The Origami Nun Read Online Free PDF Page A

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