And I’m really ungrateful that they didn’t leave you there, I mutter inside my head.
“My name’s Jo and I’m grateful that I got to go horse riding over the summer.”
“Hi, I’m Sam and I’m grateful that I didn’t have any homework for six weeks.” Cue much laughter and yessing. Hafiz and I remain silent. As the other students share their grateful things I keep racking my brains.
Finally, it’s my turn. Miss Kepinski looks at me and smiles.
I glance at Hafiz. His head’s still bowed, his hair still hanging between us. “My name’s Stevie and I’m grateful that I got to see the sun rise over the Priory ruins one day. It looked so beautiful. It was like being…” I run out of words.
“What a weirdo,” Priya whispers. Priya never runs out of words, especially nasty ones. But I don’t care what she says – seeing that sunrise and the way it painted the crumbling bricks of the Priory pink, orange and gold was one of the happiest moments of my holiday. For the briefest of times I was able to slip into a magical world where anything felt possible and the sun burnt all the darkness away.
“Thank you, Stevie,” Miss Kepinski says. “I love the Priory ruins. It must have looked stunning at sunrise.” She turns to Hafiz. “Would you like to say something?” she asks gently.
The class stare at him, eager for the first offering from the new boy so they can figure out where to place him in the pecking order. For a moment I forget that he’s probably got a super-sized ego and I’m probably going to hate him, and I wish I could warn him how much rests on whatever he says.
“My name is Hafiz.” He speaks in a soft voice. “And I am grateful that I am still alive.”
HAFIZ
As soon as the words leave my mouth I wish I could suck them back in, but what else can I say? This year Death has stuck to me like an annoying defender who clings to your shirt to stop you from scoring. Death was my reason for leaving Syria in the first place – to try and escape the bullets and the bombs. But no matter how many miles I travelled, it still followed me. It stowed away on the boat and in the buses and trains. It checked into the camps like an unwelcome guest. It even gatecrashed my dreams. The truth is, I don’t even know that I do feel grateful for still being alive. I know I should feel grateful but how can I, when so many of the people I care about are still in danger? I think of Adnan, my companion on the refugee trail, and I feel a pain deep inside. I think of my mum and dad and my grandma, still trapped in Syria, and the pain increases.
“Thank you, Hafiz,” the teacher says, her smile fading into a look of sadness. “I can imagine you must feel very grateful.” She faces the rest of the class. “Hafiz is from Syria,” she says solemnly. The pain inside me reaches the edges of my body, pressing at my skin. “Would you – uh – would you like to tell the others anything about where you’re from and your journey to the UK?” the teacher asks. I shake my head. There was a time when saying I was from Syria would have filled me with pride, but now it chokes me with sorrow. The teacher nods and smiles and turns to another student.
I breathe a sigh of relief and look around the classroom. And I ask myself the question that always helps me return to the present: Will I find my story here? Of all the people I’ve seen in this school so far, I reckon that the girl sitting next to me has the most interesting story to tell – and not just because she has a boy’s name and her hair is the colour of ebony. I noticed her the minute I walked into the classroom and saw the way she was sitting on her own with a frown on her face. If there’d been a thought bubble over her head like in a comic I bet it would have said: I WISH I WAS SOMEWHERE ELSE. I’m glad the teacher made me sit by her. We can share the same thought bubble. I lean back in my chair and glance at her. She’s looking at the desk, her lips moving slightly, as if she’s whispering something to herself. Yes, she definitely has the most interesting story to tell.
The rest of form period passes by in a blur. After we’ve heard what everyone is grateful for, the teacher talks to us about what to expect from the next academic year. I switch off midway through. Thanks to my writer dad, who’s crazy about British authors, I’m fluent in English. According to Dad it’s a crime against literacy for people not to be able to read the works of writers like Shakespeare and Dickens in the language they were written. But English isn’t my mother tongue, so it’s easy to drift away. I settle back in my chair and close my eyes. I try and have one of the daydreams I used to have back at school in Syria, where I’m Ronaldo scoring the winning goal for Real Madrid at the Bernabéu Stadium. I picture myself streaking down the wing, the ball glued to my feet. Defenders try to win it off me but they’re left dazzled in my wake. And now I picture myself bearing down on the goal. There’s just the goalkeeper standing between me and my dreams of glory. I draw my left leg back, preparing to strike. Then suddenly there’s a loud bang and the goalie is blown to pieces. I jolt upright in my chair and my eyes flick open. My heart’s pounding like I’ve just run a kilometre. I notice Stevie looking at me and I tip my head forward so that my hair falls over my face. A loud bleeping noise echoes outside along the corridor and everyone starts to reach for their bags.
“Stevie, could you stay with Hafiz today, make sure he gets to his lessons and lunch OK?” the teacher asks.
Stevie nods and gives me a small smile. I wonder if she resents having to look after me and that thought makes me feel sick. I don’t want to be a charity case. I don’t want to be here at all. I want to be back in Latakia, with my friends, where I don’t need anyone to look after me.
“Come on then,” Stevie says, getting to her feet. “Let the fun and games begin.”
Stevie
They say that sarcasm is the lowest form of humour but for me, sarcasm is a sanity-saver. If I wasn’t able to make fun of my situation I think my heart would crack right in two from the tragedy of it all.
“The louder they shriek, the more insecure they are,” I tell Hafiz as we make our way past a group of girls giggling in the corridor. “Seriously. It’s practically a scientific law, like Einstein’s theory of relativity or whatever.”
Hafiz looks at me blankly and I feel a twinge of embarrassment. Does he think I’m an idiot? But I don’t care what he thinks, I don’t want him to like me, I remind myself as we jostle through the hordes of students. I don’t care that Hafiz is from Syria and therefore potentially one of the most interesting people I’ll ever meet in this school. I don’t want to be friends with him. I don’t want to be friends with anyone.
I glance over my shoulder to check Hafiz is still there. I have to make sure he gets to his lessons at least. He’s still there, his bag slung over his shoulder, his wavy hair flopping down over his face. I feel the urge to say something but I stop myself and keep trudging down the corridor, towards the science block.
In science I do my usual trick of plastering an interested expression on my face, while inside my head I’m miles away – onstage at Carnegie Hall in New York City, if you must know. I guess I inherited my obsession with music from my dad but, unlike him, I don’t want to write about musicians, I want to be a musician. A singer-songwriter and guitarist, to be precise. As Mr Patel makes a huge deal about combining some chemicals in a test tube over a Bunsen burner, I dream that I’m standing breathless in the wings, while the crowd yells for more. I take a sideways glance at Hafiz. I’m guessing he isn’t a fan of science either. He isn’t even pretending to look interested in the riveting secrets of the periodic table; instead he’s gazing out of the window. There’s the slightest hint of a smile on his lips, which, I have to admit, is nice to see, because before in form, he looked so sad.
Just as I’m about to take my encore in New York the bell sounds for morning break and a horrible thought occurs to me. Morning break is twenty minutes long. There’ll be no teacher droning on about transition metals and compounds. It’ll just be me and Hafiz and two hundred different kinds of awkward. I turn to him. “There now begins a twenty-minute exercise in how not to die of abject boredom.�
��
Hafiz looks at me blankly.
“It’s breaktime,” I explain as the other students start hurrying from the room. “I normally go to the library but we can go outside if you like.”
“OK then.” Hafiz picks up his bag and slings it over his shoulder.
Great. Why did I suggest going outside? At least in the library we could have logged on to computers and avoided speaking to each other. I pick up my bag and say a quick prayer to the god of sarcasm – or quick-swallowing sinkholes, I’m not fussy – to save me from this hell. “OK then.”
HAFIZ
We stand in a corner of the playground in total silence. I watch as a seagull circles above us, like a vulture. I think back to breaktimes in Latakia. Me and Aahil and Pamir and the rest of the gang, kicking a ball around in the dust. I miss the dust and the sweltering heat. I miss the banter. I miss my friends so bad it hurts. It’s funny because back before the war we treated life like it was one big contest in insulting each other in the worst ways imaginable. Donkeys were often involved … and each other’s mothers. But now I see that it’s only when you have the luxury of peace that you can afford to pretend to hate. I glance at Stevie. She’s looking at a group of girls over on the other side of the playground. She doesn’t look happy. Then I realize that they’re probably her friends and she wants to go and join them.
“It’s OK if you want to be with your friends.” I nod towards the girls and Stevie laughs.
“No, it’s fine,” she says. “Unless you want me to leave?” I’ve never really got why girls wear make-up but I like the way she’s done hers. I like the thick black line around the bright green of her eyes. It goes with her jet-black hair. It makes her look like a cat.
“No,” I say. The truth is, I don’t want her to leave. I’ve seen the way some of the other students are looking at me, their eyes full of cold curiosity. I can picture the thought bubbles over their heads saying: YOU DON’T BELONG HERE.
“No, what?” Stevie says.
“No, I don’t want for you to leave me.” It sounds so weird saying this to someone I’ve only just met. It’s the kind of thing I imagine a jilted lover saying … or a mother whose son is about to embark on the refugee trail.
“OK then, let’s do this break thing,” Stevie says in what I can’t help feeling is a fake cheery voice. The kind that shop assistants use when you can tell that they really don’t want to help you and they really don’t care whether you have a nice day.
Stevie looks at me. “So, you’re from Syria?”
I nod, hoping she doesn’t ask me to talk about it like the teacher did.
“I’m sorry,” she says quietly, all the fake cheeriness gone from her voice. And that’s it. No questions, no prying, just she’s sorry. The relief I feel brings a lump to my throat.
“Thank you.” I hear the unmistakable thwack of a football being kicked and I turn and see some boys having a game on the field beside the playground. My feet start to twitch. Before I left Syria I’d been signed to the youth team for Hutteen, one of the local premiership clubs in Latakia. There’d been talk about trials for the national youth team too but my parents didn’t want me travelling to Damascus, it was way too dangerous. Then they decided that the entire country was way too dangerous and I had to leave. Apart from a few kickabouts with some of the little kids in France, I’ve barely touched a ball for the past two years. A couple of the girls come walking over. One of them, an Asian girl, smiles at Stevie. It’s the kind of smile that stays frozen on the mouth, never making it to the eyes. “Hi, Stevie,” she says. “How are you getting on with the new boy?”
“Fine,” Stevie says.
“We were just wondering if you’ve ever, like, spoken to a boy before,” the girl continues.
“Shut up!” Stevie snaps.
I look at her curiously. I like this new, mean Stevie. Now she feels real, not faking a thing.
“That’s not very nice,” the girl says. “You’re supposed to be making him feel welcome.”
“I wasn’t talking to him, I was talking to you,” Stevie mutters.
The girl turns her blank gaze on me. “So, are you, like, an asylum seeker?”
Asylum seeker is a term I’ve come to hate these past couple of years, along with the words illegal and refugee and documents.
No, I’m a human, just like you, I want to reply but I remain silent.
The girl turns back to Stevie. “What’s up with him? Can’t he speak English?”
“Of course he can,” Stevie replies. “Didn’t you hear him in form period?”
“Well, why isn’t he answering me then?”
Stevie’s cat-eyes narrow and she glares at her. “I don’t know. Maybe he’s allergic to dumb questions.”
I swear I can see Stevie’s eyes actually sparking. For the first time in what feels like for ever I start to grin.
Stevie
Priya stares at me, her stupid pouty mouth opening and closing like a goldfish’s. She really needs to stop trying to be some kind of Mean Girl wannabe – she’s way too easy to tie in knots. I shoot Hafiz a sideways glance. He’s grinning, properly grinning. Dimples have appeared either side of his mouth and his turquoise eyes are shining. It’s making him look like a totally different person and it makes me want to grin too. And I do.
“Well, I can see why Miss Kepinski put you two together,” Priya finally splutters. “What a pair of freaks.”
“I’d rather be a freak than a fake any day of the week,” I say, and the notes to an accompanying guitar riff echo through my mind. I scramble in my blazer pocket for my notebook and pen and scribble them down.
“Are you, like, taking notes?” Priya asks, her eyes saucer-wide.
“Uh-huh.” I snap the notepad shut.
“What for?”
“For my project.”
“What project?”
“My project titled, ‘Fifty Ways to Spot an Idiot’. You’ve been very helpful. Thank you.”
Hafiz makes a weird noise. At first I think he’s choking but then I look at him and see he’s laughing.
Priya purses her lips so tightly it looks as if they might burst. “Come on, Gemma,” she snaps, before taking her by the arm and marching her back across the playground.
Hafiz watches them go, still grinning, then he turns to me. “So, I’m guessing you are not friends then?”
I laugh. “Excellent observational skills.”
“Thank you.” He picks up his bag. “Do you want to go for a walk?”
“Sure.”
Hafiz looks wistfully towards the school gates.
“Wishful thinking,” I say.
“Yeah.”
“Why don’t we walk around the field?” I suggest. “We can pretend we’re not here. We can pray that a sinkhole will open up and swallow us whole … or something…” I break off, wondering if the whole sinkhole thing might have been a bit much, but Hafiz doesn’t seem put off. We walk over to the playing field. I try and think of something to say, some way of making conversation. “So, where do you live?”
“Right now?”
I nod, but already I wish I hadn’t asked. He’s from Syria. He’s probably a refugee. Where he lives could be a really sensitive subject – one he doesn’t want to be reminded of. Nice one, Stevie.
“At my uncle and aunt’s house, in Lansdown Place,” Hafiz replies.
“Cool.” Lansdown Place is one of my favourite streets in Lewes. I love the way it twists through the town like a river. I love the tall, thin grey-brick houses and the quirky cafés – and obviously it goes without saying that I love the record shop. Encouraged by his answer, I decide to ask another question. “How long have you been there – here – in the UK – in Lewes?”
“Just over a month.” He looks across to the other side of the field, where a group of boys are playing football.
I take this as a sign that I shouldn’t ask any more questions.
“Do you like it here?” he asks suddenly, but without taking
his eyes off the game.
“What, here in Lewes or here at this school?”
“Both.”
“Yes … and no.”
He looks at me curiously.
“I like Lewes. I lived in London before. Lewes is nicer. Greener. Cleaner. Near the sea – and who doesn’t like living by the sea, right? But I don’t really like this school.”
“Why not?”
I try to find the right words to explain how Lewes High makes me feel. It’s hard. I don’t want to put Hafiz off on his very first day, but I don’t want to lie to him either. “I just don’t really fit in.”
“Why not?”
Why’s he asking me this? Is he trying to embarrass me? But his expression is gentle. Definitely not mocking. “I – uh – I just don’t.” My skin prickles. The sun is getting hot. Too hot. But I can’t take my jumper off, owing to the bursting buttons situation going on with my shirt.
“My dad always told me that it’s good to be different,” Hafiz says. “He always said it is far better to be a rare bird than a common sheep.”
I feel a burst of curiosity. “Your dad – is he – where is he?”
Hafiz’s face clouds over. “In Syria.” He looks back at the boys kicking the ball. “Do you like football?”
“Not really.”
“Oh.”
The air around us shifts. The particles bump up against each other. I feel hot and awkward and stupid. I wonder if I’ll ever be able to make a friend again. You don’t want a friend, I remind myself. But, now I’ve met Hafiz, I know this is no longer strictly true.
HAFIZ
By the time I get home from school every muscle in my body is rigid with tension. The only time school ever made me feel like this back in Syria was when we had exams. But today has felt like one endless exam – with me as the subject. Will I pass and be accepted into my new school? Or will I fail and be an outsider for ever? Back home, whenever I felt like this I’d run down to the beach, fling myself into the sea and swim all of the tension away. But I don’t have that option any more. The sea in Brighton isn’t far but I can’t… The thought of the waves, the salt, the sound … it makes me sick.
Don't Stop Thinking About Tomorrow Page 2
