This Is My Truth

by Yasmin Rahman

  19

  Mondays are probably my favourite day of the week as it marks the longest period I can go before another full day at home. There’s some of the usual Monday-morning joy within me as I get dressed for school, but there’s also a large pit of nervousness and anxiety. This weekend has been … weird. Not in a bad way. The opposite, I guess. I thought Abbu would kick off after the wedding yesterday, after hearing Auntie Kameela’s comments about Aisha, after he told me off for speaking up. But he was fine afterwards, even when we got back home. I was remembering that look he gave me, still a bit scared, but then he showed me that he’d hidden some pots of firni in his jacket pockets, just for me, and I couldn’t help but smile. Other than that one moment yesterday, he’s been so much calmer … so much nicer, this weekend. It’s been lovely.

  But that’s what’s causing the anxiety. I’m scared. I’m scared a new week will take that away. That everything is about to crumble again. I’m scared that I’ve gotten my hopes up for nothing. That this will be like all the other times Abbu was normal for a little while.

  There’s a clatter upstairs in Ismail’s room – something dropped on the floor. Ammi’s voice rises and says something to Ismail in a disapproving, though not angry, tone. I look out of the window as I eat my crumpet in the kitchen, loving the feeling of melted butter on my fingertips.

  Oh, crap. Abbu’s car.

  It’s still in the drive.

  I’d forgotten he doesn’t have a regular schedule any more. I try to remember if he’s mentioned any plans for today. If he’s on edge because of having to promote a show he’s leaving soon, the slightest thing could set him off. Something tiny like an object dropping in Ismail’s room …

  This weekend has been so good, I have to keep reminding myself, making myself hope, that it’s going to stick. That Abbu really will try to change, like he keeps promising Ammi. I don’t want anything to spoil the memory of this weekend. I can’t be here to see if things go downhill again.

  I shove the rest of the crumpet in my mouth, wipe my buttery fingers on my blazer and grab my bag from the foot of the stairs. I’m out of the house within seconds.

  There’s too much nervous energy in me to wait for Huda. I text her to meet me at school then start walking

  When I get to school, I decide to spend the time until Huda appears in the library. Maybe I can do some research for her Perfect Daughter plan. I wonder if there are any resources online on what makes a Perfect Daughter. Maybe I can get some tips myself. I walk towards the library and find myself in front of the notice board in the quad. I swear this thing is going to haunt my dreams. Today, the number 17 stands tall and proud. Seriously, who even changes the numbers on this? Which sad teacher gets in to school extra early just to change the card? Does anyone other than me even pay it any attention? I think I’m going to wreck it. On the last day, just before they chuck us off campus, I’m going to come here with a sledgehammer and bash this stupid notice board to pieces.

  ‘You got that?’ I mutter to the board. ‘I’m going to wreck you. Bash you once for each time you’ve taunted me.’

  I glare at the board before walking off.

  Not before giving it a little kick.

  Huda texts to say she’s running late, so I don’t even see her before registration. With all the family stuff over the weekend, I had forgotten about the prank war and the Burn Blog. It doesn’t seem like anyone else forgot though; it’s all they’re talking about. ‘Can you believe it?’ ‘I wonder what she’ll do.’ We sit in registration, waiting for Cleo to show up, waiting to see how she deals with it. A couple of boys, Dylan and Khalil, walk into the room chuckling and nudging each other, their hands hidden behind their back. They walk over to the far corner where Cleo and her coven usually sit. The boys go right up to the desk, glancing at Miss Hoover every few seconds to make sure she’s not looking. When I finally catch sight of their hands, I see that they’re each carrying a pile of mud in their hands. They must have got some soil from outside and wet it, because there’s been no proper rain in weeks. They take the mud and spread it all over the chair Cleo normally sits on, giggling like toddlers as they do. Everyone else in the room starts snickering too, but not loud enough for Miss Hoover to notice. She normally uses registration period to catch up on her marking.

  The boys finish their masterpiece by placing a couple of mud-covered dolls on the chair, just as Suzie and Imogen walk in. The entire room goes silent, eyes on the door, waiting to see if Cleo is behind her friends. The girls look awkwardly around the room before scuttling off towards the back, towards the messed-up chair.

  Cleo isn’t with them though.

  The realisation of this lands on everyone at the same time. I think I’m the only one who’s relieved. Even with the blog, and everyone making fun of Cleo, there’s a part of me that worries that if she had come in today, she’d be able to brush it off, to just reclaim her position of power, like she always does. And then she’d set her sights on me again, but more so, because she’d be desperate to get the attention off her. But she’s not here. I can relax. I can smile (and roll my eyes) at the display on the chair, and the way Imogen and Suzie stare at it, dumbfounded. Dylan and Khalil burst into laughter, and someone else pulls out their phone to film their reactions, thinking that they’re the next best thing. Suzie and Imogen stare at the chair for a second then look at each other, before sitting down on the two clean chairs next to it.

  ‘Where’s Poopypants?’ Khalil asks them, trying to get the mud off his hands.

  A titter goes around the classroom.

  ‘Grow up,’ Suzie retorts.

  ‘She’s not in today,’ Imogen says. There’s a sharpness to her voice that tells me she’s still not over being kept out of the loop, not knowing this secret beforehand.

  ‘Let me guess,’ Dylan pipes up, wiping his hands on his trousers. ‘At home with diarrhoea?’

  ‘Or out buying toy boxes?’ Khalil suggests.

  The bell rings, saving the girls from having to reply. Miss Hoover shoos everyone out of the room. My phone vibrates in my pocket and I pull it out. It’s a text from Huda.

  OH MY GOD. You HAVE to see this. Come to the science block NOWWW!!!

  It takes a lot to excite Huda this much, so it must be something big. I would text her back, but I know that if she hasn’t told me now, that means it’s something she wants me to see myself. Luckily I have biology first thing, so I’m going there anyway.

  There’s a crowd at the entrance when I get there. Mostly from Year Eleven. Mostly not in my biology class. I get up on my tiptoes to see.

  ‘Amani!’ Huda screams from inside. I look for her, but don’t spot her anywhere. Next thing I know, I’m being dragged by the arm right through the crowd.

  ‘Huda!’ I say, when we’re finally out of the crowd. She pulls me close. We’re just inside the building. I look to see what the fuss is all about.

  And …

  Holy shit.

  There’s a long blue tarp along the floor of the narrow corridor, covered in water and soap.

  ‘It’s a freaking slip ’n’ slide!’ Huda squeals. At the same time, someone next to us takes a run-up and then flops stomach first onto the tarp, with what looks like plastic trays from the canteen taped all over their body. There’s a crack-smash sound as the trays connect with the tarp and she slides down the corridor, whooping as she goes. Everyone around us cheers too.

  ‘Oh my God,’ I laugh. ‘How …? How on earth did someone set this up without being caught?’

  Huda shrugs. ‘Fuck knows. It was like this when I got here. You gonna have a go?’

  ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  ‘Why not?’ she asks seriously.

  ‘Wait, you’re gonna have a go?’

  ‘Well, duh. This is way too epic not to be a part of! I’ve been waiting, like, five minutes for a turn.’

  I stare at her, flabbergasted. ‘But … but …’ There’s too many things I want to say to her; I don’t know how to m
ake her see how stupid this is. Surely she should realise how stupid this is. ‘Backpack is gonna go crazy,’ I tell her. ‘He already found out that it was Ezra Fitzgerald who did the whole eBay thing. I heard he was in isolation on Friday. There’s no way they’ll let this go. Especially considering people are gonna miss class. I’m already late for biology.’

  ‘Oh God, loosen up, Amani,’ Huda says, rolling her eyes. ‘It’s the last few weeks of school. What better time to do stuff like this?’

  ‘What happened to wanting to be better?’ I ask her. ‘The Perfect Daughter plan?’

  She looks at me for a second, expressionless, quiet. I’ve finally got to her.

  ‘Huda, c’mon, you’re up next!’ a boy behind her, someone from the X band, calls impatiently.

  Huda looks at him, and then back at me. I can see the indecision in her face.

  ‘When are we ever going to get the chance to go on a slip ’n’ slide in a school corridor again?’ she asks me.

  ‘Why do you even want to? Your clothes are gonna get soaked.’

  ‘Oh nah, don’t worry, we got that covered,’ the boy says. He rummages through a bag on the floor, pulls out a rolled-up white bundle and presents it to me proudly. I stare at him, confused. He unrolls the bundle and holds it out in its full form. It’s a white jumpsuit, the kind exterminators or forensics people wear. A full-body overall.

  ‘Genius, innit?’ Huda says. She takes off her blazer and starts putting the jumpsuit on.

  ‘Huda, c’mon …’ I try. I don’t even know why I’m so bothered. It’s not like I’m going to get in trouble. But something about the idea of Huda getting detention, or worse, makes me anxious. I think it might be because of everything she said to me the other day, how she’s worried about Ali and Nafisah not loving her as much if she’s not the Perfect Daughter. I didn’t believe the idea of it when she told me, and I still don’t believe it now. But I saw how much she believed it, how much she wanted to change, to become the image of this Perfect Daughter she’s conjured in her head. And I also know Huda – how self-destructive she can be.

  I have to convince her it’s worth it.

  ‘Huda, c’mon! You’re holding everyone up. We gotta get through all these people before Backpack comes,’ the boy says.

  I open my mouth to pour my heart out to Huda like I had planned. But she just launches herself onto the tarp.

  ‘WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE?’ a deep booming teacher voice roars over the heads of the crowd, as Huda’s halfway down the tarp. Everyone shrieks and starts jostling around. I can’t see Huda any more. Can’t see how far she got. I should wait for her. I should stand by and stick up for her while she gets punished for taking part in this.

  But I don’t.

  I follow my class down the hall in the opposite direction, to biology.

  20

  In class, the slip ’n’ slide is all anyone can talk about. You can tell Mr Cavanaugh is at his wits’ end. He’s shouted ‘BE QUIET!’ around fifteen times already, no lie. I’ve been keeping an eye on my phone, waiting for Huda to text me, to tell me she’s been suspended, or sent to Mr Bach’s office. But nothing comes. I can’t tell if that means she got away with it, or whether she’s just mad at me for being a spoilsport earlier.

  I try to concentrate on what Mr Cavanaugh is writing on the board, but there’s a giant distracting feeling of nausea in my stomach. I can see the pile of papers on his desk. The practice exams from last week. The ones that have been graded and will indicate how the real exam we’re due to take in three weeks is likely to go. The grade that will decide my future. I’ve been waiting for him to give them out for thirty minutes. With the previous tests we’ve done, he’s given them out at the beginning of the lesson, let us read over them and ask questions, then we went over the things people got wrong. But today … he’s in a bad mood. Someone said he slipped on the water from the slip ’n’ slide. I heard someone else say he was going to sue. Who knows what’s true? The only thing I know is that I’m freaking out about the grade that’s on my paper.

  Mr Cavanaugh tries to control the class, but even he knows when to admit defeat. I’ve noticed a change in atmosphere recently. More people have become like Huda was this morning. They’ve gone all rebellious, just because school is ending. Surely it should be the opposite – this should be the time we buckle down. It’s the last chance to make a difference. I guess that’s the thing though, isn’t it? Everyone but me has everything figured out. They’re all clever enough to get good grades without really trying. I don’t remember the last time Huda sat down and revised for herself, rather than just to help me or keep me company. Me, on the other hand – I’ve had to cram in hours and hours of revision each day, just to try to keep up. I feel like my whole life is studying. Studying at school, going home to study, and then a few hours’ sleep before waking up to do it all over again. I’m hoping praying wishing that I’ll scrape through. I just need to get decent enough grades to get into A levels. Next year it will be easier. There won’t be so many subjects. I can really focus. It’ll be better.

  Finally, twenty minutes before the lesson ends, Mr Cavanaugh begins handing out the papers. He calls everyone up one by one, sits them down at his desk and has a conversation with them. Oh God, I thought he was just going to hand them back and let us get on with it. I can’t sit there and talk to him about why I suck so bad at science.

  I watch as student after student goes up to collect their paper. Trevor Equiano sits and chats with him for nearly five whole minutes, while Max Murray gets a smile and a ‘well done’ before returning to his seat. He so got a 9. I can see it in his smug smile. I watch everyone’s faces as they go up; no one seems nearly as terrified as I am. No one returns with a sad face. Maybe he marked generously. Stacey Lineham, who sits next to me, is trying to get me to talk to her. To gossip with her. She wants to know what I think about the blog, about Cleo. Stacey is generally a chatterbox, so this isn’t new, but she’s really grating on me today. Huda says her voice sounds like a crying puppy and I can totally hear it now.

  And then Mr Cavanaugh calls my name. I stand up without even realising my body is moving. Stacey is still trying to talk to me, but I’m focused on the front desk. Mr Cavanaugh is looking at me, but when I make eye contact, he looks down at the paper in his hand. At my paper.

  Uh-oh.

  I sit down opposite him and become acutely aware that anyone trying to listen to our conversation could eavesdrop easily.

  ‘OK, so, Amani, here’s your test back.’ He hands me the papers. There’s a big red 3 on the front.

  Shit.

  ‘Did you study at all?’ he asks in the most condescending tone ever.

  ‘Yes!’ I say, desperately, the reality of this grade sinking in. ‘I studied so much.’ Tears prick at the corners of my eyes and I feel so pathetic.

  Mr Cavanaugh sighs. ‘We had a conversation at the start of the year, didn’t we?’ he asks. ‘Where you said you were hoping to go on to be a vet. Is that still the case?’

  I nod meekly.

  He sighs again, looks at his watch. ‘Judging from this practice paper, and the others we’ve done, as well as looking at your mocks … Amani, I think you need to seriously reconsider your future plans. You’d need top grades in your biology and chemistry A levels, and I don’t see how that can happen if you’re barely scraping by now. I’m sorry to be blunt, but I don’t want you to waste your time.’

  His words rattle in my head. It’s basically my worst fear come true. How is Abbu going to react when he finds out? Even if I don’t tell him about this, he’s going to know when I’m not allowed to take any of the sciences at A level. Could I lie to him about it? And also, God, a 3. If I can’t pass the subject I’ve studied most for, then what chance do I have with the rest of my GCSEs?

  This was bound to happen. I know I should have said something when the idea of me following in Abbu’s footsteps first came up. Even if it felt like I had no choice, I should have forced myself to speak out
. I can’t help but wonder what things would be like, what life would be like, if I had just said no to Abbu back then.

  There’s a tiny voice in my head saying, ‘Imagine what it would have been like if you’d pursued film-making, like you really wanted to. Like you still want to.’ Would I be happy now? Would this 3 be a 9 instead? But most importantly, how would that have affected Abbu? I might have been happy in that alternative universe, but how would he have been?

  ‘Is there anything I can do?’ I ask Mr Cavanaugh desperately. ‘I can get a tutor? Can’t you just tell me what topics are gonna come up on the actual exam? If I focus really hard on those, I can do it. I know I can do it. Please, Mr Cavanaugh, I need to pass this subject. I can’t … If I don’t …’ I run out of steam, run out of words, because I can’t even verbalise that. If I don’t pass science … If Abbu finds out …

  ‘I’m sorry, Amani. You know I can’t give you information like that. I myself don’t know what’s going to be on that paper. And cheating isn’t the way forward.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’ I ask, the tears so close to falling now. I have to remind myself that I’m in class. ‘I should give up?’

  He sighs again. ‘I’m just saying you need to have a serious think about what you want to do with the rest of your life. You could continue this path, sure, but it won’t be easy. If you’re so keen to work with animals, maybe a veterinary nurse would be an option. I suggest you book a meeting at the guidance centre. Plus there’s the careers fair this week. Maybe you’ll get some ideas there. I just don’t want you to get your hopes up and be sorely disappointed when you get your results.’