girl rolled it through the gate. She took the turn by the square slowly and stopped at the bakery door.
Nothing had to be lifted.
"Why are the flowers on the roof?" another girl asked.
"The road needed their place," Dina said. "The flowers did not need to be beside it."
Rivky showed the well and its waiting paper people.
Dina looked at her label.
She had crossed out HAS EVERYTHING and written CAN RECEIVE A DELIVERY.
The village still lacked a hundred things.
But flour could reach the bakery.
