Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow Page 10

“Sure.”

  I pick up my bag and hurry out.

  Lost Property is kept in a store cupboard down by the school office. The door of the office is open when I get there but I knock on it anyway.

  “Yes!” one of the administrative assistants, Mrs Barber, barks, while still staring at her computer screen.

  You can do this, just play it cool, and remember your lines, I tell myself. “Oh, hello, I was just wondering if I could take a look in Lost Property.”

  “What for?” she snaps, still frowning at her computer.

  In all the time I’ve been at this school I’ve never once seen Mrs Barber smile. I take a step into the room. “Oh, yes, sorry. I didn’t mean I just fancied a look in Lost Property, like I’m some kind of Lost Property tourist, like I just…” Get a grip! I tell myself. “I – I lost a school shirt. At the end of last year,” I mutter. “After PE.”

  Mrs Barber sighs and gets to her feet. Has she seen through my lies? Has she realized that I’m about to commit Lost Property theft? Is she about to march me off to the head teacher’s office? But she takes a set of keys from a hook on the wall. “Follow me,” she mutters.

  I follow her across the corridor to the Lost Property cupboard and wait while she unlocks the door. “Shirts are in the box on the bottom shelf,” she says, before turning and heading back to the office.

  I breathe a sigh of relief that she won’t be watching me, then I start rifling through the tangled mess of shirts. Some of them are torn and some are stained and look even worse than the one I’m wearing. But then I find one at the bottom. It’s snowy white and crisp and all the buttons are intact. They have a really pretty pearl effect too. I hold the shirt up to check its size. It looks as if it would fit me perfectly. I quickly check the label. There’s no sign of any student’s name. The label is from a shop I’ve never heard of before – called Amelie. Excitement and relief start doing a celebratory jig inside me.

  “Any luck?” Mrs Barber calls from the office.

  “Yes.” I take the shirt over, hugging it to me. “I can’t believe it’s here. I never thought I’d see it again.”

  Mrs Barber looks at me weirdly.

  “Sorry. It – it’s just that I was very attached to this shirt,” I stammer.

  She purses her thin lips together. “Clearly.”

  “So, do I need to do anything?” My heart starts pounding. Surely it can’t be this easy?

  Mrs Barber is looking back at her screen again. “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, like sign anything?”

  She looks at me with disdain. “No.” She glances at her watch. “Haven’t you got a class to go to?”

  “Yes.” I start backing out of the room. “Thank you. Bless you.” Bless you?! my inner voice screams. Bless you?! “Sorry, I didn’t mean to say ‘bless you’. I meant… I’m just very happy to have my shirt back.”

  Mrs Barber shakes her head and sighs, then starts tapping away on her computer again. I race from the room before she puts me in detention for Lost Property lunacy.

  HAFIZ

  Stevie and I are sitting in the back of Uncle Samir’s car. I’m trying not to look at her because every time I do I want to smile and I’m worried that I’ll seem like some kind of crazy person. Ever since I found out that Mum and Dad are safe it’s like someone’s opened the door on the darkened room the world had become and light is pouring in. Everything makes me smile. The sunshine, the birds, the Arabic music playing on the car stereo. And looking at Stevie. I’m not sure why looking at Stevie is making me feel happy. It could be the funny things she says. Or the way she doesn’t fit in – or even try to. I glance at the outfit she’s wearing – a black and white T-shirt advertising a music band called Tears for Fears, tight black jeans, torn at the knee, and black boots with a row of silver buckles on the sides. I look at her long black hair falling loose over her shoulders and her matching black fingernails. I feel my mouth curling into a smile and quickly look away.

  We pull up at the refugee centre and Aunt Maria turns to Stevie from the front passenger seat. “I hope you’re hungry,” she says. “I was down here earlier and the Ethiopian and Eritrean women were planning a feast.”

  Stevie nods. “Yes. I’m starving. Thank you. Thank you for inviting me.” She looks really shy all of a sudden, which makes me like her even more.

  We get out of the car and head over to the open back door. The smell of food cooking drifts over to greet us and my stomach rumbles.

  “Have you ever had Ethiopian food before?” I ask Stevie.

  She shakes her head.

  “It’s really good.”

  “Yes,” Uncle Samir says, rubbing his stomach appreciatively. “You’re in for a treat.”

  The kitchen is a hive of activity, with women bustling about, attending to the steaming pots and sizzling pans on the stove. African music is playing loudly from a portable CD player in the corner.

  “Hello. Good evening! Hello, Miss Maria,” an Eritrean woman called Adiam greets us, her hips swaying in time with the beat. She’s wearing a bright orange and red dress, with a matching scarf twisted around her head.

  “Hi, Adiam!” Aunt Maria calls back. “It smells delicious in here.”

  “Yes.” Uncle Samir nods in agreement. “Any chance of a taste?” He pretends to dip his finger in one of the pots.

  Adiam flicks him with her tea towel and laughs one of her deep laughs. “Get away! You are just like Goldilocks and the porridge!”

  Uncle Samir has been teaching Adiam English, using kids’ books. Her favourite story is Goldilocks and the Three Bears. It inspired her to learn how to make porridge, which she now serves every morning in the café for breakfast, with a sprinkle of brown sugar and cinnamon on top. It’s delicious.

  Stevie is looking round the kitchen, her black-rimmed eyes wide. I wonder what she thinks of this place. I hope she likes it.

  “Shall we go through to the café?” I suggest.

  “Yes, before Adiam throttles Samir with that tea towel,” Aunt Maria says, laughing.

  “Hurry up!” Uncle Samir calls over his shoulder as we leave. “You have four very hungry bears to feed here.”

  We go through the kitchen and out of the door leading into the café.

  “Oh, wow!” Stevie exclaims as she looks around at the brightly painted murals on the walls.

  The murals were Uncle Samir’s idea, with a different section for each of the different homelands of the refugees who come here. By the time I got to the UK the mural was already complete, but I helped to add a picture of a footballer beneath the Syrian flag.

  “What’s that?” Stevie says, pointing to the other side of the large room, to the empty shelves.

  “That’s going to be the library,” I reply.

  “Yes. And we need you two to help us come up with some money-raising ideas so we can buy some books,” Uncle Samir says.

  “Cool.” Stevie says. She looks genuinely enthusiastic.

  We all sit down at a table near the back of the café.

  “Do you think there’s anything you could do at your school?” Aunt Maria asks. “To try and raise some money?”

  My heart sinks. Although I want to help I really don’t want to draw attention to the fact that I’m a refugee – especially not at school. “I don’t know.”

  Stevie looks thoughtful. “We could try. But it might be best to speak to one of the teachers about it. I’m not sure how much Hafiz and I would be able to do on our own.”

  Uncle Samir nods. “OK. Yes, I’ll email your teacher tomorrow.”

  I lean back in my chair and look away. I suddenly feel queasy, like there’s a family of snakes writhing around in my stomach. I don’t want him to email my teacher. I don’t want a big fuss being made. But what can I say? I can hardly stop him from trying to help refugees – trying to help people like me.

  Stevie

  I watch as the African lady, Adiam, comes out from the kitchen holding a huge tray laden with food. She places the t
ray on our table. It’s full of steaming dishes of different kinds of stews, plus a bowl of green, leafy vegetables and a plate piled high with what look like pancakes.

  Samir helps place the dishes on the table.

  “OK, Daddy Bear,” Adiam says to him with a chuckle. “Now you may eat.”

  Samir laughs and nods. “Thank you – it looks wonderful.”

  Adiam’s face goes serious for a moment. “No, thank you, Samir, for all you have done.” She turns and smiles at the rest of us. “Thank you. Thank you.”

  I feel slightly embarrassed as I haven’t done anything. But as she’s so nice it makes me doubly determined to help raise money for this place. I wonder what we could do at school to help. Maybe we could arrange some kind of sponsored event. Maybe we could sponsor Priya to be silent for a week. I’d give all of my paper-round money to make that happen. I can’t help grinning at the thought.

  “What’s funny?” Hafiz says.

  “Nothing. I was just thinking of ways we could raise money at school.”

  “Oh.” I could be wrong but Hafiz doesn’t look all that interested.

  “OK, guys, tuck in,” Maria says.

  I look around the table for some cutlery but there isn’t any. “Shall I go and get some knives and forks?” I ask.

  Hafiz shakes his head. “No, we’re eating Ethiopian-style, with our fingers.”

  “With our fingers?” I look at the bowls of stew, and picture dipping my hands into them, trying to fish out some food. Somehow I don’t see this ending well.

  “Yes, with the injera,” Samir explains, taking one of the pancake things from the pile and tearing off a bit. “Injera is Ethiopian bread.” He dips the bread into one of the bowls, scoops out some stew and pops it into his mouth. “Mmm! You have to try the doro wat, it’s delicious.”

  “Doro wat is like a chicken stew,” Hafiz says to me. “It is really good.”

  “Great.” I tear off some of the bread, then look back at the dishes. There only seems to be one of the chicken stew. Are we all supposed to share it? “Do we … is it OK to take some from here too?” I ask, gesturing at the same bowl Samir is eating from.

  “Of course.” Samir moves the bowl closer to me.

  “It’s an Ethiopian tradition for everyone to eat from the same dish,” Hafiz explains. “They believe that if people share food now, they won’t betray each other later.”

  “Cool.” I dunk my piece of bread into the stew and fish out a piece of chicken. It tastes amazing, really spicy and gingery. “Are the women who cooked this – are they all refugees?”

  Maria nods. “Yes. We have women from all over the world working in the kitchen. It’s a lovely thing for them to do together. When they first came here none of them could speak English – or each other’s languages – but since they’ve started cooking together it’s like they’ve bonded for life.”

  “The universal language of food,” Samir says with a grin, scooping what looks like a hard-boiled egg from the stew.

  “You wouldn’t believe what some of them have been through to get here,” Maria says. “Adiam, the lady who served us, had to travel through the desert for weeks to escape the war in her country. Her father gave up all of his life savings to pay the people smugglers to help her escape.”

  “And when the authorities found out she had gone they killed him,” Samir says, his face suddenly grave.

  “What?” I put down the piece of bread I’d been holding. “Why? Why would they kill him?”

  “As a punishment and a deterrent,” Samir says. “To try and stop other people from sending their loved ones to safety.”

  “But that’s…” I can’t even find the words to describe how horrible this is. I think of Adiam and how cheerfully she greeted us, while all the time masking this huge tragedy.

  “Maybe we should talk about something happier,” Hafiz says to Samir and Maria.

  I think of what he must have been through to get here and what he’s going through, so far from his family and home. It feels as if my heart is splintering apart. Why is there so much pain in the world?

  “Yes, sorry,” Samir says, offering me the dish of vegetables. “We didn’t mean to depress you. It’s just so important that British people know what’s going on in the rest of the world.” He gestures around the café, which is now filling up. “The struggles these people have been through.”

  “You didn’t depress me,” I say. “You’ve made me feel determined – determined to do something to help.”

  Samir looks at me and smiles. “Thank you, Stevie.”

  Next to me Hafiz shifts in his seat and smiles at me, his turquoise eyes shiny.

  HAFIZ

  I think something’s up. No, scrap that. I know something’s up. Tonight, after we dropped Stevie at her house and came back home, I overheard Uncle Samir and Aunt Maria talking in the kitchen. “We can’t tell him,” I heard Aunt Maria say. “Not yet.”

  They must have been talking about me. What other “him” could it be? I wasn’t able to hear any more because Uncle Samir opened the door and saw me standing there. He immediately said, “Yes, that’s a good idea. I’ll go and get the book,” which didn’t make any sense. He was obviously making something up to change the subject. But why? What don’t they want to tell me?

  I go over to my bedroom window and stare out at the night sky. The stars shine so brightly here in Lewes. They’re blinking away at me, like diamonds. Did I ever tell you the story about the king who was so greedy he once sent his bravest warrior on a mission to catch some stars? I hear my dad say. I open the window and inhale a deep breath of the cool night air. At least I know that Dad isn’t dead now. At least I know that when I hear his voice in my head it’s from my memories and not the spirit world. But still… What is it that Uncle Samir and Aunt Maria don’t want to tell me? Maybe they’re worried that Mum and Dad won’t be able to get asylum here. It took so long for me to get asylum – and I was classed as an unaccompanied child. But that’s OK. I can go and join Mum and Dad, wherever they end up. All that matters is that we’re together and we’re safe from the war. But when I think about leaving the UK I feel a twinge of sorrow. After so long roaming the globe with nowhere to call home it will hurt to have to leave and start all over again. I look across the road, to the street light that Stevie magically appeared beneath last night. And it will hurt to have to lose my new friend.

  Stevie

  When I get home I head upstairs and, instead of going straight to my room, I knock on Mum’s door. What I saw tonight moved me so much I need to talk to someone about it.

  “Yes?” Mum calls out faintly.

  I go in. She’s sitting up in bed, reading.

  “Hey, Mum.”

  “Hi. Did you have a nice time?” She puts her book down.

  “Yes. Well, I’m not sure if nice is the right word exactly.”

  “Where was it you went again?”

  I’d told Mum exactly where I was going and with who but her depression clouds her brain in more ways than one. It makes her so forgetful – especially when it comes to me.

  “To a centre for refugees in Brighton. It was amazing. There are people there from all over the world. And they so badly need our help, Mum. They’ve been through some terrible things.”

  Mum sighs. “Haven’t we all.”

  I feel anger building in me as I think of what Adiam and Hafiz have experienced.

  “But, Mum, these people have had to flee violence and war. There was one woman there whose dad had been killed for paying to send her to safety. Her dad was killed, Mum.”

  Mum sighs again. “I’m sorry, Stevie, but I can’t really think about anything else right now. I’m too worried about my assessment tomorrow.” She picks up a pack of tablets from her bedside cabinet. Her sleeping pills. She pops one in her mouth and takes a sip of water from the glass beside her bed. So that’s it. Conversation over. I feel like grabbing her by her thin shoulders and shaking her. Telling her that she doesn’t know how
lucky she is. But instead I keep my anger tight inside me. I walk back out of the door and into my room. I take my photo of “Real Mum” down from the mantelpiece. I throw it in the bin. Then I shut my bedroom door, bury my head under a pillow and silently scream.

  HAFIZ

  “OK, lads, listen up,” Mr Kavanagh says as we all gather around him on the benches in the boys’ changing room.

  The other school’s team have just arrived – I can hear the clatter of their football boots on the concrete outside. It sparks a fire in my belly – the old familiar desire to win.

  “I’ve decided to make a couple of changes to the starting line-up,” Mr Kavanagh says, “give our new Syrian signing a go.” He looks at me and grins.

  The fire in my belly grows. I’ve got a game!

  “I’m going to play you on the left wing, Hafiz,” Mr Kavanagh says.

  “What?” Price glares at me. “That’s where I play.”

  “Don’t worry, Price,” Mr Kavanagh says, “I’ll put you on at half-time. I just want to get a look at Hafiz.”

  “Half-time?” Price’s beady eyes shrink even smaller as he turns his glare on Mr Kavanagh. “Are you putting me on the bench?”

  “Just till half-time.” Mr Kavanagh claps his hands together. “Right then, let’s get out there and show them what we’re made of. First game back after summer’s always a tough one – especially if the closest you’ve got to a game all holiday is playing FIFA on your PlayStation.” A couple of the guys snigger. “But push yourself through the pain and let’s try and get three points in the bag.” He turns and heads for the door. We all stand up and file out after him. I feel someone grabbing the back of my shirt. I turn and see Price, his pointy face right in mine.

  “Do yourself a favour, towel-head, and get yourself subbed or sent off ASAP.”

  I pull away from his grasp. “What do you mean?”

  “What’s up? Don’t you understand English?” He’s so close now I can smell his sour breath. “I don’t sit on the bench for no one, do you understand? And especially not an asylum seeker.” He shoves me on the shoulder and marches off.