Hidden

by Miriam Halahmy

  I don’t even dare to speak; my voice would give everything away.

  My legs are practically collapsing as I go into the house. Two huge policemen are standing in the living room in stab vests, their radios crackling.

  Mum’s looking quite bright and cheerful with her bad leg up on the sofa.

  “These two gentlemen are looking for smugglers. Your grandpa would have loved this,” she says with a laugh.

  “You must be Alix?” says the biggest policeman. He has a rough voice and seems to shoot his words out as if from the barrel of a gun.

  I stare warily at him through half-closed eyes. What if he can read my mind and he already knows everything about Mohammed and he’s just waiting for me to give myself away? At least we don’t do torture in this country. Or do we? Mohammed’s ruined back swims in front of my eyes. I feel sick.

  “We’re going house-to-house. Want to know if you’ve seen anything suspicious on the beaches,” the big policeman barks out.

  I stare at him for a couple of seconds and then bend down to unclip Trudy’s leash, playing for time. This is my chance to put things right, to tell the truth and then let them decide on the right thing to do.

  But what is the right thing? If I give Mohammed away they could just shove him on a plane back to Iraq.

  So I say in a bored voice, “Nothing ever happens down here, does it?”

  That’s it, then, I think with a shiver. I’ve lied to the police. I bury my face in Trudy’s neck and wait for the handcuffs to descend.

  “You must walk on the beach every day with your dog,” says the other policeman. His voice is friendly—they’re playing Good Cop, Bad Cop, like in the movies, I decide—but he actually makes me feel even more nervous. He’s definitely trying to trip me up and I keep my face hidden.

  Good Cop goes on, “Now she’s a blue roan cocker spaniel, isn’t she? Lovely dogs. Had one myself once. What’s her name?”

  I look up and see Mum giving me “don’t be so rude” looks from the sofa and now I’m scared of making her suspicious. It’s exhausting trying to juggle about ten different personalities in the air at once.

  “Trudy,” I say in a steady sort of voice, hoping they might think I’m actually being friendly. Mum settles back on the sofa. Phew! One down, two to go.

  “Well, have you and Trudy noticed anyone strange wandering around? We’ve seen evidence of someone sleeping on the beach by the yacht club.”

  I shrug casually.

  “Come on, Alix. Speak up, you should always help the police,” Mum chips in, and I glare at her. Does she have to treat me like a six-year-old, especially when I’m the adult around here most of the time now?

  I don’t know what to say and look down at Trudy again as Bad Cop barks out, “Maybe you and your friends had a campfire over the weekend?”

  The less I say the better, I decide, so I say, “I haven’t seen anything.”

  Mum frowns at me.

  “What about in the shops maybe, or the post office?” says Good Cop. He’s looking at me closely and I can see Mum’s about to speak. I don’t know if she’s seen Samir and his family in town but I can’t take any chances. If she mentions anything about them the police will be around there giving the whole family the third degree.

  “Just the same old, same old. No one new.”

  There’s a pause while we all stand looking at each other. Then Bad Cop says, “We’re looking for illegal immigrants. We’ve had information that a boat is due around here this week, smugglers, bringing people over from France. They tip them out in the sea, leave them to it.”

  “They wouldn’t last long in this weather,” says Mum sympathetically, and I shoot her a grateful glance.

  Then Good Cop says, “So you let us know if you see anything suspicious, Alix. We’re relying on local people like you,” and he gives me a big friendly smile.

  I ask cautiously, “What would happen if you found one of these illegal immigrants?”

  “You let us worry about that, love. We’ll see ourselves out. Thank you, Mrs. Miller,” and they’re gone.

  “Well, you weren’t very helpful,” says Mum, giving me her most annoyed look.

  “I haven’t seen anything,” I snap back, and run upstairs to my room. I have to get ready for school and the bus leaves in twenty minutes.

  But I feel totally freaked by the police visit and I go over to the window and stare out across the Solent, trying to calm down. The sea is quite rough today. The wind has turned around and it’s tugging the surf onto the beach in great white rolls. It would be a terrific day to take a board out.

  My hands are literally shaking. Am I completely insane or am I doing my bit? At Dunkirk, Grandpa just did what he was told and anyway it was pretty obvious who you were helping there. But how do I really know what sort of person Mohammed is? More to the point, how does Samir know?

  When I turn back into the room my eye catches sight of the old scorecard from the last time I went bowling with Dad. It’s pinned to my notice board with a dart I threw after he left.

  Suddenly I want to see Dad more than anything else in the world. Tell him about Samir and Mohammed and ask him what I should do. Even though he never scores much above zero in our family.

  Mum calls him a “waste of space.” When I was little I thought she meant his job was packing boxes and he always left a bit of space in each box, so he got the sack for wasting space. But that wasn’t the problem.

  “Johnnie never stuck at anything,” Mum would say. “He just wanted to change me from being a punk into a boring housewife.”

  She always called Dad “Johnnie” when she was angry with him.

  Then she’d give a sneery laugh and say, “That’s why he went off with Gorgeous Gloria. She’ll do anything he wants.”

  “He didn’t need to change me,” I would reply grumpily. But he still never contacts me; he’s too busy enjoying himself with the Gremlin. And Mum doesn’t seem to care. She never tries to find him. Or at least that’s what she says. Is she better off without him? Am I?

  Nine o’clock sounds on Radio 1 and now I’m seriously late for school and in a load of trouble with Spicer. But it’s hard to think about school when everyone seems to be closing in on us. First Lindy finds the hut and Samir is terrified she’ll tell Terrence and his gang about Mohammed. Then Mrs. Saddler questions me in the street and now the police turn up in our cottage. What will happen when they find out I’ve lied?

  Let’s hope I get to school before I get arrested.

  22. Trumpet Steven

  It’s lunchtime. Kim’s sitting on a bench by the basketball court with Steven and I’m sure they’re playing Mozart in the air. I can almost recognize the fingering by now.

  Steven’s saying to Kim as I come over, “You’ll only have to play the first bit.”

  Kim says, “I always mess up at the fourth bar.”

  “Try not to think about it.” Steven’s straightening his tie. He has a pink plastic lunch box on his knee and a thermos flask, like the fishermen on the beach. I could comb my hair in the reflection from his shoes.

  “Hi, Ali,” says Kim, smiling up at me. “Come and join us.” But I’ve already spotted Samir shooting baskets on his own as usual. I want to tell him about the police visit and also that I’ll be late getting to the hut tonight because I’ve got a thirty-minute detention for being late.

  Then Lindy calls out from across the playground, “Hey, Two Percent, how’s your cousin?”

  The smile freezes on Kim’s face and Samir lets the basketball roll away into the gutter, his face going dark with anger. I feel my fists clench.

  Steven’s voice rings out sort of deep and strong like when he blasts down his trumpet.

  “His name’s Samir, thank you very much.” He sounds like one of the teachers.

  But Lindy just flicks her hair back and walks over, squaring up to Steven who’s still sitting on the bench.

  “I don’t think . . .” Kim starts up, but Steven just puts his hand on
her shoulder and Kim stops abruptly.

  “Who asked you?” says Lindy.

  At least Terrence was permanently excluded last year, or we’d probably have his entire gang on us by now, like a pack of wolves. What if Lindy’s already told Terrence about Mohammed and what if he finds out that Steven’s mouthing off to her? There was an incident in a London school last week when a teenage gang broke in through the security gates, grabbed a fifteen-year-old boy in the detention hall and stabbed him in the back four times. He’d looked at the gang leader the wrong way in the street. Would Terrence do that if he thought we were being mean to his sister?

  I want to warn Trumpet Steven to stick to Mozart, it’s safer, but before I get the chance he’s off again.

  “People should be called by their proper names, don’t you think?”

  He sounds like the Prime Minister.

  “No I don’t, you muppet,” Lindy sneers back. “Anyway, it’s only a joke.”

  “Can you see anyone laughing?” There’s a pause. No one says anything.

  Then Steven says, “What do you mean ‘Two Percent’?”

  Lindy gives her meanest smile and says, “Ask them about Two Percent.” Then she walks off.

  “So what did she mean?” asks Steven coolly, opening his lunch box, which I’d rather die than be seen with.

  “Nothing,” says Kim quickly, looking around at me and Samir.

  But Steven isn’t in our form so he won’t know about the lesson with Spicer last week.

  “Our form teacher told us that only 2.7 percent of refugees ever get to Britain,” I say, and Steven looks at me with interest, “so Lindy calls Samir ‘Two Percent.’ ”

  Steven takes a bite of his sandwich, tuna and cucumber on whole wheat—I’ve got a bag of crisps, no time to pack anything else—and then he says in his most thoughtful voice, “That’s very offensive.”

  “Exactly,” says Kim, “and Ali stands up to her when Lindy says that.”

  I go a bit red, I didn’t really want Samir to know that but Samir is grinning at me and then he pulls a roll-up from behind his ear. He’s never going to spark up out here!

  Before I can say anything he says, “Got a light?”

  Steven digs in his pocket and says, “Sure,” and pulls out a disposable lighter.

  Even Kim’s mouth has dropped open.

  But then Steven goes into the most awful coughing fit I’ve ever seen. I’m certain he’s going to expire on the bench with his pink lunch box spilling everywhere. We stand around helplessly. I wonder if we should turn him upside down and thump him on the back but gradually he slows to a stop. “Chest infection,” he splutters, and wipes his mouth on a handkerchief he takes out of his pocket. I catch sight of his initials, STG, embroidered on one corner. I don’t think his mother’s a punk.

  “Steven, you don’t smoke, do you?” Kim asks in a shocked voice. She hasn’t blinked for about five minutes and her eyes are as big as Frisbees.

  Steven’s still coming up for air but after a minute he says, “No, I found the lighter in the music room. I thought it might come in useful.”

  Samir is halfway down the roll-up by now but he has the good sense to blow the smoke away from Steven. I’m looking around nervously for a teacher, of course, as I’m Number One Nerd of Year 10. Kim seems to be too bewildered to be worried, which is totally not like her.

  Then Steven says, “I’m supposed to be on antibiotics, but I hate them, they make me sick, so I haven’t started yet,” and he pulls a box of pills out of his pocket.

  We all yell out at the same time, “Antibiotics!”

  We’re thinking of Mohammed of course and what the druggist and Lindy said about infection.

  Me and Kim do a high five and Samir grinds his cigarette end out on the tarmac.

  Steven is staring around at us, his eyes still watery from the coughing fit. “You’ve lost me,” he says.

  Then Samir crouches down until he is at eye level with Steven and says, “How much for the pills?”

  23. Worse

  “You’re joking,” says Steven. It’s the first time I’ve seen him looking off balance.

  Samir looks up at me and those eyes are pleading again but there’s nothing I can do. I mean, by now Steven has probably decided that Samir is some foreign drug dealer and I’m his postman or whatever, dropping pills around to users.

  Kim starts to blink furiously and Steven says, “Something in your eye?” and he reaches out to her but she brushes his hand away.

  “Just give him the pills, Steven. We’re hiding an illegal immigrant and he’s very sick.”

  I can’t believe she said that! Neither can Samir. He throws himself to his feet, his ice man image in total meltdown, and starts shouting in Arabic. At least I recognize the language by now. He’s roaring away, waving his arms about, pacing back and forward. His Arsenal scarf is swinging off his neck and he’s scuffing his sneakers on the ground, tearing the hole in the toe into a great huge gash.

  Charlie Parks and his football crowd arrive on the court and start jeering, “Hey, Two Percent’s lost it!” One of them yells out, “Shut it, you Paki!”

  Now half our class, the Jayne family and Lindy too, are gathered around the mesh fence, screaming with laughter, winding the boys up even more.

  Before I can do anything Samir rushes Charlie, taking him completely by surprise, and punches him in the mouth. I can’t help letting out a cheer and I hear Steven behind me call out, “Serves him right.”

  Samir’s put up with enough rubbish this week and probably for months, maybe even years. Everyone thinks they can take a pop at him and his family just because they’re refugees or Arabs or because they think Samir and his family are from Pakistan, which is stupid anyway, even if he was.

  Mr. Spicer says there’s no such word as “Paki,” it’s a made-up racist word.

  “People from Pakistan are called Pakistani,” he says, glaring around the class, and it makes me think he must know what Samir is called around the school. It would be nice if he actually did something about it.

  Charlie is taller than Samir and he’s quite stocky. He staggers back, blood pouring from his top lip, and then he throws himself at Samir and they roll on the ground, kicking and punching.

  The football crowd circle them yelling, “Mash him, Charlie.” I start to push my way through but three teachers suddenly appear, grab Samir and Charlie and haul them apart, dragging them off into school.

  I call out, “It wasn’t Samir’s fault, sir,” but they just ignore me.

  Lindy yells through the fence, “They’ll exclude him now,” and the Jayne family shriek and clutch each other.

  The football crowd go over to the fence and join in, looking over their shoulders at us and saying things really loudly like, “Taliban had it coming” and “he needed a good kicking,” as if Samir had just stood there letting Charlie beat him up.

  But I’m really, really scared for him now. Naazim will be called to the school over the fight, and will they get into trouble because they’re not English and what if they make Samir tell about Mohammed?

  And then an even worse thought comes into my mind. What if Trumpet Steven goes to the police and tells them we are hiding an illegal immigrant? I mean, look at him, with his knotted tie and his briefcase and his posh mum in her designer suits. She’s definitely the type to sneak to the police. Maybe she’s waiting for Steven in the car park right now and they’ll go off together and Mohammed will be behind bars in about one hour and ten minutes.

  I turn around to look at Steven and Kim and I feel quite numb. Steven is packing his lunch away into his leather briefcase and brushing crumbs off his blazer as if nothing’s happened, and Kim’s busy sorting through her music bag, her hair covering her face like a mask. Doesn’t she care? Maybe they’ve already agreed behind my back to go to the police or their mums? And I’m back to square one, as Grandpa used to say, wondering if I made a mistake telling Kim about Mohammed.

  I feel so upset, I must have
let out some sort of sob because Kim rushes up, throws her arms around me and gives me a big hug on tiptoe. “It’s okay, Ali, don’t worry. I’ve explained everything. He can help. Steven’s cool.”

  “Is he?” I say suspiciously, and I push Kim away. Kim stares up at me, her eyes hurt and confused, and I feel as if I’ve sprinted off on the wrong foot.

  Steven is clipping his briefcase shut and then he says, “Is there a problem?”

  “How do I know I can trust you?” I say, and I can feel Kim tensing beside me.

  But they have to understand how deadly serious this is and what’s at stake here.

  “Samir will be in massive trouble if you blab to your mum or the police,” I say. “And Mohammed could get deported!” Steven straightens up, pulling at his tie, his briefcase tucked under his arm.

  Then he says in this ultra serious voice, “What if I meet Mohammed after school today, okay?”

  24. More than a Game of Football

  But after school Steven’s mum grabs him and he has to go home first. Me and Kim stay in town at the bus stop on the high street and I nearly bite my fingernails down to the elbows waiting for him to show up.

  Kim keeps saying, “He won’t say anything, Ali, promise. Steven has principles; he’s always going on about justice and people in prison in China because they oppose their governments.”

  “Mohammed’s on Hayling Island, not China,” I mutter, checking my watch for the umpteenth time. “Where is he?”

  Eventually Steven strolls up. He’s dressed in a neatly pressed denim jacket and jeans, but at least he’s alone.

  “Did you say anything?” I almost yell at him.

  I’m expecting police cars to converge on the bus station from all sides, sirens blaring, like in American cop shows.

  But Steven gives me a look that could wither the sun and says, “What do you take me for?”

  “Okay,” I mutter, and we get on the bus.