LITMIR.BIZ

       For Jordy, always

       Chapter 1

      The walk through Ben Gurion International Airport was long. Too long. A scrambled mix of foreign words and sounds filled my ears as I dragged my feet towards the baggage claim. After being cooped up inside a plane with my dad for twelve hours, my bleary eyes took in the jumble of people around me. There were men in tall black hats and heavy black coats, women in long skirts and wrapped hair with litters of kids tagging along behind them, and tons of hippy-ish men and women who looked dressed for the beach.

      But what really freaked me out were the soldiers patrolling the crowds and guarding the entrances and exits. They all looked so young — too young to be in the army. In fact, I guessed they couldn't be much older than me. They all had long, black machine guns slung over their backs. Until now, I'd never seen a real gun before in my life. Was this really what passed for normal in this country?

      When Dad and I finally got our suitcases, we stumbled out into the greeting area. A sea of eager faces surrounded us — faces searching for loved ones, relatives, and friends. We pushed our way as politely as possible through the dense crowd.

      I tried to keep my eyes on the ground. The warm hugs, the cries of joy, the tearful reunions, all made me sad — I knew no one was there waiting for us. Here I was, thousands of miles from home, and all I had left in the world were Dad and a suitcase. It was absolutely the loneliest moment of my life.

      Pulling our bags behind us, we walked outside through the sliding-glass doors. A whoosh of hot, humid air rushed up to greet me as I stepped out onto the pavement. It was almost seven o'clock in the evening and the air was sizzling like bacon on a hot frying pan.

      Suddenly, out of nowhere, we were bombarded with an onslaught of taxi drivers. All were men with slim builds, olive skin, and dark, curly hair. All dressed in a similar uniform of T-shirts and cotton pants.

      "Please … please!" urged one with a big grin, pointing over to his car.

      "Over here!" beckoned another. "I take you where you want to go!"

      "Nice, air-conditioned ride!" announced a third at the top of his lungs.

      Maybe it was because of his loud voice, or maybe it was because of the hot, sticky weather, but Dad chose the driver with the air-conditioning advertisement. As for me, I was just happy to be leaving the airport. We piled our bags into the trunk of the dirty white taxi and jumped inside.

      The drive to Jerusalem was a long, winding, uphill trip. Our taxi sped along at a fast clip, hugging every curve of the highway. I chewed on the end of my little fingernail as I stared out the window. I know it's gross, but I've always had the worst habit of gnawing on my nails when I'm upset or stressed out. In the past year my fingertips have become a set of mangled stumps.

      After forty-five minutes we arrived in a city filled with buildings, people, and busyness. Suddenly, there was so much to see: buses everywhere, little boys playing soccer in the streets, women wearing head scarves toting their babies and shopping bags, soldiers standing guard in front of every store, and buildings so much older than any I'd ever seen back in Canada. They even had graffiti here, too, although I couldn't tell if the words were written in Hebrew or Arabic.

      Our taxi zipped through the streets, which had narrowed and grown increasingly winding. Horns were honking from every direction as drivers, who seemed high on aggression and low on patience, flew by at breakneck speeds. I started to feel dizzy as the car darted around sharp corners and through tiny gaps in traffic. A couple of times I had to close my eyes as the driver negotiated our taxi through a space that looked much too tight. Somehow, however, he managed to get us through each time without a scratch. After a particularly sharp turn, Dad leaned over and whispered, "Different from home, isn't it?"

      That was probably the understatement of the century. This place was nothing like home. I nodded slightly and held my stomach, praying I wouldn't throw up.

      I felt like an alien who'd just landed on a strange planet. Even my body signals were confused. Although I knew it was technically evening, it didn't feel like it. I'd lost all sense of time up in that plane. Now I didn't know if I should be hungry or thirsty, sleepy or awake. I took a deep breath and thought about the return airline ticket tucked away in the bottom of my suitcase. Dad had promised that I could go back home to Toronto if I hated it here after three months. It was the only way he'd been able to get me on that plane.

      A moment later, he leaned forward and gave the driver an address.

      "Is that where we're going to live?" I asked.

      "Yeah, I got us an apartment in a nice family neighbourhood near the university," he replied. "Apparently a lot of the faculty live in the area. It's called French Hill."

      "French Hill," I repeated under my breath. I liked the name of the place. It sounded almost familiar, like a neighbourhood you might find in Canada.

      But it didn't look at all like Canada when we arrived. The taxi pulled up at an apartment building on a quiet street, set a bit back from the main road. Surrounded by olive and lemon trees, the building was made from large blocks of bumpy, dust-coloured stone. Nothing at all like the red and brown brick buildings I was used to back in Toronto.

      "That's Jerusalem Stone," explained Dad, noticing me staring. "They chop it right out of the ground near the Jordan River. By law, every structure

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