“Your sneaker is in the cholent?” cried a horrified Mrs. Levinson.

Yitzy reached inside the refrigerator, and pulled out two soggy papers.

“No,” he answered, “but last night’s math homework was.”

“Ugh,” said Mrs. Levinson when she saw the dripping papers. “Did you even do that math homework?”

Yitzy looked down at the soggy papers.

“Kind of,” he answered.

“What do you mean when you say ‘kind of’?”

“I mean that I did take out my homework last night, and I did sit down to do the problems.”

“How many problems did you do?” asked Mrs. Levinson.

“None,” answered Yitzy quietly. “You see, when I started concentrating on the first problem, it made me hungry, so I ran to the refrigerator for a snack. As I was looking into the fridge, my foot got itchy, so I put down my math papers, and kicked off my sneaker…” Yitzy stopped in mid-sentence. “My sneaker!”

He dropped the messy papers into the garbage and dove under the kitchen table. A moment later he emerged, holding his missing sneaker high in the air.

“Baruch Hashem!” he cried as loud as he could.

Mrs. Levinson covered her face with her hands.

“Oh, Yitzy,” she moaned, “could you please try to stay more focused?”

“I’ll try, Mommy,” Yitzy answered, “but for right now, I’ve got to run, or I’ll be late.”

“Okay, Yitzy,” she sighed. “You can go. But tonight we will have a little talk about your homework.”

“Yes, Mommy,” Yitzy answered quietly. He left.

Most of Yitzy’s friends lived in houses. The Levinson family, however, lived in an apartment, on the ground floor of an old seven-story building.

As he made his way through the building’s lobby, Yitzy had to stop himself from running. Although most of the people in the building were nice to the Levinson children, Yitzy knew that some of his neighbors did not appreciate it when he ran through the halls.

Once he was finally outside, Yitzy broke out into a run.

He had run only two blocks, when he suddenly slowed down and looked around. Something felt strange.

He was going down the same street he did every day, passing the same stores he did every day, yet today, something seemed different.

He had felt this way once before. It was the morning before the hurricane hit. Everything had seemed eerily still, but the air had tingled with a quiet excitement. A few hours later, the city was hit with the worst storm ever.

Yitzy looked around. There were no clouds, no sign of any unusual weather.

Yitzy glanced at his watch and realized he had to hurry. He started running again.

As he ran, he began to shiver with excitement. The strange feeling was getting stronger. Yitzy had no idea how or why, but he knew that something big was going to happen today. He was sure of it.

(Excerpted from Mishpacha Jr., Issue 737)