The Boy at the Back of the Class

by Onjali Q. Raúf

  Josie watched angrily as Liam handed the ball to Mr. Irons with a grin.

  As we watched Mr. Irons walk off with the ball under his arm, the bell rang for the end of recess. Brendan the Bully smiled at us.

  “See you at lunch, then!” he said, and ran off.

  But at lunchtime the new boy was nowhere to be seen, and for the rest of the day, Ms. Hemsi came out with him, so Brendan the Bully stayed away from us. When school ended, Tom had to run off to catch the bus because it was one of his brothers’ birthdays. The rest of us decided that, instead of going to see Mr. Irons, we would go and find Mrs. Khan to see if she could help us. Even though Ms. Hemsi had already spoken to her about what had happened, we also knew that she didn’t know the whole story because Ms. Hemsi hadn’t been there. So telling the new boy to follow us, we went and spoke to Mrs. Khan.

  She listened to us in silence and then, when we were finished, she shook her head. “Ridiculous,” she muttered, and I think she was talking to herself. “Some people just can’t see past the end of their own noses!” She looked up at us and smiled. “Not to worry! All of you come with me!”

  As we walked to the other side of the school to reach Mr. Irons’s classroom, I thought about what Mrs. Khan had said about noses and their ends. I touched my own nose and squashed it down, because I didn’t ever want to have a nose so big that I couldn’t see what was happening at the end of it. That was probably what made Mr. Irons give detention to people who didn’t deserve it! Michael saw me and asked what I was doing, so I told him. But he said my nose was too small and flat to ever get in the way of my eyes, so I didn’t have anything to worry about.

  When we got to Mr. Irons’s office, Mrs. Khan told us to wait outside. We couldn’t hear anything except a loud buzzing, as if there were two giant bumblebees on the other side of the door. But after a minute, Mr. Irons came out and stared down at Michael, the new boy, and me with his nose thrust in the air. Maybe he was trying to see if he could see past the end of it better that way.

  He gave Josie her ball back and didn’t say anything else to us, but from that day on, whenever he saw any of us, his eyes would narrow, and his nose would whistle ever so quietly. You don’t really need to speak someone else’s language to know when they don’t like you very much. So even though the new boy couldn’t speak many English words, he knew we had to keep ourselves—and Josie’s ball—out of the way of Mr. Irons and his horrible whistling nose.

  That weekend, I decided I wanted to ask Mum more of my eleven questions to see if she knew the answers.

  I waited until Sunday morning arrived, because that was when I knew Mum wouldn’t be too tired and I could ask her lots of things, instead of just one or two things. The only problem is, I had to be extra, extra patient, because every Sunday morning, my mum spends at least one hour reading the Sunday morning paper. It’s not a real Sunday paper because Mum never buys them—she says you can buy a whole meal for the price of a Sunday paper these days. So instead, all through the week, she collects two of the biggest newspapers from the reference section of the library, and then on Saturday night, she brings them all home and gets them ready for the next day. She opens them out at the center and puts them in order—so that Monday’s papers are on the top and Saturday’s papers are on the bottom, and then folds them together like a big book. It’s too heavy to hold up and read twelve big newspapers in one go, so Mum always reads it bent over the kitchen table as if she’s doing homework.

  I don’t like disturbing Mum when she’s reading the paper because she only gets to do it once a week, so I quickly finished my toast and milk and silently stared at her as she finished her breakfast. But grown-ups take an awfully long time eating breakfast when they don’t have to go to work, and on this morning, Mum seemed to be moving so slowly that you could hardly call it moving at all. I could hear the ticking of the kitchen clock getting louder and louder and my fingers and legs getting bored of waiting.

  As soon as Mum took the last bite of her toast, I decided I couldn’t wait for her any longer and asked, “Mum, where’s Syria?”

  The question made her look up at me immediately.

  “What did you say, darling?”

  “Just…do you know where Syria is, Mum?” I said, more quietly.

  My mum pushed up her glasses and looked at me with her head to one side.

  Then she said, “Syria is a country very far away from here, my love. Why do you want to know?”

  I shrugged. “That’s where the new boy in our class is from.”

  “Ah,” she said, nodding. “Okay. Tell you what. Why don’t you go and get the atlas and I’ll show you?”

  I nodded and ran to the living room, trying to remember where I had last put the atlas. It’s hard finding a book in our house because we have so many of them. Mum loves collecting old books and reading them again and again. She takes the copies that are about to be thrown away by her library—so you could say she rescues them. The only problem is, we don’t really have space for any more because our rooms are covered with piles of old books. Even the bathroom!

  The atlas was big and Mum always kept the very big books on the bottom shelf of our bookcase. So, I climbed over the back of the sofa and crawled down into the narrow gap headfirst, to see if it was there. Luckily it was! I grabbed it and pulled it out. The atlas is one of the oldest books in the house and is almost half as tall as me and just as heavy, so I dragged it along behind me into the kitchen and placed it with a bang onto the kitchen table.

  I watched as Mum flipped to the index and then to a page near the middle. “Here you go,” she said, turning the map around to show me. “This atlas is a little old, but I don’t think the borders have changed that much….”

  I let my finger meet hers where it said the word SYRIA in capital letters, and looked at the strange shape of the country the new boy had run away from. It looked like a woman yawning and wearing a tiara and whose hair was being blown in the wind. Except she was all pointy.

  “Mum?”

  “Hmm?”

  “What fruits do people from Syria like the most?” I crossed my fingers and toes, hoping that she would know the answer, because if she did, then I would know the answers to three of my original eleven questions! I had found out where the new boy was from and what language he spoke—and as a bonus had seen what his country looked like on a map and learned that he was good at soccer.

  “Well let’s see…I don’t really know…I guess the same fruits we grow here. And ones that originate from other countries, like dates and pomegranates. Your aunty Selma used to make chicken with pomegranate seeds, remember?”

  I shook my head.

  “Ah. Well, it was quite a while ago. It was before your dad…had to leave us…but I think the dish she used to make was a Syrian one. Or was it Lebanese? I can’t remember. But here, you see…,” she said, pointing to a country next to Syria that had the word LEBANON on it. “Lebanon and Syria are right next door to each other, so I guess they must eat the same kind of fruits.”

  “Can we ring and ask her?”

  My mum smiled. “I can ask her the next time she calls. Remember, she lives here now.” Mum pointed to a much larger country lying above Syria called TURKEY. “It’s a bit far and it’ll be expensive to call her right now. But listen. We’ll go and see her one day soon, and when we do, you can ask her and Uncle Turgay all about it in person!”

  I nodded but didn’t say anything because I suddenly missed my aunty Selma an awful lot. It’s funny how you can go for long bits of time without even thinking of someone, and then suddenly feel all wrong because you realize they’re not around anymore. I feel like that about my dad sometimes. It feels horrible when I go to bed and realize that I haven’t thought about him all day—not even for a minute. But I always remember him at night before I go to sleep, because that’s when he used to tell me stories and do funny patterns o
n my forehead so that it tickled. It’s different with my aunty Selma, though, because she’s not my real aunty. So I think it might be okay if I don’t think about her every day.

  She’s my mum’s best friend because they like laughing at the same things. She has dimples just like I do, and she always wears lots of sparkling bracelets and necklaces. She used to live two floors below us with Uncle Turgay, and every Sunday night, they would invite Mum and Dad and me down for dinner and give us all sorts of special things to eat—like bread with spinach inside it and a special kind of tea that came in a small glass and didn’t have any milk in it. I remember the tea because Dad let me taste it once, but I didn’t like it at all!

  But then, after Dad died, Aunty Selma and Uncle Turgay said they were leaving because the Economy was being bad. Grown-ups are always talking about the Economy—especially in shops and at bus stops and on the news. And they always sound angry or sad when they talk about it. I hate the Economy because it made Aunty Selma and Uncle Turgay suddenly disappear—just like Dad. They send us pictures and boxes of candy sometimes in the post. And even though I like getting things from them because the stamps are interesting, I can tell it makes Mum sad. Now there’s an old lady living in their apartment and she never speaks to anyone. I don’t think Mum could be best friends with her even if she wanted to.

  I thought about my question again.

  “So, people from Syria like pom-uh…pom-uh-grin…”

  “Pom-uh-gran-it,” Mum corrected me.

  I nodded and said the word out loud three times. But sometimes I find it easier to remember what a word sounds like when I can see how it’s spelled, so I asked my mum for the spelling.

  “Well…it’s spelled a little differently from how we say it out loud, but let’s see….” And after scrunching up her face for a second, which meant she was trying to see the word in her mind, too, she said, “Think of it like one half of a pom-pom and a delicious letter ‘e’ that your Gran ate! So pom-e-gran-ate!”

  I love it when Mum comes up with ways to help me remember how to spell or say a word. Last year I had to learn the word “conundrum” for a spelling test but kept forgetting how many nuns or “n”s there were in it. And then Mum told me to close my eyes and picture a man called Co and a lonely nun, banging on a drum. And I’ve never spelled it wrong since!

  I thought about pomegranates and how they might be Ahmet’s favorite food and how he might be missing them.

  So I asked, “Mum, can we get one?”

  “One what, darling?”

  “A pomegranate?” I said.

  “Hmmm…They’re a bit expensive…and you can’t find them everywhere….”

  “How expensive?”

  “I’m not sure. About one pound fifty, I think.”

  “What? Nearly two pounds just for one?” I cried out. You could buy a whole box of pens and an eraser for that much money!

  Mum laughed. “Yes, darling. For one. They come a long way to get to our grocery stores. And secondly, a pomegranate is also a really special fruit. It’s like millions of tiny fruit all hidden away inside a small ball, and you can eat it for days.”

  “Oh,” I said, trying hard to think of what millions of one fruit hidden inside a ball would look like.

  She looked at me and then smiled. “Do you want to see if we can find one? Shall we make that our adventure for today?”

  I jumped up and nodded. “But can we get two?” I asked.

  “And why would you need two?”

  I think Mum already knew the answer because her lips looked like they were about to smile. I didn’t think she’d lecture me, even though pomegranates are so expensive, but you can never be too sure with grown-ups. Sometimes they don’t get mad even when you’ve done something you know you shouldn’t have. And at other times, when you think you haven’t done anything that bad at all, they punish you twice as much. Michael says it’s so they can keep us on our toes. But I’ve never stood on my toes when I’m in trouble, so I don’t see how that works.

  “I want to get two so that I can give one to the new boy,” I said. “I’ve been giving him my lemon candies and chocolates after school, but he didn’t like them that much. But then I gave him an apple and an orange, and he liked those better. And Ms. Hemsi said that he’s from Syria and that he only speaks…he only speaks…” I hesitated, trying to remember what Ms. Hemsi had said.

  “Arabic?” Mum asked, trying to help.

  I shook my head. “Kur…Kur…Kurt-wish…,” I guessed, knowing it was wrong.

  “Ah. Kurdish.”

  I nodded.

  “I see.” I could tell Mum was interested in what I was saying because she had leaned back in her chair and folded her arms.

  “And I thought maybe he’d like a fruit he used to have at home all the time—before the bullies dropped bombs on everything and made him run away.”

  I stopped, worried that Mum would think that it was silly and maybe a waste of money buying food only to give it away. But she didn’t. Instead she said, “I think that’s a brilliant idea! Go and get ready, and we’ll head out on a pomegranate hunt!”

  I got ready so quickly that morning that I think I must have beaten a world record. In five minutes I had pulled on my adventure jeans and my old Tintin sweatshirt; packed my backpack with a water bottle, an apple, and a banana; put on my rain boots; brushed my hair; AND emptied my piggy bank. I had exactly four pounds and twenty pence saved up, so I took three pounds, hoping that, just like my astronaut school supply set, I could find two pomegranates that were on sale.

  First, we went to the fruit stall that was at the end of our main street. It’s run by a man and a woman named Mr. and Mrs. Marbles who like to shout, “Only a paaaaan! Fruit and veg, only a paaaaaan,” to all the people who walk by. Their faces are always red and smiling, and they wear giant square-shaped green fanny packs around their waists, which look empty but jingle loudly when they walk.

  Mrs. Marbles helps people pick out the fruit they want, and Mr. Marbles puts them in a bag. We always buy our fruit and vegetables from them and I’ve never known them not to have anything we need. But when we asked them if they had a pomegranate, they both shook their heads at us and told us to try the grocery store.

  So, we walked up and over the hill to the grocery store. They had a fruit section that was as long as our house, but Mum couldn’t see a pomegranate anywhere. We went over to a man who was stacking carrots and humming to himself and asked him if they had any pomegranates in store. He walked us over to a small box, but it was empty.

  “Sorry, love, looks like we’ve run out. You might want to try the bigger store on the other side of town.”

  “Ah. Okay. Thank you.” Mum looked down at me and sighed. Then she said, “Come on! The adventure continues!”

  We hopped onto a bus and after half an hour landed at an even bigger grocery store. This one had a parking lot as big as a soccer field and aisles as long as the halls in school! But we still couldn’t find a pomegranate anywhere.

  “Let’s ask someone!” said Mum. “They must have them….”

  We walked around and found a man dressed in a suit who was standing by the sandwich section. He had a label on his jacket that said, FRANK SMITH, FLOOR MANAGER. I didn’t know what a Floor Manager was, but I guessed he had to make sure the floor was clean and help anyone who fell down get back up again. But Mr. Smith didn’t look like the kind of person who would help anyone get up from a floor. He had lips that went downward as if they’d never smiled, and his hair looked wet as if a large bottle of oil had fallen on top of it. He was staring at a clipboard and muttering angrily to himself.

  “Excuse me…Frank, is it? Hi,” said Mum, smiling.

  The man gave my mum a cold nod before continuing to fill out a long form.

  “We’re looking for some pomegranates but can’t seem to find an
y,” said Mum, smiling even more.

  “We don’t sell them here,” said Frank, still looking at his clipboard.

  “Oh really? Any idea where we could find some?” continued Mum.

  “No.”

  My mum looked at him for a few seconds and then said, in her warmest voice, “Thank you. You’ve really outdone yourself in helping us today. Have a wonderful day!” And grabbing my hand, she walked away.

  “Mum, why were you so nice to him?” I asked. “He was horrible! He didn’t try to help us even a little bit!”

  “Because you should never be horrible to someone who’s being horrible to you,” said Mum. “Otherwise they win by making you just as bad as them. Now, come on. Let’s get back on the bus! There’s another place I know we can try.”

  By this time, I was getting hungry, so while we were waiting for the next bus, I ate my banana.

  “Hmmm,” said my mum, looking at her watch. It was nearly two o’clock and there were some dark gray clouds gathering in the sky. “I’m afraid the next stop will have to be our last one, darling. It looks like it’s going to start raining in a bit.”

  A few seconds later, a very full bus pulled up in front of us and we squeezed on. I clung to Mum’s coat because there weren’t any empty seats and waited for our stop. I was worried, because if this was our last try, then I had just one chance left to find a pomegranate—so I crossed my fingers and my toes and made a wish that we would.

  The next place felt like an awfully long way away, and when we finally got there, it was filled with so many people that we could hardly walk properly. There were lots and lots of market stalls in the middle of a big road, all selling fish and meat and bedsheets and long gold chains. There was a man with a microphone who was trying to sell perfumes like a game show host by shouting, “Roll up! Roll up!” And next to him was a woman shouting, “Peter never picked potatoes as good as these before! Buy ’em now before they go!” I wondered who Peter was and how much money he made picking potatoes, but then I could smell onions and burgers being cooked somewhere, which made my tummy rumble. I love burgers—especially ones that have lots of fried onions and ketchup on them. But I wanted to save my money for the pomegranates, so I scrunched up my nose and tried not to smell anything at all.