Jip and Janneke = in-coming?

So there we were.

Sitting in Echos, the Dutch “bar” on base. (There’s no alcohol allowed on the base so “bar” is a bit of a stretch, but they serve food and drinks. The chairs are (reasonably) comfortable, the lighting is dim, and the music is loud. There’s even a pool table and a big TV.)

I had a delicious banana milkshake and Michel had hot, sweet coffee.

And he was reading to me - Jip and Janneke.

(For those of you who don’t know Jip and Janneke, it’s a series of very short, very simple stories about a little boy - named Jip - and a little girl - named Janneke - who are best friends. It’s a bit like Dick and Jane, only Dutch. And it’s just about my level of Dutch comprehension.)

Anyways, there we were, blissfully ignorant to what was going on outside, reading about the “rijst en krentenhond” (rice and currant dog - it’s a dalmation)… when the PO came in…

Him: “I thought I’d lost you guys!”

Us: “Oh no, we’ve been here for a couple hours now.”

Him: “So I guess you didn’t hear the alarm.”

Us: “Uh, no? What alarm?”

And so we discovered that, under the cover of night, and while we were happily reading children’s stories in a noisy bar, there had been one, maybe two, in-coming explosives.

By this time the all-clear had already sounded (we didn’t hear that either).

(Actually, apparently there was a runner who’d gone to Echos (and the dining hall and the gym - the only other places on campus with constant music) and apparently the alarm had been announced there. We just managed not to hear it.)

Not long after we found out that nobody had been hurt and that the explosive(s) hadn’t actually landed inside the camp.

So that was good.

Michel and Ashleigh were happy.

And they went straight to bed.

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