Home Is Beyond the Mountains by Celia Lottridge Read Free Book Online Page A

it’s spring,” she
said to Anna.
    Still, she was surprised
when the woman who came to check the height and weight of all the children
in the Orphan Section said, “You’ll be turning twelve one of these days.
When you came here in summer of 1918 you had turned nine in the spring. Now
it’s the spring of 1921. Do you know exactly when your birthday
is?”
    â€œI don’t know the day but
it’s at the time when the storks come back to their nests in the tower of
the church,” said Samira. She suddenly remembered the big long-necked birds
sitting on their untidy nests waiting for their eggs to hatch, and Mama
laughing at how funny they looked.
    â€œThe storks,” said Samira.
“I want to see them again.”
    But the woman had gone on to
measure another girl and didn’t hear her. Samira caught up with her as she
was leaving the tent.
    â€œIf I’m twelve that means I
have been here for three years,” she said. “Will I be here
forever?”
    â€œOf course not,” said the
woman. “The camp won’t be here forever. It will close one of these
days.”
    â€œBut if the camp isn’t here
where will we go?” Samira thought of the storks again. “Home. We should go
home.”
    â€œI know,” said the woman.
She looked sad. “It is not always easy to go home after a war. Things have
changed. I’m sorry. I don’t know what will happen.”
    Samira began to listen
carefully to the talk around her. But she only heard questions. “When…?”
“Where…?” “How long…?”
    Rumors spread through the
camp. Benyamin and his friend Ashur reported a new one every day when they
came in from delivering laundry. Samira began to get a picture of what was
going to happen.
    The camp would soon be
closed but the people in the camp would not be allowed to return to the
villages they had left behind in Persia. Instead they would be sent to
villages up north, in country that had been part of Turkey before the war.
And boys just a little older than Benyamin would go into an army to defend
those villages.
    No one knew what would
happen to the orphans.
    â€œWhat can we say if they
just send us somewhere?” asked Samira.
    â€œWell, I won’t go without
you and Elias,” said Anna.
    Elias came and stood between
the two girls. He had been with them nearly a year and now he wanted to talk
as much as he had wanted to run when they first knew him.
    He looked up and said,
“Where? Going where?”
    â€œWe don’t know where we’ll
go but we’ll all go together,” Samira said, picking him up. He was heavy now
but she could still give him a squeeze before she put him down.
    The very next day a man came
into the tent before breakfast. They had never seen him before. He waited
until all the children noticed him and became quiet. Then he
spoke.
    â€œThis camp will be closing
soon, and everyone in it will have to go and live somewhere else. The
Assyrian men and women who are in the camp have been offered the chance to
settle in villages not far from here. They have refused this offer because
they want to return to the villages they came from. They will have to find
their own way back. It will be hard but they have chosen. You are children
and you can’t find your own way so you’ll be sent to another orphanage. You
don’t have to worry. You will be looked after.”
    Samira stared at the man.
How could he tell her not to worry?
    The man must have felt the
questions in the eyes of all the children because he said, “That’s all I can
tell you now. I’m sorry.” He turned and left the tent.
    Samira turned to Anna.
“First our villages are gone. Now the camp will be gone. We have been here
for almost three years of our lives. Where will we go next?”
    Life in the camp changed
quickly. One after another the big tents outside the Orphan Section