After their substitute teaches a lesson on the customary rites of mourning, and Vrummy — the class clown — overhears in the principal’s office that their teacher, Rabbi Pelick, who had never before in his eighteen years missed a day of school, has just died, Ezra, Ox, Vrummy and Chinky — a group of 8th grade boys — ditch school for a train to Coney Island to pay their respects to Pelick’s family. While on the train, the boys consider whether or not they believed their substitute that souls were resurrected in the afterlife, and after a spirited debate between an incredulous Vrummy and a staunch Ox, the boys are left anxious.  They arrive at Coney Island, and, after they are stopped by an overeager vendor on the boardwalk, make their way to Pelick’s street, where they stop two houses away. They muster the courage to carry out the mitzvah, and ring the doorbell. Mrs. Pelick answers, and leads them into the room where Mr. Pelick sits, crouched over the table reading. Vrummy, arrested by the sight of Mr. Pelick alive, runs out of the house, afraid of what he thinks is Mr. Pelick’s resurrected body. Mr. Pelick thanks the boys for their visit, and remarks that “You have performed the highest mitzvah.” He continues to say that his father, in Israel, had died a month earlier but that he had only recently found out. The boys, relived that Mr. Pelick is alive, leave, and return to the boardwalk, where Vrummy sits and peers into the ocean. Too late to go back to school and too early to go home, the boys spend the afternoon on the boardwalk, where they ride rollercoasters and eat hotdogs.