The Missing Game Piece

This is a story from Anafeam Kids. It's called The Missing Game Piece.

Leah and Benny Adler aren't real people. We made them up. But the way they feel in this story might sound a lot like you.

It was a rainy Sunday at the Adler house. Rain tapped on the kitchen window, the heater hummed, and Latke the cat was asleep on the warmest chair, as usual.

Benny Adler was seven years old, and he had been waiting all week for this afternoon. Abba, his dad, had promised. After lunch, the whole family would play Rocket Race.

Rocket Race was the best game in the closet. It had a big board covered in stars, a spinner that went click, click, click, and four little rockets made of painted wood. Red, green, yellow and blue. Benny was always blue. Blue was the fastest. Everybody knew that.

"Is it time yet?" Benny asked.

"Almost," said Ima, his mom, as she wiped the table. "Let me finish the dishes."

"Is it time now?"

"Benny," said his big sister Leah, without looking up from her drawing. "She said almost. Almost is not now."

Leah was nine. She liked lists, sharp pencils, and knowing exactly what was going to happen next. Benny liked building things, jumping off the last two stairs, and knowing what was going to happen next right now.

Finally, Ima dried her hands. "Okay," she said. "Go get it."

Benny ran to the closet. He pulled out the Rocket Race box, carried it to the table like a treasure, and lifted the lid.

The board was there. The spinner was there. The red rocket, the green rocket, and the yellow rocket were there.

The blue rocket was not.

Benny looked in the corners of the box. He shook the box. He turned the box upside down, and the spinner fell out and rolled under the table.

"Where is it?" he said. His voice was getting louder. "Where is the blue rocket?"

"Maybe you can be green today," Leah said.

"I don't want to be green! I'm always blue!" Benny's face felt hot, like he was standing too close to the oven. His hands squeezed into fists. "Somebody lost it. Somebody took it. Leah, did you take it?"

"I did not take your rocket," Leah said, and she put down her pencil.

"You always say that!"

"Because I never take your stuff!"

Benny wanted to yell something really loud. He wanted to kick the box. He could feel the yell climbing up his throat.

Abba came into the room. He looked at the box upside down, at the spinner under the table, and at Benny's red face. He didn't yell. He sat down on the floor, right next to Benny, so their eyes were at the same height.

"Wow," Abba said quietly. "That's a big feeling."

Benny didn't answer. His fists were still squeezed.

"Can I show you a trick?" Abba asked. "It's a trick for big feelings. It has three parts. Pause. Breathe. Choose."

"I don't want a trick," Benny said. "I want my rocket."

"I know," said Abba. "The trick won't find the rocket. But it might help you find it."

Benny sniffed. "Fine."

"Part one is pause," said Abba. "That means you stop for a moment before you do anything. Put your hands flat on the floor, like this."

Benny opened his fists and put his hands flat on the cool wooden floor.

"Part two is breathe," said Abba. "Pretend you're smelling a bowl of hot soup. Breathe in through your nose. Slowly."

Benny breathed in. He could actually smell something. Ima had made vegetable soup for lunch.

"Now cool the soup," said Abba. "Blow out through your mouth. Slowly."

Benny blew out. Then, without anyone asking, he did it again. Smell the soup. Cool the soup.

The hot feeling in his face wasn't gone. But it was smaller. It felt more like warm than burning.

"Part three is choose," said Abba. "Now that you paused and breathed, you get to pick what to do next. What are some things you could do?"

Benny thought. "I could yell," he said.

"You could," said Abba. "What would happen then?"

"Leah would yell back. And then Ima would say no Rocket Race until everyone calms down."

Leah laughed a little. "That's true."

"What else could you do?" Abba asked.

"I could play with the green rocket," Benny said, very slowly, as if the words tasted bad.

"That's a choice," said Abba. "Anything else?"

Benny looked at the box. "I could look for the blue rocket. Like, really look. Not just yell where is it."

"That sounds like a good choice to me," Abba said. "Do you want help?"

Leah stood up. "I'll help," she said. "I'm good at finding things. Let's make a list of everywhere it could be."

Of course Leah wanted to make a list. But this time, Benny didn't mind.

Leah got a piece of paper and wrote at the top: Places the Blue Rocket Could Be.

"When was the last time we played?" Leah asked.

Benny thought. "Last week. At Bubbie's house!" Bubbie was their grandmother. They had played Rocket Race at her kitchen table. "But we brought the box home."

"So maybe the rocket is still at Bubbie's," said Leah, and she wrote it down. "Where else?"

"Under the couch," said Benny. "Things always go under the couch."

They looked under the couch. They found a sock, a pretzel, a hair tie, and a puzzle piece from a puzzle they didn't even have anymore. No blue rocket.

"My room," said Benny. "Sometimes I take the rockets to play spaceship."

Leah raised one eyebrow. "You take the rockets out of the game?"

"Only sometimes," Benny said.

They went to Benny's room. They looked in the toy bin, behind the bookshelf, and inside his rain boots. Leah checked the windowsill. Benny checked his pajama pockets.

No blue rocket.

Benny felt the hot feeling starting to climb up again. He stopped. He put his hand flat on his bed. Smell the soup. Cool the soup.

"Okay," he said. "Where else?"

Leah looked at her list. "The car," she said. "We drove home from Bubbie's."

They put on their rain jackets and ran out to the car with Ima. Benny checked under the seats. Leah checked the pocket on the back of the front seat. She pulled out a granola bar wrapper, a broken crayon, and the library card Ima had been looking for since the summer.

"My library card!" said Ima. "Thank you, Leah!"

But no blue rocket.

Back inside, everyone was a little wet and a little tired. Benny sat down at the table and looked at the three rockets. Red, green, yellow.

"Maybe it's really gone," he said.

Abba picked up the phone. "Let me try one more place," he said. He called Bubbie.

Benny could hear Bubbie's voice through the phone. She talked for a while. Then Abba smiled.

"Bubbie says," Abba told them, "that yesterday she was sweeping under her kitchen table, and she found something small and blue. She thought it was a toy, so she put it in a cup on the counter to keep it safe."

"The blue rocket!" Benny jumped up. "Can we go get it now?"

"Not now," said Abba. "Bubbie lives forty minutes away, and it's pouring. But we're going there for dinner on Wednesday. She'll keep it safe until then."

Wednesday. That was three whole days away.

Benny felt the old feeling coming back. Waiting was the worst. He wanted the rocket now.

He put his hands flat on the table. He smelled the soup. He cooled the soup.

And then he chose.

"Okay," he said. "Then today I'll be green."

Leah stared at him. "You're going to be green? You?"

Benny shrugged. "Green is a good color too. It's the color of grass. And frogs."

"And broccoli," said Leah.

"Don't ruin it," said Benny.

They played Rocket Race all afternoon. The spinner went click, click, click. Benny's green rocket got stuck behind a comet twice and fell into the black hole once. Leah won the first game. Ima won the second game.

And Benny won the third game, with the green rocket.

"Green is fast," he said, grinning. "Who knew?"

That night, when Ima came in to say good night, Benny was lying in bed, thinking.

"Ima," he said, "do grown-ups get the hot feeling too?"

"All the time," said Ima. "When I'm stuck in traffic. When I burn the rice. When someone keeps calling my name while I'm on the phone."

"That's me," said Benny.

"Sometimes," Ima said, and she smiled. "You know, there's a story about a great teacher named Hillel, who lived a very long time ago. A man came to his house again and again, on purpose, just to try to make him angry. And Hillel answered him gently every time."

"Every single time?"

"Every single time. I'm not always like Hillel," said Ima. "But I try. And today, I think you were a little bit like Hillel."

Benny smiled into his pillow. Then he whispered to himself, so quietly that only Latke the cat, curled up at the foot of the bed, could hear.

"Pause. Breathe. Choose."

And on Wednesday, at Bubbie's house, the blue rocket was waiting in a cup on the counter, right where she said it would be.

The end.