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Miriam caught her mother in the act of throwing out a large brown cardboard box.

“Mommy! Can I have that box please?” she begged.

“What on earth do you want an empty box for?” asked Mommy surprised.

Miriam thought for a minute.

“I’ll use it to make a shop! Please Mommy can I?”

“Well all right” said Mommy doubtfully. “I suppose it won’t hurt to hang on to it for a bit longer. I can always throw it out after you’ve finished playing with it.”

Miriam decided to set up shop in the front room. Mommy gave her a bit of green fabric to throw over the box and Miriam busied herself setting out plastic food from her play kitchen.

Moishy came into the room and stared.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“My shop” said Miriam grandly. “I’m the shopkeeper. Do you wanna buy some-fing?”

“Nah. But what’s your shop called?” asked Moishy curiously.

Miriam hadn’t actually thought of a name yet. The only shop name she could think of was Gavriel’s Grocery. But she couldn’t very well call it that; after all her name wasn’t Gavriel.

“What do you fink I should call it?” she queried.

“Dunno” said Moishy. “Hey can I play too?”

“Sure” said Miriam pleased.

“I know what! We’ll call it Moishy and Miriam’s Grocery” declared Moishy.

“Okay” agreed Miriam.

Moishy made a sign on a bit of paper and hung it up. He and Miriam had a wonderful time playing shop. Leah and Chavi even came to visit and bought some toy bread paying for it with pretend money.

After they’d all been playing for a while there was a knock at the front door. Fishel and Faivish had come to play. They saw the shop.