Presents aside, now that I was fifteen, what I had really been hoping for was the green light to start dating. When I brought it up, though, Dad looked pained — like someone had just stuck a pin in his butt.
“Well, uh — I don’t think this is the right time to discuss that, Mack,” he stammered.
My heart sunk. This was not how I’d imagined this conversation happening. At this rate, I was never going to have a boyfriend!
“What do you mean ‘not the right time’?” I whined, trying to keep from crying. “I’m fifteen years old now, Dad. All my friends are dating!”
That last part wasn’t exactly true, but I thought it made my argument sound more convincing. Unfortunately, Dad didn’t agree.
“Oh gosh,” he said, pushing his couscous nervously around with his fork, “Let’s wait a little bit longer on this one, okay, honey?”
I could hear a slight hint of begging in his voice; I knew he was dying to drop the subject, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out why. In all his years as a parent, he’d never imagined having this conversation with me. Mom had always handled the tough parenting subjects. You know, the birds-and-bees talk, the first-period talk, the say-no-to-drugs talk. He’d been on the sidelines of my childhood, and probably never expected he’d have to handle the ready-to-start-dating talk all by himself!
Maybe it was because it was my birthday, but I was feeling kind of generous. So, in a rare moment of weakness, I took pity on him and let him off the hook — for now, anyway.
After my birthday I began to see less of him as he started working longer hours at the university getting ready for the beginning of the first semester. Sometimes he wouldn’t get home until after dark. Of course, I was always there waiting for him. The local pizza guy already knew our order by heart.
Some things never change.
At least Ulpan was finally over. And there were still a couple of weeks before the beginning of school in October, so Marla suggested we celebrate the end of summer by going on a trip to a nearby beach town called Netanya.
Naturally, Dad didn’t want to let me go, but when I promised to be home for dinner he finally agreed. We hopped on a bus early in the morning and got there just over an hour later. Unlike Canada, where it would take weeks to get from one end of the country to the other, nothing in Israel is very far. They say the entire nation is about the size of New Jersey.
The first things I noticed in Netanya were the palm trees. They were everywhere, as abundant as maple trees back at home. And there were miles of the most beautiful sandy beaches I’d ever seen. We spent the whole time splashing in the Mediterranean, eating ice cream, and lounging on the sand — Marla in the sunshine working on her tan and me right next to her, under an umbrella, slathered with SPF 45.
While we lay there, I thought a bit about my friends back home and how they’d spent their summer sitting on the banks of the mud-bottom lake at Camp Towango. Steffi would have been so jealous of this beach. Scratch that — all my old friends would have been jealous if they could see where I was. God, it’s amazing how quickly you can lose touch with people. I’d barely spoken or written to any of them all summer. And you know what? I wasn’t missing them at all. Not even Christina. It was strange to think that in only a couple of weeks I’d be seeing them again when I flew back home to Toronto.
I dreamt about the beach that night — the blue water, the soft sand, the warm breeze, and the cloudless sky. When I woke up the next morning it was almost eleven o’clock. I stretched my arms lazily up in the air, enjoying the feel of a good sleep-in. But just as I was getting out of bed, a deafening noise pierced the air.
“Waaaaaa-oooooo … waaaaaaa-ooooooooo … waaaaaaa-ooooooooo … waaaaaaa-ooooooooo …”
I almost jumped out of my skin.
Oh my God! The air raid siren!
My brain seized up with fear as I tried to remember what to do.
Are we under attack? Are bombs falling on us? Panicked, I grabbed Frou-frou and Mom’s sweater (her picture still inside) and ran to the bomb shelter. My heart was pounding out of my chest. The siren was so loud, so constant, and so urgent. There was no escaping it.
I can’t believe I’m all alone! Daddy! Daddy! I wish you were here with me!
I grabbed a gas mask and pulled it over my face, then set to work sealing the doors with duct tape. The siren screamed in my ears the whole time.
“Waaaaaa-oooooo … waaaaaaa-ooooooooo … waaaaaaa-ooooooooo … waaaaaaa-ooooooooo…”
Oh no! Somebody help me! I don’t want to die! What do I do now? Where’s the instruction sheet?
I found it and frantically began reading the directions.
In Case of Emergency
Bring radio into shelter.
Damn it! I messed up the very first instruction!
I stared at the sealed door and imagined a giant green cloud of poisonous gas forming on the other side.
Oh well … too late to go get the radio now!
I sat down on the floor and started to cry. I felt more hideously alone in that moment than ever before in my entire life. A couple of terrifying minutes later, the siren stopped just as abruptly as it had started. What did that mean? I wiped my eyes under the gas mask and checked the instruction sheet. My breath sounded like Darth Vader.
Do not leave until you hear the
“all-clear” signal.
I cowered in the corner and waited. I had no idea what an all-clear signal was supposed to sound like, but I figured I’d know it when I heard it.
Hours went by; the morning passed into afternoon. I was sure we were at war. I strained my ears to listen for gunfire, but I couldn’t hear anything besides my own breathing in the stupid gas mask. My face was hot and sweaty and uncomfortable, but I was too scared of the poisonous gas to take it off. I thought about Dad and prayed that he was all right and that he’d made it to the university bomb shelter. And for the first time ever, I found myself wishing I hadn’t been so hard on him all this time. After all, he was hurting, too.
Feeling desperately alone, I picked up Mom’s sweater and pulled the neck down carefully over my gas-masked head. At some point I must have fallen asleep, because the next thing I knew there was a loud knock-knock at the shelter door.
“Who’s there?” I yelled, my whole body quivering with relief. Was it the army coming to save me?
“It’s me, stupid,” came a familiar voice from the other side. “What are you doing in there?”
“Marla?”
I jumped to my feet, un-duct-taped the door, and flung it open. “What do you mean ‘what am I doing in here’?” I gasped. “What are you doing out there? Didn’t you hear the air-raid siren?”
She started to laugh. “Um, yeah. But that was hours ago. Don’t you have a radio? What were you waiting for, the army to personally come and release you?”
“No!” I lied. But I could see in her eyes that she knew she was right. My cheeks burned red with embarrassment. Thank God for the gas mask. I kept it on for a little longer to give my face a chance to turn back to its regular colour. “So, how’d you find me in here?”