“Oh, that,” I say with a shrug. “Didn’t think you’d be interested.”
“We’re all going together, Alix, as a family, and before you say anything else,” Dad puts his hand up as I open my mouth to protest, “Kim is going with her family too. I’ve spoken to her dad.”
“You what?” I can’t believe it. And Mum’s going through the trash for school letters. That’s what proper parents do, isn’t it? I’m almost impressed.
Trudy pushes her nose into my hand and I pet her for a minute and then I say, “Well, we’ve missed the bus and there isn’t another one for ages.”
“Your dad’s giving us a lift,” says Mum, and Dad grins and goes over to the window. I follow him and stare out. He’s pointing to the car with the can sticking out the roof.
“Got new wheels, doll. What do you think?”
He can’t be serious. “I’m not pulling up to school in that. I’d never hear the end of it. Where did you get it?”
“My new job. I collect the money from vending machines,” says Dad.
It’s a real squash in the car and Mum moans all the way because the heater doesn’t work. I’m more worried about arriving at school at the same time as the Jayne family. I can just imagine Jess Jayne screeching, “Left the Merc behind, did you?”
Kim sends me a text as we cross the bridge, Savd u a seat r u stll cming?
Do I have a choice? I wonder as I text back, Yes. It feels weird that Mum and Dad are doing stuff together again, and for me as well. I’m sort of happy, I just wish they hadn’t started with this stupid meeting.
When we get to the school hall I leave Mum and Dad with the other parents and go and sit next to Kim.
“This was one secret we didn’t manage to keep,” she says.
“At least it was only a letter they found and not the hut,” I say, and Kim’s eyes widen as she nods.
Then the principal taps on the microphone. It crackles and he asks everyone to sit down. There’s a lot of shoving and giggling as people huddle up with their friends.
The Jayne family dump themselves down in the back row and I can see them talking behind their hands and nodding at me. Lindy is here too, sitting on the end of a row, surreptitiously drinking what looks like a can of beer. Steven and his geeky Science Club are lined up in the front row and they all seem to be taking notes.
The principal is about to speak when I hear Lindy call out, “Where’s Two Percent?”
I can’t believe it. I crane around and catch her eye but she looks away. At least she doesn’t carry on yelling out, which is a relief. Then the principal calls for silence and the Jayne family cackle behind their hands like witches. Charlie Parks and a couple of his football mates are sitting behind me and Kim, kicking our chairs. What if they decide to turn this into a riot? There’s only a couple of teachers here with the principal. I imagine things getting out of control and those two policemen who were sniffing around the beach for illegal immigrants, Good Cop and Bad Cop, turning up with plastic shields to clear the room.
The principal starts to speak and he’s saying all the stuff the parents want to hear about how the school is a tolerant school, where everyone is welcome and treated equally.
Kim and I exchange looks and I feel sick and angry. I’m almost ready to walk out. Nothing’s changed, can’t he see that? I lean over to whisper this to Kim as the principal wraps up his speech, but then he looks over to the side of the stage and gives a nod to someone.
It’s Samir! He walks over to the microphone and he’s still a bit bent over to the side from his wound. He looks very small on the stage next to the principal, who’s a former rugby international. What on earth is going on?
A mutter goes up around the hall and Charlie Parks whispers, “Taliban.” There’s a horrible sniggering behind me and I clench my fists.
Samir has a small piece of paper in his hands and he begins reading in a slow, hesitant voice, “I was sent out of Iraq when I was nine years old because it was too dangerous to stay there. When I arrived in England they called me ‘asylum seeker’ . . . and sometimes ‘terrorist.’ ”
There are more mutterings and whisperings behind me and I can hear Charlie Parks giggling and saying something down his row. Why don’t they just shut up and listen?
The principal looks around the hall, frowning, and someone from the Science Club says, “You’re all right, mate.” Someone else behind says, “Just ignore them.”
I twist around to catch Mum’s eye. She gives me a firm nod and Dad grins. Maybe it’s a good thing they’re here. I turn back, feeling calmer. This is going to be okay, I’m thinking. Not everyone agrees with Charlie and his mates.
Samir carries on and his voice is a bit stronger now. “They put me in a foster home and I was very lonely but a year later my brother and my auntie arrived and we made a new family in England . . .”
I’m thinking, Tell them how you’re in all the top sets even though you have to help your auntie make pastries to sell to make ends meet. I almost call out, but I don’t.
But then the shuffling and rustling starts up behind me again. I can’t concentrate on what Samir is saying. I turn around to tell them to shut up and Charlie is holding up a piece of paper. He has a horrible sneer on his face. I catch a glimpse—it’s a drawing. It looks like it’s meant to be a suicide bomber.
“Give me that,” I hiss at Charlie, and the muttering gets louder around me. The principal calls out for silence. I try to catch Samir’s eye but he’s looking at his shoes. Oh God, what if he thinks I’m against him as well?
Then Samir looks up, and he’s staring out at the hall, frozen into the ice man again. His hand is holding the left side of his body where the knife went in. I feel really angry that the principal has made him do this. He glances to the end of a row and I follow his eyes. Naazim and Auntie Selma are sitting there, and Naazim is nodding to Samir. I think how alike they are, the brothers, watching out for each other against the odds.
I catch Samir’s eye at last and give him an encouraging smile and the thumbs-up. So he takes a deep breath and starts reading from his paper again. “But I am very happy now in England. I want to study hard and go to college . . .”
Suddenly a paper airplane soars through the air. It bumps into his chest and settles on his own piece of paper. “Bull’s-eye!” someone shouts, and a smattering of laughter whips around the hall. Samir opens the paper and his head goes down. I know it’s Charlie’s picture.
I’m so angry my blood’s gone way beyond boiling point and bright colors are dancing in front of my eyes.
Kim’s arm is already reaching for me but it’s too late.
I throw myself to my feet and I want to yell out, “Racist pigs!” But I just stand there like an idiot with everyone staring at me, and it feels like all the breath has gone out of my body. I can’t change the world all by myself, can I? I’m not a leader like Jess Jayne or Charlie Parks.
The muttering spreads around the hall and Kim’s hand is on my arm, tugging at me to sit down. Then I feel it. Welling inside me like a tsunami, sweeping me forward in a giant wave of rage. I know exactly what I have to do.
“Who runs this school?” I bellow, and I almost tip over with the effort. “Them,” I shout, pointing to Charlie and his mates, “or us? Do we have to do everything those stupid idiots do? Me and my friends don’t agree with them,” and there’s a murmur of agreement from around me. “Who’s brave enough to join us and show those bullies what we really think of them?”
For a second there is silence as the words hang in the air, glittering like sunlight on the sea. This is the moment, I think, don’t hide away anymore.
“You should listen to Samir,” I go on. “It’s amazing what he and his family have done. I’ve never heard anything like it, and neither have you. They had to be so brave to run away from their homeland and try and start a new life in England. Imagine if you had to go and live in Iraq.”
A bit of a gasp went up around the hall. They’re probably think
ing of all those bombs. I can’t stop now, can I? “We sit in our safe little houses and walk on our safe little beaches while there are people suffering and dying and being beheaded in their own homes. People like you and me and our families, schoolkids and mums and dads and grannies and babies and, and . . .” I run out of steam and I just stand there looking down at everyone staring up at me.
For a moment it’s like when the tide turns in the bay, sucking back across the beach, revealing all the hidden mudflats and driftwood and washed-up treasures from thousands of miles away. There’s nowhere left for me to hide now and I don’t know which way they’ll swing but I’ve made my decision against the tide.
A small voice rings out beside me, “I’m with Alix.” It’s Kim.
A couple of the boys in the Science Club call out, “Me too!”
There are some grumbles as well but something shifts around the hall.
Then suddenly a huge, “YESS!!” bursts out from the Science Club and they do a Mexican wave down their row. It’s a bit daft but then everyone is clapping and even a few cheers break out.
I catch Lindy’s eye and she gives me a slight nod. Even the Jayne family are paying attention, gasping and looking at each other, astonished.
I look at the stage and Samir’s head has gone up and he’s looking at me with the full monty smile wide across his face. He lifts up his paper and the hall falls silent as though with a new respect.
He starts to read again but now his voice is strong and confident. “I had to leave Iraq in 2002 because my parents were tortured and murdered by Saddam Hussein.” A gasp goes out around the hall. “But now my brother and I are safe.” He pauses and then he says in a clear voice, “In Iraq, my parents wanted me to be a doctor and now I’m here, that’s what I want too.”
I breathe a sigh of relief and drop back into my chair as Kim gives me a big hug.
The principal walks over to Samir and shakes his hand and Samir is smiling and nodding and then Naazim leaps up onto the stage and shakes the principal’s hand too.
So it’s not just Mohammed who came out of hiding this week.
Samir, the ice man, has shattered into tiny pieces. There’s no way he’ll let the bullies crush him anymore.
And me? I’m riding my elephant through the school hall, standing up against the rising tide, just like Grandpa did in his war.
His words echo in my ear. “If you’re fourteen and strong enough, Alix, you can do anything.”
I look around at Mum and Dad and remember Dad’s promise to stay in touch and how Mum’s started to do stuff around the house again. It feels as though a big weight has fallen off my shoulders and I’m floating above them, looking down from a great height.
I’ll steer my own course from now on and they’ll just have to keep up with me!
About Miriam Halahmy
I am married and have two grown-up children and a grandchild and I live in London. On my father’s side I am only second-generation British. My grandparents came from Poland before WWI, escaping pogroms against the Jews, and my mother’s family came for the same reason in the nineteenth century. England gave my ancestors a home and a future in a time of great need.
My husband was born in Baghdad into an Iraqi Jewish family. The entire Jewish community of Iraq were forced into exile in the 1950s, and most went to Israel where they lived in refugee camps, sometimes for years. The stories the Halahmy family told about Baghdad brought alive for me the markets and streets; the food and the pigeon keepers; the fishermen who grilled fish down by the river Tigris and how people slept on the roof in summer. The family still has one foot back in the Arabic world. Their stories helped me to create the Iraqi characters in my book and the world they came from that they miss so much.
I was a teacher in London for twenty-five years and worked with children from all over the world, many of whom were asylum seekers. But I have written since childhood and have published novels, short stories and poetry for children, teens and adults. My writing focuses on realistic stories with ordinary characters facing extraordinary situations and digging deep to find the hero in themselves.
One of the most important issues of the 21st century is the plight of refugees and how the world responds to their needs and aspirations. I have led writing workshops for asylum seekers through English PEN and the Medical Foundation for the Victims of Torture to help them write down their stories and come to terms with their lives.
My experiences both from my family background and my work have given me insight into this group in society. The inspiration behind the writing of Hidden was a desire to show that each asylum seeker is an individual just like you and me.
I have been active since I was a teenager promoting peace, tolerance and diversity. I believe that all divided communities can build bridges and all societies can embrace diversity if they wish. We should be prepared to stand up to any injustice, however small. All young people have a future, and reading can offer a map forward.
Hidden Page 18
