Free Home Is Beyond the Mountains by Celia Lottridge

closer to the
places all of us came from,” said Benyamin. “So I guess it’s the right
direction. But she said it would be a permanent orphanage. That means it
will be there forever. I hope they remember that we don’t want to stay there
forever.”
    Still, Samira began to look
forward to being somewhere that was not a camp.
    Days passed and no trucks
came. Miss Watson had to agree with the children that they couldn’t pack in
advance. The cooking pots and dishes had to be used at every meal, and each
child had only one change of clothes. There was nothing to do but wait.
    Then, at last, on a morning
at the very end of August, Miss Watson gathered all one hundred and fifty
children on the playing field.
    â€œA message has come from the
city,” she said. “The trucks will be here by noon. Pack your things now.
Girls, you are in charge of the smaller children. Boys, it’s your job to
take down the tents.”
    Now that they were really
leaving, the children were filled with energy. Maybe they would not be left
in the Hamadan Orphanage and forgotten. Right now Samira almost believed
it.
    It took the girls no more
than ten minutes to pack their belongings. Samira stuffed her extra dress —
too short, of course — her underwear and her books into a cotton bag. She
rolled up her sleeping mat and the quilt that had not kept her warm in the
winter.
    When she looked around, all
the other girls were packed, too.
    Elias sat on his sleeping
mat watching her, and she realized that he wasn’t sure what was happening.
    â€œWhere are we going?” he
asked. “Will we go on the train again?”
    Samira sat down beside him.
“Do you remember the train?”
    He nodded. “Very loud.”
    â€œYes, it was,” said Samira.
“Well, this time we’ll go in trucks like the ones they bring supplies in. We
get to ride in the back. It’ll be fun. Lots of bouncing.” She wasn’t sure it
would be fun, but it would be better than walking.
    â€œBut where are we going?”
    â€œWe are going to a city
called Hamadan. We’ll live in real buildings with walls and a roof. Like the
schoolroom. No tents. And we’ll eat and go to school and play just the way
we do here. But it will be better.” Anna looked at Samira from where she was
helping the little girls pack and shook her head a little.
    â€œIt will be better,” said
Samira again.
    Elias nodded and Samira
smiled. At least he believed her.

THREE

    Not Just Orphans

Hamadan Orphanage
    September 1922
    BEFORE THE
CHILDREN climbed into the backs of the heavy army trucks, Miss
Watson came around.
    â€œIt’s not far to Hamadan,
but we must go over the Assadabad Pass. The road is very steep and you’ll
have to walk so that the trucks can make it to the top. We’ll camp one night
along the way.” She suddenly smiled a real smile. “You children certainly
know how to do that!”
    The road was very rough. It
seemed to Samira that the truck was leaping over the bumps. The older girls
sat as firmly as they could on the benches, each one tightly holding on to a
smaller child. They all swayed and bounced as the truck jolted along,
churning up dust. Samira covered her mouth with her scarf and squinted to
keep as much dust as possible out of her eyes, but she had to keep looking
around, too.
    The road went along a valley
at the bottom of brown mountains. Nothing was green. The grass was dried
golden, and the few bushes and trees were as dusty brown as the road. Every
now and then they passed a village, but most of the houses were half fallen
in, and Samira saw no people in the fields. The war had been here.
    Samira had asked one of the
teachers at Kermanshah why so many of the villages were ruined.
    â€œEverywhere there was a real
road the armies came and villages were fought over,” he told her. “People
had no choice but to run away, and now they have