Mommy and Totty sat me by the table, after Tod left. Shim’l was in the corner of the table. His eyes were red, and he was frowning. In his hand were the coupons with my drawings. He was looking at them.

Can coupons be used even with drawings on them? Did Tod really understand the blueprints? I saw him reach for a specific one, and he looked close and took notes. 

“Tonight, you are going to Ben’s house.” Mommy said. I looked down.

Ben’s house? Why Ben’s house? For how long? 

“And tomorrow you are going to work with him.”

I was never in Ben’s house by myself. I was with Totty, when Totty learned with him. What does Ben do for work? 

“Berle, Ben is a cousin. He’s Mommy’s first cousin.” Totty said.

I looked up. “So he’s related to elter zeidie?” 

They were quiet.

“Berle, is elter zeidie happy…?” Totty said. 

No. I turned to the right side of the table. I thought Tod was there, and he wanted to say something. Shim’l was looking at me so much.

“Berle. Think about it. And please go pack.”

Would elter zeidie be happy if I went to Ben’s house? No. But Ben had an elter zeidie — does Ben have an attic?

I went to my room. I opened the cabinet. The handle was silver, and it was shaped like a bridge. What did Tod think? Did he know it was me who drew it? Did he think I put the coupons inside? For sure, he kept looking at me before he left. “Berli, nice to meet you,” he told me. Did he know about Ben?

After I finished supper, we heard a knock. Totty went to answer it. It was Ben. He was broad and made Totty look so small. But his eyes were small and they were far apart. He was like Billinge Hill, and his small features were like the beacon on top of it. I was inside the beacon before. It was dark inside.

He spoke slowly, he was much older than Totty. But he didn’t have a beard like Totty. He only had a mustache and it was white. I stood near Totty. Mommy came from the kitchen and gave Ben a bag.

“Don’t worry,” I heard Ben saying, “I won’t be playing chess with him.”

In Ben’s house everything was white. The cedar table seemed to be the only rounded object, and it had the raw bark on its sides. 

Everything was the same, all connected. I couldn’t see the white kitchen cabinets. They were part of the wall.

In my house, the walls were blue. Mommy told me once that white has all the colors. Maybe that’s why it was so hard to look at. 

Did Ben like it when his house was so empty? I went to the window of Ben’s living room. It had a tint, I could see my reflection. I saw my eyes had so much green, more than I ever saw before. The middle of my eye was a small dot. At home, I had less green and the black was much bigger. Maybe Ben’s eyes were too small?

I walked to the guest room. My gray satchel sat collapsed on the floor by the bed. 

“Berl,” Ben said, “it’s getting late. Is everything okay? You should be getting ready for bed. Tomorrow we are getting up early for work.”

I nodded yes. 

There was a candle on the desk, and it was lit. I went to bed. I opened my eyes when the candle went out. It was dark. Through the window, Ben’s horse stood still next to the bare lamp. The fence shook a little with the wind. 

Usually, I would go to my attic and draw when I couldn’t sleep. And I would bring Mommy’s candle. What if Ben had an attic? Would it have boxes? And did elter zeidie leave him a secret? 

I heard movement. Someone was in my room. Donny. He held his stick, but it was not lit. “Fire,” he whispered. His gray eyes and his tanned skin were like pebbles on the sand. His teeth were a tinted white. Like the walls.

I started shaking. I had no fire. He put the stick down and showed me a paper. It was a sketch of a brown house with a large cubby in the front for a car to be inside. The cubby was like a tunnel, and there were lamps on both sides of the wall. I drew it. Everyone smiled when I showed it to them. Mommy said it was a good idea and it was nice. And Totty said, “One day, we will get a car, and then we will build it.”

Donny flipped the paper and looked at it. “Scribbles.” 

I looked closely at the paper, all of the lines were straight. Scribbles.

I was inside the paper. I saw the door was twisted, and the cubby slanted upwards and there was cement leaking everywhere. The roof expanded until all of the tiles fell down, crashing into the floor, uncovering a black, black, roof. I felt a tap on my back. I turned around but I saw no one.

“Berle? What have you built?”  I turned to look at the house. One of the tiles fell and made a crater in the ground. “I don’t know,” I said, as I looked around. Then I saw him. It was Shim’l. He was inside the house.