Читать книгу The Lost Diary of Christopher Columbus’s Lookout - Clive Dickinson - Страница 5

¡Ay caramba! I still can’t believe what’s happened.

There are only eight years to go until the start of the new century and people are already getting worked up about it. Some are predicting that the world’s going to end and that none of us will ever see the year 1500.

No-one in our household expected anything like this, though. If it wasn’t so serious, I’d think someone was playing a huge April Fool joke on everyone in Spain. But this isn’t a joke – it’s for real. We heard the news yesterday. There was a Royal Proclamation from the King and Queen and you don’t mess around with orders from the top.

King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella have commanded every Jew to leave Spain by the beginning of August. The only ones allowed to stay are Jews who give up being Jews and change their religion to become Christians.

I can’t see my old master, Isaac Palestino, doing that. After what he’s told me about the Jewish people – how all through their history they’ve been kicked out of one country after another – I expect he’ll pack up, leave Spain and find a new home over the sea.

We’ve been waving goodbye to the Muslims recently. For hundreds of years, Muslim rulers had their own kingdom down in the south of the country. Then, three months ago, on 2 January this Year of Our Lord 1492, the great city of Granada itself surrendered to our King and Queen. That’s a date for the history books. For the first time in centuries, Spain is one country again – a Christian country.

The last of the Muslims have left. Now all the Jews are going. What will be next? They say things happen in threes and if there isn’t a third amazing event in the wind this year, my name isn’t Luc Landahoya.