You Must Be Layla

by Yassmin Abdel-Magied

  ‘Oi!’ Ethan yelled, annoyed, knocking Baz’s hand off his head. ‘You don’t let me touch your hair, mate. Don’t touch my wonder-curls!’

  Baz laughed, smirking. ‘All right, all right! Anyway, it’s cold out here. What’s with this wind? Let’s get inside!’

  The herd of students thundered up the stairs, and for a moment, Layla turned around to look back at the path, wondering what unspoken truths they had left behind.

  CHAPTER 13

  LAYLA was nervous. Mr Gilvarry was a great mentor, but she hadn’t come up with a single idea for this project that would work, and she knew that he would ask. The teacher was late today though, as he often was when class was in the afternoon. Layla stuffed her hands in her pockets, fidgeting.

  ‘Oi, Laylz!’ Seb was sitting next to her today, hissing her name from his stool on the other side of the work bench. The class was still quite noisy given Mr G hadn’t arrived yet and there was an argument about who was getting to control the music today, given Baz had already plugged his iPhone in, but it was technically Tony’s day.

  ‘Laylz.’

  She tried to ignore him.

  ‘Laylz! Laylz!! QUEEN Laylz!’

  ‘What?’ Layla snapped. But if she was going to reply, she might as well reply to Queen.

  Seb leaned toward her, eyes darting from side to side, furtively.

  ‘Oi.’ His voice was lower, more measured. Layla leaned toward Seb, almost involuntarily. ‘What?’ Her voice was lower too, but still annoyed.

  Seb smiled and then from behind his back, he brought out a packet of lollies. ‘Want a gummy worm?’ He grinned, the gap between his two front teeth on full display. ‘They’re delishhhh!’

  Layla leaned back onto her stool, chuckling. ‘You’re a nincompoop, Seb. But sure, I’ll have a gummy worm!’ She stuffed her right hand into the offered packet, grabbed a couple and pulled them out. ‘Oh, the sour ones too!’ They were definitely the best. ‘Thanks, Seb, I needed that.’

  ‘I know, I could tell. Your face was sourer than those worms! Cheer up! You’ll be fine, whatever it is.’

  Layla’s smile fell slightly, although it didn’t disappear completely. It might not always be fine, but at least she had friends who would look out for her. She had never really thought she would make friends she trusted who weren’t Muslim, not until she met Adam anyway. Not because she didn’t like them or anything, but, well, she’d never really known any. But it turned out that even if non-Muslims didn’t know what it was like to be her, some would at least try to understand.

  Layla’s shoulder’s slumped. Rah, she was really going deep. Who was she kidding? Seb had just given her gummy worms, not a therapy session. She was being so extra right now. Plus, she’d lied to them about being allowed to go to the party on the weekend. They wouldn’t understand that.

  Layla clasped her hands together, elbows on the workbench, savouring the texture of the gummy worms in her mouth and ignoring the nagging voice that told her to deal with the issues she’d locked in the vault. Nope!

  Focusing on the gummy worms, the sour tang of the coating tingled her tastebuds and she ran her tongue over the ridges of the worms, trying to get to every single bit of that sour-sugary stuff that made them so very delicious. Without thinking, Layla swallowed them all, in one go.

  Oh – God – Ya – Allah!

  Layla tried to cough, but there was too much gummy worm stuck in her throat. She choked slightly, and her eyes bulged as she tried to force them down her throat, attempting to swallow over and over and over. Was she going to choke to death, here in the tech building, over a bundle of gummy worms?! A single tear threatened, partly out of stress and partly out of bewilderment. Layla gripped the edge of the workbench to try to calm herself down. She closed her eyes, gently, so as not to disturb the tears pooling, and silently prayed.

  Ya Allah. Please don’t let me die by choking on gummy worms. I will do ANYTHING. Literally anything.

  Layla opened her eyes and tried to swallow one more time. Somehow, this time, it worked.

  ALHAMDULILAH! Allah, THANKS FOR ANSWERING MY PRAYERS SO QUICKLY!

  The worms slid down her throat as if nothing had happened. It was either because of the praying, or the fact that they had moulded together slightly. Either way, she was grateful for the ability to breathe again.

  ‘You all right there?’ Seb piped up from next to her.

  Layla turned quickly and looked at him with suspicion. Surely no one had noticed what just happened. She had tried to stay very, very cool.

  ‘What do you mean?’ Layla asked cautiously.

  ‘Oh well, you just looked like you were gonna die, choking on the gummy worms and all.’ Seb gestured around the classroom. ‘I mean, we all saw it!’

  Layla looked back at the rest of the classroom and noticed what had happened during hear near-death experience. Every single person in the class was facing her; some had their phones out and had clearly been recording the incident, and some were just giggling. ‘Wait, you all saw that?’ Layla asked, incredulous.

  ‘Course we did!’ Baz yelled out from across the room. ‘OMG, gurl, you looked like you were gonna die! The Queen, taken down by a mere worm!’

  Other voices joined in: ‘I got the best bit on Snapchat, and this filter makes it look WILD!’

  The entire room began bubbling with chuckles and guffaws.

  Layla didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. She snuck a glance over at Ethan, who was looking at her with a bemused smile. Their eyes met, and he shrugged his shoulders, as if to say: ‘Well, that’s that then, isn’t it?’

  Layla smiled back. Then, from deep within her, a giggle escaped. Relaxing, she joined the shared joy. She might as well laugh too.

  The whole class was still laughing when Mr Gilvarry finally arrived. He dawdled in through the door, then stopped, surveying the scene in front of him: a roomful of students bent over, slapping their legs, clapping, heads back, laughing furiously. They weren’t even laughing at Layla any more either. The laughter was like a contagious disease – it didn’t really matter who started it, but now everyone had the giggles. In a way, since Layla had started laughing too, it almost felt like a joke she was a part of, not the butt of.

  ‘Well, well, well, what do we have here?’ Mr Gilvarry said, his voice booming. His beard twitched – it looked almost like he was about to join in. As he made his way toward the front of the room, the class quietened down and everyone readjusted into their seats.

  ‘Well?’ Mr Gilvarry asked. ‘Nobody wants to let me in on the joke? Okay then,’ he continued, clearly not expecting anyone to let him in on anything, ‘I’ll just have to get on with it, shall I?’

  As he took the attendance on his iPad, Layla remembered why she had been dreading this class and the smile disappeared from her face. How was she supposed to tell Mr Gilvarry she still had no idea what to work on for the competition? Maybe he would forget that she was entering, forget that she had told him she would come up with a great idea …

  ‘Layla!’ Gilvarry had barely taken a breath after roll call when he called out her name. ‘Everyone else, continue working on your ideas for your Term 1 projects,’ he said, as he walked to Layla’s workbench.

  Oh dear. It seemed like there was no chance of getting away with it at all.

  ‘Layla, Layla, Layla.’ Gilvarry stood in front of her, and although this was a conversation between the two of them, the entire class was now very interested. Out of the corner of her eye, Layla could see almost everyone eavesdropping. Everyone except for Matty, of course – he was on Peter’s team and clearly had a lot of work to do, his head buried in the sketchbook in front of him. Layla wondered what he was working on. She squinted in his direction, but her efforts to spy on Matty were interrupted.

  ‘Layla, are you listening to me?’ Gilvarry asked, and Layla startled and refocused on Gilvarry’s face. ‘What have you been working on?’

  Her mind froze, and so Layla blurted out the first thing that came to min
d. ‘GUMMY WORMS!’ she burst. ‘I’m working on gummy worms, yeh …’

  Sniggers made their way around the room. Gilvarry looked at her, his moustache twitching. ‘Gummy worms? I’m not sure I understand, Layla. What do you mean?’

  YA. NHAR. ABYAD. How was she going to get herself out of this one? She’d said gummy worms because they were the first thing that popped into her mind, obviously because she’d almost just died choking on them. But how on earth were they relevant to a robotics competition? And now the whole class was listening, so there was no way she could back out. She had to roll with it.

  Make something up!

  She tried to pretend this was one of those games they’d played in drama at her old school, where you had to improvise a character on the spot, based off a random word or instruction.

  ‘Um, well, you know … I wanted to make something that could be a robot and that you can eat as well, so that it’s not, like, dangerous for children and society, you know?’

  Layla searched her mind quickly, thinking of all the random bits of research she’d done in the past few days. She remembered something about silicon parts, and that was kind of related to gummy worms. Maybe she would give that a go.

  ‘You know how you can have those rubbery things, like act-act-actumacators …’

  ‘An actuator? Like the part of the robot that moves?’ Gilvarry clarified.

  ‘Yes, yes, an actuator!’ Layla quickly jumped on the word. She had no idea what it meant really, but she was sure she could make it work. ‘Yeh, so I saw there were actuators made out of rubber and silicon and stuff. I thought to myself, those things look delish! But I can’t eat them, you know? What if we could make actuators that you could eat! Then it’s, like …’ Layla paused. I mean, why would anyone want to make an edible robot? Gosh, making stuff up on the spot was hard. She was clearly a terrible candidate for the mafia. What did the mafia even do? She’d heard something on a TV show once …

  LAYLA, you’re getting sidetracked again!

  Where was she? Oh yeh, gummy worms.

  ‘… then it’s, like, good for the environment, and you can buy these actuators for children to be a part of their robots, like an accessory for a robot, you know, and when they get bored of them, rather than throwing them out, you can just … eat it!’ With that, Layla threw her hands up with a flourish.

  Eek! She held her breath, waiting for the verdict. What was Mr Miyagi-Gilvarry going to say?

  Layla saw Gilvarry chuckle while he stroked his beard. She couldn’t tell if he was laughing because the idea was so ridiculous and he loved it, or because the idea was just so ridiculous. Maybe he thought it was genius. More likely, he thought it was the most harebrained idea he had ever heard … but maybe that’s what made it genius?

  The room was still. The air felt hot, too hot. Layla realised she was still holding her breath, and after a few more moments, she cracked.

  ‘Sir?!’ she asked. ‘What do you think?? You’re killing me, sir!’

  Gilvarry’s eyes twinkled. ‘Well, Layla, it isn’t quite the project I thought you were going to come up with. I’m not totally sure it fits within the piece of advice I gave you either, to pick something that will be useful to you.’

  Layla’s eyes started to drop. The gamble hadn’t paid off!

  But Gilvarry wasn’t finished yet. ‘So, on first glance, it seems like an awful, doomed experiment, I’ll be very honest with you, lassy.’

  Yeh, clearly he hated it.

  ‘But!’ His tone changed. ‘But, I guess, you’ve got my interest piqued! I’ve never heard of an edible robot before. I think the idea sounds like it has the potential to be quite … delicious!’ He smiled at the pun, then continued. ‘I think it’s certainly interesting enough to warrant some more investigating. You also might need to find a way to deal with hygiene so it’s properly edible,’ Gilvarry mused, before he turned to the room, where everyone was obviously looking at the two of them having the conversation. ‘What do the rest of you think?’

  Baz yelled out. ‘Go get ’em, GUMMY WORM QUEEEEEEN!’

  Raucousness erupted, before calming down for the class to resume as normal.

  The attention now gone, Layla groaned quietly to herself as she wilted on the stool, shoulders hunching. She had got out of the conversation unscathed, but now, what was she going to do?

  Seb leaned over, a lopsided smile sliding onto his face. ‘You just made that up on the spot, didn’t ya?’ he said, the edges of his eyes creasing with mirth. He handed her the rest of the gummy worm pack. ‘Here, have these. You’re gonna need a lot more of these cheeky worms.’

  A whimper escaped from between Layla’s lips. Janey Mack! She’d really got herself into a pickle now.

  CHAPTER 14

  THAT evening at dinner, Layla was much quieter than usual. Her mind was busy, trying to figure out how she was going to get out of this situation, or make something of it. She sat at the dinner table silently, pushing the food around on her plate, eyes glazed, unaware of the conversation swirling around her. Baba was talking about some drama at the local mosque, and Mama was nodding and humming in agreement.

  It was Layla’s favourite meal that evening, cow tongue stew. The Sudanese delicacy was her mother’s speciality, but today, Layla could barely taste a thing. The pot sat in front of her, the thick slices of cow tongue swimming in a grey-brown gravy that tasted way better than it looked. The meal was a fusion of flavours from Sudan: cardamom, coriander, garlic, pepper, some of that Maggi veggie stock that Grandma loved to use. The family only had this dish once every few months, whenever the halal butcher down the road had a fresh batch in. Cooked well, lisaan was tender and so scrumptious Ozzie often said it should be made illegal. It also had absolutely no bones to pick out, which made it the twins’ favourite meat too! Even though it was delicious, it was apparently still ‘weird’. Layla had taken a cow tongue sandwich to ISB one day, and no one else was that impressed.

  ‘Layla, habibti, are you enjoying the tongue?’ Fadia asked, the mother’s voice gently probing her daughter’s unusual demeanour. Layla’s mum’s hair was out of curls today and the afro was tied back in a giant puff on top of her head. She had been working long hours in the hospital, so hadn’t had time to get her hair done.

  Layla looked up from her plate, where she had been moving rice around with her spoon listlessly for the last fifteen minutes.

  ‘Would you like some bread with your meal? Would that make it better? Is there something wrong with how it tastes?’

  Layla flattened her lips against her teeth, then shook her head. ‘Nah, the food’s good, Ma. Thanks for making tongue. I’m just not super hungry today.’

  ‘What, you trying to lose weight or something?’ Ozzie interrupted, in his typical unwelcome fashion.

  Layla was self-conscious about her body shape sometimes, especially since her bottom was much bigger than the shape of the other girls at school. She hated the fact that she didn’t look like the girls on Instagram, and even though Layla knew she shouldn’t compare herself to others, she had found herself skipping a meal every now and again to ‘watch her figure’, which was obviously a silly thing to do – and a pretty silly saying, come to think of it. Unless you were standing in front of the mirror to watch yourself the whole time? So many sayings are super weird …

  ‘Oi nahhhh, Ozzie, don’t be ridiculous.’ Layla glared at her brother across the table as he leaned over for another serve of food. ‘You can’t just say that, you know? It’s rude.’

  ‘It’s not rude if it’s true!’ he retorted, spooning the last large piece of tongue onto his plate and flicking gravy down the front of his white shirt. He laughed, while his mother tsk-tsked next to him.

  ‘Ozzie, where have you got all these strange ideas, hmm?’ Fadia shook her head. ‘It is certainly very rude, whether it’s true or not. Apologise to your sister!’

  Ozzie rolled his eyes so dramatically, his entire head rotated. ‘Fiiiiiiiineeee,’ he said, drawling out the wor
d like it was being pulled out of him on a single string. ‘I’m sorry,’ his voice heavy with sarcasm, clearly indicating he wasn’t very sorry at all.

  Layla rolled her eyes back. ‘Whatever, Ozzie.’ Boys were so lame sometimes.

  Mama turned to look back at Layla. ‘I haven’t forgotten about you, though, ahh?’

  Mama’s ‘ahh’ was the Sudani version, a guttural expression that sounded of Arabic authority. Somehow Arabic authority was always more serious than English authority.

  ‘What’s going on?’

  Layla’s dad, who had been busily focused on the last vestiges of cow tongue on his plate, made a low grunt, adding his voice to her mother’s. Without even looking up from the plate, he added, ‘Ahha yallah, what’s got your tongue?’ He chuckled to himself at the pun. ‘Did something happen at school with Peter again?’

  Layla sighed, putting her spoon down next to her plate and then placing both hands beneath her legs, to stop herself from gesticulating too wildly. Her hands felt warm and safe, squeezed in between her thighs and the embroidered chair cushion.

  ‘Well, I told Mr Gilvarry about a project idea …’

  At this, Sami and Yousif perked up and looked at each other. They had been poking at each other’s plates, pushing the tongue pieces around so the other couldn’t get to them, but the mention of the project had them excited.

  ‘Oh cool!’ they said simultaneously, then started to bop up and down on their seats, clapping. ‘Yayayayaya! Layla has a cool invention idea!’

  ‘No, stop!’ Layla said, her hands involuntarily leaving their warm spot between the cushion and her thighs, flying up and bunching themselves into fists on either side of the chair. ‘No, that’s the problem! I don’t have an awesome idea, and so I made something up on the spot, and it’s something that doesn’t even makes sense! And now,’ Layla’s voice broke, not realising how upset she was until she’d started talking about it, ‘and now … now, everyone knows about it! And everyone is going to expect me to come up with something awesome and exciting and something that works and I have no idea what I am DOING!’