A percentage of all royalties earned from the sale of this book will be going towards Trussell Trust Food Banks, the Greggs Foundation Breakfast Club Programme and selected grassroots food bank charities.
“Greggs Foundation is delighted to be benefiting from the sales of this fantastic book. But more than that, we are so pleased that Onjali writes these stories which ultimately give children hope. Through her words, she is able to highlight that while the lives children experience are not always the same, that does not make children living in food-insecure households any less ambitious, creative or deserving. Onjali helps to remove the stigma around food poverty, and other social issues, something we at the Foundation are very passionate about. Enabling children to recognise when others may want help but don’t want to ask is such a positive step, and we are extremely proud to be in partnership with her.”
TRACY LYNCH, HEAD OF GREGGS FOUNDATION
“We are so grateful to Onjali for writing this powerful book which will help raise vital funds and awareness to support our work.
We’re seeing more families than ever unable to afford the basics, forced to turn to charity to put food on the table for their children. Every day, food banks across the UK are meeting this unprecedented challenge with compassion and care, but it’s not right that any child is facing hunger today.
We will continue to support food banks to provide emergency food for as long as it’s needed. But we know that with the support of people like Onjali we can build a better future together – a stronger, more just society, where no one needs to turn to charity to get by.”
EMMA REVIE, CHIEF EXECUTIVE OF THE TRUSSELL TRUST
For all tummies fighting daily battles against hunger.
And every s/hero working tirelessly to end those battles once and for all.
CONTENTS
Title Page
Dedication
1. Just One More Day …
2. The Greatest Bank in the World
3. Breakfast Club
4. Games & Empty Bags
5. The Real Hunger Games
6. The Last Pawn
7. Stake-Outs
8. Supermarket Sweep
9. The Equaliser
Acknowledgements
What are food banks?
Why do people need to use food banks?
What are breakfast clubs?
Three ways you can help food banks and breakfast clubs
Copyright
CHAPTER 1
Just One More Day …
“Nelson, I’m hungry! I can’t wait any more. Look – my tummy’s gone in!”
I looked at my sister, Ashley, as she lifted up her T-shirt and sucked her tummy in just as hard as she could. She knew I hated it when she did that, because it looked horrible – as if her tummy was being sucked down a hole.
“All right, all right!” I said, putting down my pen and getting up from the living-room floor. I would have to finish my homework later.
I was hungry too. School dinners never filled me up any more. For some reason, the dinner ladies always gave extra-small helpings on the days when the food was really nice – like fish finger and chips days. And was it just me, or were the fish fingers getting more skinny every week, as if all the fish in the sea were on a diet? Breakfast Club was still OK, but the cereal boxes felt like they were getting smaller too …
Ashley stomped into the kitchen with me, her ponytail swinging from side to side. She was hugging her favourite toy of the week. This week it was one of my old plastic cars, which she had decided to call Freddy. No one knew why.
She jumped up onto her favourite chair at the kitchen table, patted Freddy and then looked at me hopefully.
It was time again.
Time for me to play the Pretend Game.
The Pretend Game was when I had to pretend we had food left in the house even when we didn’t.
I hated playing the Pretend Game. Out of all the games I had to play at home, it was the worst one. Especially when it was coming to the end of what Mum called “A Really Tricky Month”. That’s a month where the money Mum got from her job wasn’t enough to pay for food as well as everything else we needed. But this month we were lucky. Someone had given Mum some vouchers, and I knew that tomorrow we would be heading down to the best Bank in the world to cash one of them in.
“Hmm,” I said as I went over to the fridge and opened the door wide.
The fridge lit up with a warm yellow glow, as if it wanted to show us that it had something inside for us to eat. But the shelves were empty apart from half a jar of jam, a plastic bottle of mustard that had been there since before I was born, one egg and a tiny bit of milk.
I could have boiled the egg for Ashley, but I knew Mum probably hadn’t eaten all day at work, so I wanted to save it for her.
“Nope, nothing interesting in there,” I said, closing the fridge door. “Let’s try here!”
In the cupboard next to the fridge there were packets of spices and salt someone at the Bank had once given us but which we had never used, a bottle of oil and half a packet of cornflakes. I could have given Ashley cornflakes, but I needed to save the milk for when Mum came home and wanted a cup of tea.
I shut the door, then opened the next one, and the next one, and the next one. And the whole time I pretended there might be something inside to eat – even though I could have told Ashley what was in every single cupboard with my eyes closed.
I wished they were filled with food like my best friends Krish and Harriet’s cupboards always were. When I grew up, I was definitely going to have cupboards like they had.
“We have to wait for Mum to get back,” I said to Ashley. “She’ll be here soon. Maybe she’ll have picked something up on the way home.”
“But I’m really, really, reeeeeeeally hungry,” said Ashley, lifting up her T-shirt and getting ready to suck in her tummy again.
But before she could do it, I grabbed the toy car and ran off with it.
“FREDDY!” Ashley shouted, and ran after me. I didn’t really want to play, but I knew if I kept Ashley busy, she’d forget she was hungry. At least for a few minutes.
As I held Freddy high in the air and watched Ashley jump up and down like a human rabbit to try to grab it, we heard the sound of keys in the door. Mum was back!
“Kids?”
“Mummy!” squealed Ashley. She forgot about Freddy, ran to Mum and hugged her tight.
Mum smiled as I poked my head out of the living-room door. I only looked after Ashley for half an hour every day when we got home from school, but it always felt like ages.
“All right, all right, my little hugging machine,” laughed Mum as she gave Ashley a kiss on the top of her head. I could tell Mum was tired, because her eyes were puffy. That meant she had had to work extra hard.
Mum worked as a nurse in a hospital, looking after lots of sick people who had just had serious operations. She had to take their temperatures and measure their heartbeats and make sure they had taken their medicines on time.
“Mum, I’m HUNGRY and Nelson hasn’t given me or Freddy ANYTHING to eat,” reported Ashley.
Mum looked over at me and gave her sad smile. I hated that smile. That was the other thing I wished for – even more than I wished for all the kitchen cupboards to be full. I wished I would never have to see Mum’s sad smile ever again. The one that tried to hide how bad she felt about us not having enough to eat – even when she worked so hard and hardly ate anything herself.
“Well, come on then, let’s see what magic we can find,” said Mum. She gave me a pat on the cheek and hugged Ashley as we walked into the kitchen.
After looking through the cupboards just like I had done a few minutes ago, Mum shook h
er head.
“Just one more day,” she promised as she took out the egg, the tiny bit of milk, the jam and a tin of kidney beans that was right at the back of the bottom cupboard. “Then we can go to the Bank and get the things we need. But for now it’s time to do a bit of magic with the things we have …”
As we all sat down to a dinner of a tiny omelette, a bowl of heated kidney beans and a dessert of cornflakes dipped in jam, I felt my stomach swirl and growl. I crossed my arms on top of it to stop it from making any more noises and whispered to myself the thing that Mum had just said.
“Just one more day,” I said as softly as I could. “And then you can have everything you need …”
CHAPTER 2
The Greatest Bank in the World
The next morning I woke up extra early and jumped out of bed.
Whenever it was a Voucher Thursday, Mum always finished her shift early and picked me and Ashley up from school so we could go straight to the Bank with lots of carrier bags stuffed into our pockets.
Our Bank – the one we always went to at the end of a Really Tricky Month – was the best, the most fun and the greatest bank in the world.
That’s because our Bank wasn’t anything like any of the boring old money banks you see on the high street, which are always grey and have big machines which swallow up cards and spit out bits of paper at you, and which are filled with grey-looking people who are always bending over notes and coins.
Our Bank – the food bank – was full of people in bright clothes who always smiled and asked us how we were doing. They were so kind and funny that they even made Mum forget about being embarrassed and ashamed about having to go to the Bank to get us food. Mrs Patel and Mr Anthony and a girl called Natasha – who had hair as thick as a horse’s tail! – were my favourite bankers. We’d known them for nearly a whole year. Ever since Dad left us to go and make a new family that he wanted to be with more than us.
I wished every bank near us was like the food bank. No other bank in the world had shining tins and rustling packets of delicious food stacked from the floor to the roof. No other bank let you take things out without you putting money into it first. And no other bank had a sign by the front counter that said: “Money Not Welcome Here”. It was the only place in the world, I think, that didn’t like money. I wished the man who owned our flat and took rent money from Mum was like our Bank. He was always asking for more money – he never had enough to make him happy.
I picked up my school rucksack, took out my Homework Diary and flipped it to the back page. There, in extra-light pencil so that no one would see, was my Bank Withdrooling List.
My Bank Withdrooling List was a list of every single thing I had ever wanted to withdraw from the Bank and bring home for us to eat. You know, things that make your mouth go all watery and your tummy start to lick its lips and drool too!
This was what I had on my list so far:
BANK WITHDROOLING LIST
1. Choco-loco Nutty Melts
2. Chocolate spread
3. Cheese and onion crisps
4. Fizzy cola pop
5. Pizzas
6. Fish fingers
7. Frozen chips
8. Chocolate biscuits
9. Things to make in the microwave so I don’t have to cook
10. Jam swiss roll (for Mum)
11. Butter (real butter, not the fake stuff in a tub)
12. Something green like peas so we can be healthy
13. Emergency pasta for when we run out of stuff
14. Kinder Eggs
When it was a Really Tricky Month and I got so hungry that I thought I might fade away, I loved looking at my list and dreaming that I had all of those things to eat right away.
Nobody knew about my list. Not even Mum, or Krish or Harriet – even though they were my best friends. It was embarrassing making lists about food you wished you could eat when everyone else was making lists about computer games and toys that they wanted for their birthdays and Christmas and Eid and Diwali and other special days.
It was my Golden Goal to bring all the things on my list home from the Bank one day. It hadn’t happened because normally the food the Bank gave us was serious – like bread and baked beans and potatoes and Weetabix. There weren’t any fun things like chocolate biscuits or crisps. But Mrs Patel always gave me and Ashley some treats as well, so for at least the week after a visit, we knew we’d have some chocolate.
Getting out a pencil, I closed my eyes and imagined what I would be eating right now if I could. The picture my mind came up with made my stomach drool extra hard. So I wrote it down:
15. Chocolate muffins
Then I snapped my Homework Diary shut and got ready for school just as quickly as I could. I was never, ever late for Breakfast Club, and today I wanted to be the first one there.
CHAPTER 3
Breakfast Club
There was one rule to being a member of Breakfast Club and that was you never talked about Breakfast Club. At least, not with anyone who didn’t go to Breakfast Club.
Our Breakfast Club at school was one of the best because Mrs Bell and Mr Ramjit ran it. Mrs Bell was our head teacher and Mr Ramjit was her deputy.
Mrs Bell was always super strict about Breakfast Club. Everyone had to get there by 8 a.m. and be sitting down by exactly 8.05 a.m., and everyone had to choose a piece of fruit, a drink, and have one bowl of cereal and a piece of toast with one spread on it.
I always chose a banana for my fruit if there were any left, any cereal that had chocolate in it, and chocolate spread or jam to go on my toast. Sometimes I wished I could have four pieces of toast and not just one. Especially on a Monday when we hadn’t had enough to eat at the weekend.
On Fridays at Breakfast Club, everyone got a treat! Nobody ever knew what the treat was going to be because Mrs Bell bought it the night before with her very own money. The best treat was donuts or cookies. The worst was cold pots of yoghurt! But none of us really minded. The most exciting thing was trying to guess what it might be.
I always tried to get to Breakfast Club super early because I didn’t want Krish and Harriet to see me going into the hall for it. They were lucky and had lots of food at home, so they didn’t need to go to Breakfast Club.
Krish and Harriet were my two best friends. We did everything together – except Breakfast Club.
Krish was the shortest – and skinniest – boy in our whole year. He wanted to be a spy when he grew up. I thought he would be good at it because he was so skinny that he could hide behind a lamp post if he needed to and the bad guys would never see him!
It was funny Krish was so skinny, because he never stopped eating. His pockets were always full of sweets and mints and football stickers, and he always had the best haircuts because he copied the styles of our favourite footballers.
Right now, our favourite footballer was Noah Equiano – the whole world called him The Equaliser because he always levelled any game he played in before he scored the winning goal. And the best thing about him was that he was born in our town and had gone to a school only twenty minutes away! Me and Krish kept telling our parents to transfer us to that other school, but they said we didn’t need to go to the same school as Noah Equiano to be as good at football as him. Parents don’t know anything sometimes.
Harriet wasn’t into football as much as me and Krish. She loved car racing and was always talking about circuits and lap times and horse-powers. She liked Equiano, but only because he came from our town. She thought Desiree Chadwick was much better because she was the first woman to win a Formula One Grand Prix in over forty years. Harriet loved arguing with us and wanted to be an inventor when she grew up. She was extra super-clever, so both me and Krish thought she could definitely become one.
I wished Krish and Harriet didn’t know that I was hungry a lot of the time, but they did. We never talked about it, but they still knew. And I wished I could play with them in the mornings instead of having to go to Breakfast Club, but I neede
d Breakfast Club to get the energy, so I pretended I didn’t come to school until later and I never told them about it.
“Morning, Nelson,” said Mr Ramjit as I walked into the hall.
“Morning, sir.” I grinned as I walked past him and grabbed the first banana I saw.
“Your favourite’s in today,” said Mrs Bell, giving me a nod. “Chocolate hoops,” she whispered as I grabbed a box. It wasn’t every day we had chocolate hoops! I was so hungry I could have eaten ten boxes, but I didn’t try to sneak another one and just went quickly over to Maureen, the dinner lady, to get myself some toast.
“What’ll it be this morning, Nelson?” she asked, holding a knife between the chocolate spread jar and the jam jar.
It was an important question, so I took a moment to work out what my stomach really wanted. It growled loudest at the thought of chocolate spread, so I chose that.
“Good lad,” said Maureen, nodding so hard it made her curly grey hairs look like they were having a disco but nobody else could hear the music.
I sat down in the spot I liked best, which was at the back of the hall. I ate the banana as quickly as I could and then reached out for the milk jug in the middle of the table.
“Hey, Nelson!”
“Hey, Lavinia!”
Lavinia came and sat next to me. She had bright orange hair that always looked as if it had been electrocuted.
Lavinia didn’t say anything else. She chewed on her food slowly and gave a loud gulp every seven seconds, then looked over at everyone in Breakfast Club like a giant, human owl.
“Hey, Nelson, what do you think Mrs Bell’s gonna get us tomorrow?” asked Leon as he gave a silent nod to Lavinia and then filled his mouth with an enormous bite of apple.
The Great (Food) Bank Heist Page 1
