Sima’s back was to Fraida as she spread the papers in a semicircle around her place on the floor. “We were doing other things earlier” she said a little impatiently. “Look we got the rooms done workshops should be a cinch in comparison.” She shuffled some piles of papers. “I did the rooms for 11th and 12th so I’ll do 9th and 10th workshops. You did the rooms for 9th and 10th so you do 11th and 12th workshops.” She turned around and slid a stack of forms across the floor. “You can work over there okay?”

“Okay” Fraida said. She shuffled through the workshop request forms. Sima was right; rooms had been a nightmare. Workshops could only be an improvement.

They worked in silence for a few minutes. Then Fraida giggled. “Listen to this” she said. “This is Dini’s request form: first workshop ‘We Run and They Run’ second request ‘Alone in the World ’ third choice ‘Secret Agents.’ “ Fraida stopped for a minute proud of the catchy titles she had assigned to each workshop. “Then here’s Chevy’s request form: ‘We Run and They Run ’ ‘Alone in the World ’ and ‘Secret Agents.’ “ She fished through the pile. “I bet if I find Miri’s form it’s going to be exactly the same… here it is.” With a flourish she read triumphantly “‘We Run and They Run ’ ‘Alone in the World ’ and ‘Secret Agents!’ ”

Sima laughed. “Yeah. But make sure that no one ends up in the same workshops as the girls in their room. We want everyone to mix and mingle. We don’t want the same girls sticking with each other all Shabbos.”

“I know.” Fraida went back to her pile. Sima was right; they couldn’t have the same girls together over and over. Still she understood them. She knew without looking that her own request form was identical to Leah’s Sari’s and Gitty’s.

After half an hour she stopped and stretched. “Workshops was much easier than rooms” she remarked “because with rooms I was trying to honor everyone’s requests. Here I felt like I was davka contradicting them!”

Sima looked a little disapproving. “Just count it all up to make sure you didn’t miss anyone” she cautioned.

“Of course.” Fraida counted. “Wait.” She frowned. “I only have 26.” She counted them again then blew out a breath impatiently. “Pass me a class list will you?” She grabbed it from Sima and held it alongside her workshop list. “Seriously why can’t people follow instructions? We handed the forms out everyone was there what’s so hard about filling it out and giving it in? How easy can we make it? It was even on class time for heaven’s sake.” She worked her way down the list checking off each name. Abrahms check; Bergman check; Cohen check; Elbogen check; Freidler check; Goldman…

Ah.

Goldman Sheva — no workshop request form.

Fraida bit her lip. This was no negligent mistake. It was easy to guess why Sheva hadn’t bothered filling out her workshop request form.

“You figured out who’s missing?”

Fraida found that she did not want to share her discovery. “Um not yet.” She made a show of continuing down the list. After all there was still one more form missing.