another letter from Jerusalem

One day in late June Sister Claire told me that we were going to Italy together. She showed me the plane ticket to Rome. We were going to visit the Vatican and learn to make lace and do all sorts of things. I was soooo excited! The night before our plane left, I had a bath and packed my envelope and went to bed extra early.

When I woke up, Sister Claire's hairbrush was on the bed beside me. Sister Claire's sunglasses were on the bed beside me. Sister Claire was gone, and so was her luggage. I looked all over the hermitage, but no Sister Claire.

I couldn't believe it! She'd forgotten to take me! Then the phone rang. It was Sister Claire calling from the airport. She'd just realized that I wasn't in her big carry-on bag, and didn't know whether I'd fallen out in the taxi or what had happened. She was so worried about me that I stopped being cross with her.

Well .... her plane was leaving in half an hour, and there was no way I could get to the airport in time. Sister Claire was terribly sorry, and promised that I could visit Italy another time. I made some breakfast, and thought about what to do next. I sure didn't want to spend the next month in her bedroom!

After a while I decided to telephone the people where Sister Claire works. They were very sorry to hear what had happened, and invited me to come there until she returned. I walked across the road, looking at all the old houses with their satellite dishes on the roofs. It reminded me a little bit of the Tatooine cities in the Star Wars movies.

Once I was inside the office building, I found that all the windows had bars on them. I think it used to be an old fort. Here's the view from Sister Claire's office window - an old arrow slit! People used to fire their arrows at the enemy from the other side, but nobody could shoot at them from the wrong side of that little slit. I squeezed through the bars, climbed the wall and squeezed through the arrow slit, and then took this picture of the back of it.

After I was finished exploring the old wall, Dima invited me to work with her for a while in her office. Then Ioanna invited me to look at the pictures on her computer. (To be honest, all the pictures were grown-up stuff ... no webkins or anything.)

Because I was getting a little bored, I asked if they had anything else to do. Ioanna gave me a feather duster and put me to work cleaning! I cleaned the oratory, where people go to be quiet and pray; it didn't take much dusting. Then I started on the books. Look at them all! They didn't have any pictures, and not all of them were in English, so after a while I started looking for somebody to play with. That's how I found Francis, but I'll tell you all about him another time.