The Origami Nun Read online

  Soon she heard the sound of the telephone being replaced, and then footsteps on the stairs as her great-aunt returned. Ruth sat up in the bath, hugging her knees to her chest, and waited.

  Great-Aunt Alice opened the bathroom door, holding two steaming mugs of hot chocolate. Ruth could smell them. She gave one mug to Ruth and then, putting the origami nun on the rim of the bath behind the taps, she sat down on the stool and took a long slurp of her own drink.

  Ruth giggled silently. The noises her great-aunt made when she drank hot chocolate always made her laugh. Maybe things weren’t so bad after all. For a while, the two of them slurped their drinks quietly together. Then Great-Aunt Alice put down her mug and picked up the nun, holding her gently between her fingers.

  “Did something horrible happen at school?” she asked quietly.

  Ruth nodded.

  “Was it that Lorraine, the girl you don’t like, who upset you?”

  Ruth nodded again and her great-aunt sighed.

  “All right,” she said. “Let’s get you out of the bath and into some dry clothes and then you can write down exactly what happened.”

  Ruth finished her hot chocolate and let the bathwater out. She dressed in the clothes Great-Aunt Alice had laid out on the bed for her—her favourite pink top and her most comfortable trousers—and hurried downstairs to the kitchen, taking the nun with her. Neither of them wanted to keep her great-aunt waiting. Usually Ruth enjoyed writing down her account of how her day had been but she wasn’t looking forward to it now. It had to be done though. She hoped the origami nun would help her.

  With the nun’s help, Ruth’s pencil flowed across the page and soon her great-aunt had the whole story in full. As Ruth finished each piece of paper, Great-Aunt Ruth would pick it up and read it slowly while Ruth carried on writing. This was their usual way of communication and it was one that suited them both. Great-Aunt Alice believed that some things were best understood slowly and in fact that the best things in life were never rushed. It was something she told Ruth often.

  When she’d read all of Ruth’s words, she put the papers down in a neat pile at the edge of the kitchen table and closed her eyes. Ruth knew her great-aunt was thinking and she became as quiet as possible while she waited. Great-Aunt Alice didn’t like interruptions while she was thinking. In her hands, she was sure the origami nun twitched and Ruth glanced down at her. She thought the nun was smiling.

  After a while, Great-Aunt Alice opened her eyes again and spoke. “This is not a very good thing to happen on your birthday, my dear. It’s not even a good thing to happen at any time and we do need to try to make it better. I’ve spoken to the school and they’re glad to know you’re safe with me, but you mustn’t run away like that again, do you understand?”

  Ruth nodded. She knew it had been a stupid thing to do and she’d have to go back, but she hadn’t been able to help herself at the time. Anyway, she hadn’t been unsafe, had she? The nun had been with her. To try to show her great-aunt how important the origami nun was, she placed her on Great-Aunt Alice’s lap and smiled.

  Her great-aunt smiled back. “Yes, my love, she’s very beautiful and I know she has special powers, but even so you’re a little girl and you have to be careful.”

  It startled Ruth that her great-aunt knew so much about the nun. But then again great-aunts knew everything, didn’t they? And Great-Aunt Alice knew more than most so Ruth listened carefully as she continued to talk.

  “We’ll have lunch together,” she said. “A birthday lunch just for you. Then we’ll go back into school this afternoon, and then the nun, you and I will see what Lorraine has to say. Because if there’s cruelty in the world, then it’s up to us to try to make things kinder.”

  Ruth helped her great-aunt make poached eggs on toast, and this was followed by a slice of freshly made lemon meringue pie, which Great-Aunt Alice must have baked this morning. She supposed it was for her birthday tea surprise, but she was very glad to eat some now, on her own. Lemon meringue pie was one of her great-aunt’s best recipes and Ruth had never tasted anything better. It was light and bright and sharp, it was soft and sweet and lemony. It was Ruth’s favourite pudding ever and she loved it. While her great-aunt had her back turned, Ruth quickly took a piece of the pie and put it in the nun’s lap where she sat on the chair beside her. She thought the nun, if she were really magical, might like it and, sure enough, when Ruth next looked round, the lemon meringue pie had vanished. The nun, and Great-Aunt Alice, were both smiling, and Ruth smiled back.

  When lunch was over, they washed up. Then Ruth helped her great-aunt pack up the goodies for her birthday tea in to a huge wicker basket. There were crisps and home-made cakes, muffins and large fruity scones, along with fruit juices and lemonade. It was almost too much for one person to carry so Ruth was glad she was there to help. Perhaps she’d been meant to come home from school after all.

  “I was going to ask Mr. Brown to help me,” Great-Aunt Alice said when everything was packed away. “But now you’re here, I won’t need to.”

  Ruth felt relief at that, but the nun she’d placed on the table while helping her great-aunt load the basket suddenly fell to the floor. When Ruth picked her up, the black and white paper crackled in her hand and she frowned.

  She must have done something wrong and the nun was upset, but what could it be? Ruth thought about it while Great-Aunt Alice busied herself smoothing down her hair and then it came to her. It was Mr. Brown. Maybe she was being mean to him in the same sort of way that Lorraine was mean to her. Ruth didn’t want to be like Lorraine, in any way. She didn’t want to be like her at all.

  So she touched her great-aunt’s arm and sat down at the table again, with another sheet of paper. Great-Aunt Alice waited patiently while Ruth scribbled her message, and then wrote more neatly and in large letters on a second sheet of paper. When Ruth gave the first message to her great-aunt, she smiled and patted her on the arm.

  “If that’s what you want, my dear,” she said, “then that’s exactly what we’ll do. I’m very proud of you, very proud indeed.”

  The two of them set off in watery sunshine, as the rain had now stopped and the dark clouds were disappearing. Ruth felt strangely happy, even though she was returning to school. She always felt happy when she was with Great-Aunt Alice, and even school didn’t seem so bad in her great-aunt’s company. Great-Aunt Alice carried the bigger wicker basket loaded with goodies, and Ruth carried a smaller one for the napkins, paper cups and plates. It also contained the special birthday cake, but she hadn’t been allowed to look at that yet. Her heart was beating, partly with joy and partly with fear, and she didn’t know which one she felt most.

  At the corner of the road, they paused and looked up at the big house on the corner. Mr. Brown’s house. It was the largest on the street, and also the scariest. He had dark green blinds instead of bright, sunshiny curtains, and his front garden had no fence and no grass, but just lots of tarmac where he parked his car. To Ruth, it didn’t feel soft like her great-aunt’s garden did.

  Great-Aunt Alice shook her shoulders and straightened her back as she always did when she made any kind of decision.

  “Come on, dear,” she said. “Let’s see if Mr. Brown is in.”

  Ruth blinked and her heart began to thump in her chest. She didn’t know if she could face Mr. Brown right now, in spite of what she’d written for her aunt to read, and all the more because of what had happened at school.

  But once her great-aunt had made up her mind, only extreme weather would stop her, so Ruth took a deep breath and tagged on behind. At the front door, Great-Aunt Alice gave the bell a firm push, and a deep tone echoed behind the wood.

  Perhaps he wouldn’t be in, Ruth thought, hoping that was the case. Then they could carry on walking to school and have their party. That would be nice.

  It didn’t happen though. A few seconds later and she heard heavy footsteps coming nearer from behind the door, then the creaking sound of a key being turned and the eve
n creakier sound of the door opening. Mr. Brown appeared in the gap, frowning and peering out at them as if he hadn’t seen the sun in a long, long time. Even though they’d only met him this morning on their way to school.

  Mr. Brown stared at her great-aunt, who gave him a big smile in return.

  “Good afternoon!” she said. “My great-niece and I are going to a party and we’d love you to come with us. Please say you will!”

  Mr. Brown stared at Great-Aunt Alice and blinked. His mouth made some kind of movement but Ruth wasn’t sure what that meant. He might have been about to smile back or he might have suddenly found a bad taste in his mouth and not be quite sure what to do about it. She couldn’t tell.

  Then, without warning, Mr. Brown leaned over until he was almost face to face with her. His breath smelt of tea and biscuits, and Ruth gripped her great-aunt’s hand even tighter, although she didn’t try to run away. Really, she was quite proud of that.

  Mr. Brown’s mouth moved a little more and then she realised he was speaking. “Would you really like me to come to a party with you, Ruth?”

  Ruth handed him the invitation that she’d written out for him and nodded as hard as she could. A long moment went by while he read it. Then she was rewarded with the unexpected sight of a smile breaking out over Mr. Brown’s face. Well, she’d not seen that before! When he smiled, Mr. Brown became a lot less frightening, and Ruth liked that.

  “Thank you so much for the invitation,” Mr. Brown said, still smiling. “It’s beautifully written. I would love to come to your party.”

  Great-Aunt Alice squeezed her hand as Mr. Brown straightened up. He fetched his coat and hat, and also a packet of biscuits that her great-aunt added to the baskets. Then he took the heavier baskets from her great-aunt, and the three of them set off.

  “Look!” her great-aunt said, stopping and pointing upwards to the sky. “A rainbow.”

  Ruth stared upwards eagerly. She loved rainbows, all that colour made her feel like dancing. Sure enough, there it was, the colours just as she’d been taught them at school: red and orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. It was magical. It meant a very special promise, Great-Aunt Alice always said, and Ruth did love the story of Noah and the animals. Maybe that promise could work for her today also.

  The three of them looked at the rainbow until it faded, and then, Ruth’s hand clutched tightly in her great-aunt’s, they continued walking until they came to the school.

  There Mrs. Easting was waiting for them.

  Chapter Four

  When she saw her teacher, Ruth began to drag her feet again. She didn’t like how stern Mrs. Easting looked and she knew she was going to be in trouble, in spite of the fact it was her special day. She’d kicked Lorraine. How she hated to be in trouble! As Mrs. Easting opened the school gate and let in the small group, the origami nun twisted in Ruth’s pocket once more and she reached in and wrapped her hand around it for comfort.

  “It’s good to see you back, Ruth,” Mrs. Easting said, “and I’m very glad you’re safe. But you shouldn’t have run away like that and you shouldn’t have kicked Lorraine. Do you understand?”

  Ruth understood very well and, even though she wasn’t entirely sure about the part about not kicking Lorraine, she nodded.

  “Do you promise not to do it again?”

  Ruth shuffled her feet and looked at the ground. She was sure she couldn’t nod yes to that, and anyway it didn’t seem fair to ask her. She tugged at her great-aunt’s arm and pointed at her handbag.

  Great-Aunt Alice understood that signal very well. She opened her vast black handbag and retrieved a sheet of paper and a pencil which she presented solemnly to Ruth.

  Ruth smiled her thanks, folded the paper over and wrote the following:

  Lorraine is horrid to me and I’m glad I kicked her. Sorry.

  There, that was the truth. At last. She could try her best to be nice and do the things her great-aunt liked and she’d added the sorry at the end because of it. But what she’d written was exactly how she felt. In fact, now she’d written it down, she felt a lot happier and, in her pocket, the nun moved again, almost as if stroking her leg.

  Great-Aunt Alice coughed, but in a funny way as if she was trying not to do something else, and Mr. Brown peered over her shoulder and his eyebrows rose up. Her class teacher’s mouth was making a strange shape too and after a moment she harrumphed.

  “Well, Ruth,” she said, “at least we know your feelings on the matter. Now I know Lorraine can be difficult and she hasn’t been nice to you recently but it’s no excuse for bad behaviour on your part. If you have problems with anyone in school, you are to come and tell me, as well as your great-aunt of course. Is that agreed?”

  Ruth thought about this, and then she nodded.

  “Good,” said Mrs. Easting and reached out for Ruth’s hand. “So, before our party, let’s go and have a talk with Lorraine together and afterwards we can enjoy your celebrations.”

  Ruth couldn’t help herself. She opened her mouth wide and screamed silently. The air around her felt like pins and needles were digging into her skin, so hot she could hardly bear them. She pulled her hand free and stamped her feet over and over again as tears burst from her eyes. She couldn’t breathe properly. How she wished her mother was here. Everything would be all right then.

  She didn’t know how to stop but the next moment a pair of arms went round her and held her shaking body next to a familiar cotton blouse. She could smell her great-aunt’s lemony perfume again and muffled her sobs inside the hug. After a while, she heard a faint humming and realised her great-aunt had started to sing very softly. Not one of the songs her mother used to sing as she couldn’t have stood that but something else. The sound made her feel safer and after another little while she stopped her sobs.

  “All right, honey, it’s all right,” her great-aunt was saying. “Whatever we need to do, we can do together. It’ll be all right.”

  Ruth nodded and Great-Aunt Alice let her go but still held on to her shoulders. When she looked up, Mr. Brown was bending down and offering her a muffin from his basket. She took it, smiling at him, and bit into its soft chocolatey depths. Chocolate was her second favourite, after blueberry.

  “Now then, Ruth,” said her class teacher. “You’re lucky to have such friends around you. As it’s your birthday, you can have that one cake now but then we need to speak with Lorraine. Your great-aunt can come with you if you like.”

  Ruth nodded again. Yes, she did like that idea. If she was going to have to face horrible Lorraine, she didn’t want to be on her own.

  Hand in hand, she and her great-aunt followed Mrs. Easting into the school. As they trotted down the long corridor to the classroom, a sudden warmth against her leg reminded her that the nun was still in her pocket. She was magic, Ruth knew it. And the magic was getting stronger too.

  Her great-aunt squeezed her hand and Ruth glanced up.

  “Some magic doesn’t come from outside,” she whispered low enough so Mrs. Easting didn’t hear her. “It comes from inside. I know you know that, Ruth, but you just haven’t realised it yet.”

  Ruth stared at her, wondering what on earth she meant, but there was no time to puzzle it out. They’d arrived in the classroom. It was time to face Lorraine.

  Everyone was sitting down and they all turned to face the door as they came in. Ruth could see the plaster on Lorraine’s leg where she’d kicked her. Funny how she’d thought she’d be pleased to see Lorraine getting hurt but in fact it made her feel wobbly inside, not in a nice way.

  Mrs. Easting coughed. “Ruth and Lorraine, I think you both have something to say to each other, don’t you?”

  Great-Aunt Alice squeezed Ruth’s hand and let go. It was up to her now, but she didn’t feel alone. She had the origami nun and that made everything different.

  Lorraine stood up, though she didn’t look at Ruth, and her shoulders were hunched. Ruth reached into her pocket for the nun and took two steps forward. She was
going to try to be brave enough to say sorry, just like her great-aunt told her, and she hoped Lorraine might feel the same.

  It was then that it happened.

  Something yellow and very bright flashed out of the nun and surrounded Ruth and Lorraine, whirling round and round them like a swirling dancing mist. Ruth felt herself being lifted up towards the ceiling of the classroom. She opened her mouth wide in surprise but of course no sound came out. She could see the same thing happening to Lorraine who was screaming. The sound went right through Ruth’s head and she covered her ears with her hands to block it out. The two girls reached the ceiling of the classroom. Ruth thought they’d stop there but they didn’t. The ceiling dissolved and they went rushing upwards into air and sunlight.

  It felt good, it was really truly flying. Something Ruth had always wanted to do as she wanted to know what it was like, and now she did. It must be the nun, she thought, the nun was the only one who could do something like this. Ruth loved it.

  Lorraine obviously didn’t feel the same. She was still screaming. Ruth wished the other girl would shut up as she could enjoy the flying more, but then the nun twisted in her hand, and she realised that was mean. She would have to try to help Lorraine, no matter what she thought about her. But how?

  Still clutching the nun, Ruth stretched her arms wide and leapt towards Lorraine. The swirling air caught her up and swept her to the unhappy girl. She grabbed Lorraine’s shoulder and pulled her closer, all but hugging her as they continued to float and dance in the breeze. Lorraine’s breath smelt of biscuits and orange juice.

  “Let me go! Let me go!” Lorraine yelled. “I hate you, you stupid dumb girl! Why have you done this? Put me down!”