Home Is Beyond the Mountains by Celia Lottridge

again,”
he said. “But this time it’s definitely temporary. You’ll be getting a
permanent director before long. But we’ll get things started as best we
can.”
    Samira and Anna looked at
each other. They could tell he was hoping the new director would arrive
soon.
    â€œMr. Edwards doesn’t know
what needs to be done for winter,” Anna said later. “It’s going to be cold
and nothing is ready. Not even our feet!”
    Samira looked down at her
own brown, dirty feet and nodded. The shoes made so long ago in Baghdad had
worn out on the stony fields at Kermanshah.
    â€œWe just have to wait for
the real director,” she said. “I hope he knows what to do.”
    Mr. Edwards did have plans.
He asked Benyamin and Ashur to explore and make a list of all the orphanage
buildings and what was in them.
    â€œWe don’t really know what’s
here except for ten barracks we can use as dormitories,” he told them. “I’ll
tell the caretaker to unlock everything. You take a look and report back to
me. I have to get busy organizing supplies.” And off he went.
    When Samira heard what the
boys were doing, she said to Benyamin, “Anna and I will come along. We might
see something you miss.”
    After opening one heavy door
after another and walking through dust that hadn’t been disturbed for years,
they made a list. There was a kitchen with stoves and shelves, a big
building that was completely empty, another big building with broken
furniture heaped at one end, and two small buildings that looked like houses
in a village. One of them had two rooms and the other only one.
    When Mr. Edwards read the
list he said, “Good. We’ve got a kitchen and a big room for eating. The
other big building will be the schoolroom and recreation room combined. That
building with two rooms can be used for the director’s office and a place for
the doctor and nurse to work. The other can be a store room.”
    â€œAll these buildings are
empty,” said Anna. “There’s no furniture that isn’t broken and we have no
rugs or cushions.”
    â€œI have a plan about
furniture,” said Mr. Edwards. “Rugs and cushions will have to
wait.”
    He told the boys to take all
the broken furniture into the yard and spread it out. There were banged-up
tabletops, chairs with broken legs and many oddly shaped pieces of
wood.
    â€œJust junk,” said Benyamin,
but Mr. Edwards reached into the pile and pulled out a large flat piece of
wood.
    â€œWe’ll make a table out of
this,” he said. “If there’s one thing I know, it’s how to build furniture. I
used to teach carpentry back home, and now I’ll teach you.”
    He brought back some tools
the next time he went into the city, and soon the boys were busy making
table legs out of scraps of wood.
    â€œWe’ll need cupboards for
the schoolroom and a few chairs for the teachers,” said Mr. Edwards.
“Luckily you kids sit on the floor.”
    September passed, but except
for the new furniture Samira saw that most jobs were still being put off
until the director came.
    â€œIt’s October,” said Anna
one day. “At home we would be almost ready for winter by now. The wheat
would be stored and the grapes would be drying. And the grape syrup would be
made.”
    â€œI know,” said Samira. “My
father said that a full umbar meant a happy winter. We always had plenty to
eat.”
    She thought of the cellar
under the terrace in Ayna. The door was set into the ground and it was too
heavy for her to lift, so she never went down without her mother. But when
they went down the steep stairs with a lantern to light their way, she was
in a magic place. There were bags of wheat and dried beans, oil in jars as
tall as she was, dried fruits and pickled vegetables in crocks. It smelled
wonderful.
    Grape vines heavy with
grapes festooned