A Justice Site

 

The time for First Communion was fast approaching. We were consumed by excitement. OK, I was consumed by excitement. There would be a ceremony where we got to wear pretty white dresses and VEILS, and a party for the whole academy afterwards. Maybe they'd even let us take our box of Russell Stover candy out of the refectory, and offer us some of those apple butter sandwiches they serve on very large platters at four o'clock every afternoon.

I'm always so happy to see those giant black robes hurrying out, long white aprons adorned by the extra long rosary and cross that hung at their side. Do you suppose they ever really said the rosary using those big black rosary beads?They set down the big old silver platters before us, who were clambering all over the yard. I am so hungry by then. Most of the time I kick the lunch under the table, hoping the nuns won't be able to tell who did it. It's even worse than the breakfasts, which are almost always icky, gooey, slurpy scrambled eggs.

But the party for First Communion has to be better than that. It has to be. If Sister Josephine will let me go after the fly last night.

We were saying the rosary. I like saying the rosary. Sister Josephine always leads us. But sometimes all those Hail Mary's get boring. Last night there was this fly - he was darting around my desk. Yeah, we still have to sit in one of the sixth grade classrooms, even though it's to pray, not study. Anyhow this fly came very close to landing on my rosary. So I decided to try to touch him. Everybody knows you can't touch a fly. They're too fast.

Of course, I missed him every time. But I guess I really got kinda caught up in it - and . . .

I TOUCHED HIM.

HE WRIGGLED.

I SCREAMED. . . right in the middle of an Our Father.

Oh, no. Sister Josephine just stopped and looked at me - well, scowled at me is problably more like it. No one screams in the middle of the rosary. You're supposed to be praying.

But Sister Josephine is nice. She doesn't yell at me. She asks gently, "Why did you scream? What's wrong? Are you alright?"

"Yes, Sister - I . . .i . . . i just touched the fly. . . . and he wriggled . . . and . . ."

"You touched a fly in the middle of the rosary? And that's why you screamed?"

"Yes, Sister . . . "

Now I'm in for it! She's gonna call my daddy again. She's gonna campus me . . . and not let me go home this weekend. NO, please. Not that, again. I hate the weekends here.

"We'll discuss this later in private," said Sister Josephine, as she returned sedately to the rosary.

"Yes, Ma'am."

* * *

There's Claire.

"Hey, Claire. Over here in the Virgin Mary's Grotto. I'm making papyrus leaves. All you need is a rock. There's one over there. Then you scrape the green off, and look, it leaves a papyrus, just like the Egyptians used."

"Yeah, but we don't have anything to write on it. Didn't they have sticks or something to use ink?"

"A stylus? I don't think they used ink. Or maybe they did; they used soemthing called "kohl" to outline their eyes in black, so they looked real big. I don't know if it was ink. . . . "

"Well, if we can't write and draw, I don't see much point to it. Let's play follow the leader."

"OK. You lead." And Claire took off with her arms spread like wings, and round the yard we went.

A couple of others joined us as we made buzzing noises from our cockpits." We would have put on glamorous scarves, but we didn't have any. We weren't permitted to go to the dormitory until study time, when we were only allowed to get any text books we needed.

My stomach was growling. "I'm hungry."

"Didn't you eat lunch?"

"Uh . . . well, not exactly. We had fish again. I don't like it."

"Didn't Sister Joan say you had to eat it?"

"Not exactly, no."

"Well, you know, they won't bring out sandwiches till four." And off she went, over a hedge, with me right behind her.

I guess it looked like fun 'cause a couple more girls joined us. I didn't know their names.

We were having a great time when suddenly there appeared before us a small army of nuns, in long white aprons, apparently interrupted while preparing our sandwiches, blocking our way. What looked like the entire Academy of the Holy Angels confronted the young ladies of the First Communion.

They were not pleased.

"And just what do you think you are doing?" queried Sister Louise. Uh oh. She never liked me. She says you're not supposed to talk in the morning before mass, and I always talk. I mean, you have to, you know?

"We're playing follow the leader," announced Claire. "And I'm the leader."

"I'm following," I chirped in support.

"Don't you realize how dangerous this is?"

Well, no. Actually, I didn't see anything particularly dangerous in playing follow the leader. But, then, Sister Louise could probably find something dangerous in anything, even talking.

"You could fall and tear yourself apart on those bushes you were jumping," Sister continued.

Bushes, what bushes? Oh, those little things. Lucky I didn't say that out loud. She didn't say "you could break your hymen" because she probably didn't know the word. Neither did we for that matter. We were only eight years old, after all.

"You will report to Sister Hillary."

The Prefect. I knew it. That means trouble. She's gonna tell my daddy. We're grounded.

Boy, were we grounded. Sister Louise prosecuted and saw to it that we stayed on campus, all three of us who lived there. The five others who didn't live at the Academy had detention all day Saturday. To top it off, she marched us all into every elementary classroom to own up to our disgraceful behavior in "jumping bushes," which had by now been "absolutely forbidden" by everybody but God.

The only good news was that my fly had been forgotten in the folderol over Sisters of the Holy Angels vs. Young Ladies of the First Communion .

---

---

Mirror Sites: CSUDH - Habermas - UWP
Latest Update: June 22, 2006
From The Theory of Everything, by Jeanne Curran, in collaboration with Everybody.
jeannecurran@habermas.org
takata@uwp.edu

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License.
Individual copyrights by other authors may apply.