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veryone ready?” Abba called. “The van’s here!”

I was ready but I didn’t answer. I was sulking. Abba saw my face.

“There’s no point in behaving like that Yosef Chaim” he told me firmly. “Nachum and Natan are coming and so are you end of the story. Now get your bag and get in the van.”

Nachum and Natan are my cousins from Tiveria. They’re 15 identical twins and pretty cool guys I suppose. But I didn’t want them to come with us to Sdei Nechemia. Sdei Nechemia is our family’s regular “end of bein hazmanim” trip. Every year on the last day before we go back to Talmud Torah we pack up our swimming stuff a pile of inner tubes Ima packs up a pile of food (of course!) and we head off to theJordan River. Sdei Nechemia has miles of eucalyptus groves beside the river bank with lots of great picnic spots. But the real highlight is swooshing down the river sitting on your inner tube. The current is strong enough to carry you along but not too strong to be dangerous and the water isn’t deep (except in a few places) so it’s great for our family.

But this year we had a problem. We were all looking forward to the trip and then Abba fell and hurt his back.

“I won’t be able to go in the river with you children” he told us worriedly. “And you know Ima doesn’t like the water. I don’t know what to do. Maybe we shouldn’t go.”

“No!” we all cried out in horror. “We have to go! It’s a family tradition!”

“I can watch the rest of the kids” I told Abba. “You know I can swim well and I’m 11 now. We’ll be fine.”

“Absolutely not!” Abba declared. “You’re far too young to be responsible for four younger children especially in the water. And there are some parts of the river where it’s deep.”

“I have an idea” said Ima who was serving dinner (couscous of course as it was Tuesday). “Why don’t we ask Miriam’s boys from Teveria to come with us and keep an eye on the children? They’re plenty big enough and responsible and they’d enjoy it too.”

“Oh no!” I groaned. “They think they’re something now that they’re in yeshivah and they’ll just boss me around all day like I’m a little kid!”