Trust Me Too

by Paul Collins

  I hear my name spoken and Khan Sahib smiles.

  ‘Your turn,’ he whispers to me.

  The microphone is brought down to my height and I begin. My words are loud, so loud they must surely carry all the way to Lahore. I tell the people about what it was like in the factory.

  ‘In Pakistan,’ I say, ‘between eight and ten million children - a quarter of all those aged from five to fif teen - work in carpet-weaving, brick kilns, domestic service, small industries and agriculture.’

  In the audience, people are leaning forward, listening. Mine is the only voice in this great hall. I tell how I know now that children have rights under laws. That bonded labour is illegal. I tell them how the BLLF has freed thousands of child slaves. The words I had been so scared I would forget charge out of my mouth.

  ‘We are calling,’ I say, ‘for people in the West to not buy carpets made by children.’

  When I have finished, the hall is still and silent. Then, like a herd of elephants stampeding, comes the thunder of many hands clapping. Khan Sahib is grinning at me. ‘Good boy,’ his mouth says, though I cannot hear the words.

  When the speeches are finished, cameras flash lights in my face, people mill around me. Journalists ask me many questions. Then I am seated for a tele vision interview. Khan Sahib says my picture will be seen all over the world!

  ‘I have a surprise for you, Iqbal,’ Khan Sahib says to me later. ‘We have been asked to take you to America. A company named Reebok wishes to present you with an award. And you have been nominated “Person of the Week” by the American Broadcasting Commission. It is a big honour.’

  To tell the truth, I do not care about awards. I am too excited. I am helping to save children from working like slaves. I am talking to people who wish to hear what I have to say. And I am going to watch cartoons on television in a hotel room with a bed as soft as silk! Such a reward one could not get even in Heaven.

  ‘I appeal to you to stop people from using children as bonded labourers. Children need to use pens rather than be used for labour.’ Those are the words I spoke when I accepted the Reebok Youth in Action Award.

  America was more than I could ever have im agined. Such sights I saw! I captured so much with the camera presented to me by Khan Sahib on my twelfth birthday. And I brought the photos home with me. To show my family and friends in case they did not believe what I told them of that amazing land. Today I knock on the door of Khan Sahib’s office.

  ‘Enter!’ he calls.

  The sahib is alone, sitting in front of piles of papers. He puts down his pen and smiles at me.

  ‘Yes, young sir,’ he says. ‘What is it you are wanting?’

  I tell him that today is the eve of Easter and I ask permission to leave school to go to my family in our village.

  Kahn Sahib is slow to reply. This surprises me because it is rare he denies me. ‘There is a problem, Sahib?’ I ask.

  ‘In fact,’ he says, ‘there may be.’

  I wait in silence while he gathers his thoughts.

  ‘We are hearing words that worry us, Iqbal,’ he says. ‘There are men in the city they are calling “the carpet mafia”.’

  I have not heard the word ‘mafia’ before and ask what means it.

  ‘Rich men who own factories where children work are angry that their profits are down,’ says the sahib.

  ‘Since your talks, people are not buying so many carpets. They do not want to support factories that use children.’

  I shrug. ‘What does this matter?’

  Khan Sahib, whose face is most often smiling, looks serious. ‘I worry that the men might want to kidnap you, Iqbal. Or do you damage.’

  ‘I am just a child,’ I tell my kind and wise friend.

  ‘You know I have many threats. It is all talk.’

  We speak some more. I think my sahib knows I am homesick, so he agrees to call a wagon to carry me the twenty-five miles to my home.

  I shake his hand and say goodbye.

  On the trip home, I am excited about seeing my family. I have not seen them in a long while. And this week, Khan Singh has told me some news I need to discuss with them. He says that the BLLF wishes me to be schooled in America. This means I can be near doctors who can help me better heal my body than the local doctors can.

  ‘The Americans heard how smart you are,’ said Khan Singh, ‘passing four grades in two years. They have awarded you a scholarship to attend an educa tional program at Brandeis University.’

  I want so much to study at university. To become a lawyer so I can fight the bad businessmen who ex ploit children. But then I have a problem. Going to America means I will see even less of my family. And I love my family. Very much. There are two parts of me at war as the wagon draws closer to home. Should I go to America to study and to improve my health? Or should I stay here in Pakistan with those

  I love?

  At home, after I have eaten my mother’s chicken masala and shaha korma, I talk about my problem.

  ‘It is up to you, my son,’ says Mother. merica offers many opportunities. It is a rich land. Pakistan

  I.S poor. ‘

  We talk and talk. But then Mother asks me to go to the market for some curry paste.

  My sister Sobia is in the compound shed, sitting in the dirt. She is not in a happy mood.

  ‘You are too spoiled, Iqbal,’ she says. She sulks because some money came from a stranger who heard my story. And now I have a bike, silver and red, with a basket at the front.

  I feel like telling Sobia she ought not to be jealous. Her back is not curved from bending to a loom for fourteen hours a day. Her hands are not scarred or her fingers gnarled from tying thousands of knots every day for many years. Her breathing does not trouble her from carpet dust.

  ‘Ah, yes,’ I say. ‘I am well spoiled.’ And then I am cycling away, leaving Sobia alone on the track near my home.

  Should I go to America? Should I stay at home? These questions worry me as I ride to the village.

  Late that afternoon I am heading back to the city. Mother and two of her sisters ride the bus with me. We are supposed to get off at Baoli where I am to catch another bus for Lahore. Instead, I decide to spend the night at my mother’s family house. It will give me time with my cousins Liaquat and Faryad.

  The boys are bigger than I remember, and Faryad, two years younger, is taller than me.

  ‘Cousin, you are a dwarf,’ he says.

  ‘But with a brain to be proud of,’ says Mother.

  My aunt hands food to my older cousin. ‘Your father’s supper,’ she says. ‘He’s working late in the fields. You will take it to him, please.’

  Of course I must go, too. Off we set. Liaquat rides his old bicycle, Faryad perched on the handlebars. I shuffie along the dirt track beside them. It is so good to be with my cousins; they are such fun.

  We have gone half a mile when we see shadows by the wayside.

  ‘Who is that?’ Liaquat calls out.

  ‘Stop! Now!’ calls an angry voice.

  Faryad jumps from the bike and crouches low. He looks suddenly smaller than me. Small and afraid.

  ‘What do you want?’ calls Liaquat.

  The man does not answer. He lifts something. Too late I see it is a gun. I hear the sound of a shot. I see Faryad writhe and fall. Liaquat, too. And then I feel a pain in the side of my chest. It is a pain like hell, hot and beyond description.

  17 April, 1995

  DAILY TIMES PAKISTAN

  Staff reporter

  The death is reported of one of Pakistan’s finest, Iqbal Masih, the child-slave crusader. Aged 13, Iqbal was a bonded-debt-slave from the age of four to ten. He was one of 250 million working children in the world. At conferences he spoke many times about this terrible practice.

  Iqbal w
as with his cousins bringing food at night for an uncle who was watering his field. When they were half way to their destination, shots were fired. Iqbal was hit by 120 shotgun pellets and died immediately. The other boys were hit by pellets but survived. Police have charged a field hand with murder.

  NOTE: In 2000, Iqbal Masih was posthumously awarded The World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child.

  I am an Author

  Doug Macleod

  Illustrations by Mitch Vane

  I am an author.

  Yay!

  But I’m too poor to buy clothes.

  Boo!

  So Mum gave me some to wear.

  Yay!

  They were hers.

  Boo!

  So I bought some cheap clothes at a fire sale.

  Yay!

  They were still on fire.

  Boo!

  As soon as my clothes stopped burning, I wrote a book.

  Yay!

  But an ash fell from my sleeve and the book caught alight.

  Boo!

  The fire brigade came to put it out.

  Yay!

  Then they read the book and set fire to it again.

  Boo!

  I rewrote the book and took it to my publisher.

  Yay!

  But they said they were closed for Christmas, even though it was july.

  Boo!

  I snuck in around the back.

  Yay!

  But it was the wrong building and I ended up in a toilet-paper factory.

  Boo!

  The people in the factory loved my book.

  Yay!

  But for completely the wrong reasons.

  Boo!

  I snuck into the correct building and handed my book to my editor.

  Yay!

  She threw it into the street.

  Boo!

  My editor said she’d made a mistake.

  Yay!

  She threw me into the street.

  Boo!

  Fortunately, there weren’t any cars.

  Yqy!

  Unfortunately, I got run over by a bus.

  Boo!

  An ambulance came.

  Yay!

  It ran over me as well.

  Boo!

  The doctor said that all I had was a tiny little lump.

  Yay!

  He was looking at my head.

  Boo!

  He said he couldn’t feel any broken bones.

  Yay!

  He was inspecting the nurse.

  Boo!

  As soon as I got better, I wrote a brand new book.

  Yay!

  But it was eaten by giant Martian squirrels.

  Boo!

  I definitely need a new job.

  I hate swimming carnivals. I hate them more than anything else we do at school, except maybe the cross-country thing they make us do every year.

  Why do I hate swimming carnivals, you ask? It’s pretty simple, really. I hate them because I’m no good at swimming. I am a truly crap swimmer. If they had a drowning carnival, I’d be the star. I’d be the guy who broke all the records, with his name all over the school newsletter:

  The star performer at this year’s Drowning Carnival was Billy Clarkson. He won five events, including the all-round drowning champion, as well as breaking two school records -the fifty-metre Cough and Splutter, and the one-hundred-metre Flail and Flounder. Due mostly to his size, Billy also seemed to be performing well in the Belly-flapper contest and the Cannonball Bomb contest, until he half-drowned trying to get out of the pool.

  Yep, that’d be me. I’d be famous, but for all the wrong reasons.

  This year I go to the carnival on the bus, sitting by myself, as usual. The noise is insane. I don’t know what they’re all getting so excited about. If it was overcast, everyone would freeze. If it was sunny, everyone would burn. Today’s a special kind of day - the sun’s out, but it’s also windy as hell, so everyone will freeze and burn. And yet everyone is still carrying on like it’s the best day of the whole year.

  I’m the last one off the bus, and I look for all the kids wearing red. Red hats, red T-shirts, red scarves. My house, the mighty Winston, always comes last. Every. Single. Year.

  I join the Winston line and we wait until we’re allowed through the pool gates, with Mr Julius counting us off, one at a time. ‘Thirty-five, thirty-six, thirty-seven - spit out the gum, Dylan - thirty-nine, forty, forty-one - looking good with the face paint, Katie - forty-three, forty-four - planning to swim today, Billy?’

  ‘No chance,’ I reply.

  I go straight to my usual spot, up on the hill near the fence, under the shade of the trees. No one seems to notice. They’re all dipping their toes in the water and being told to get back from the edge of the pool. The water looks cold, icy, not at all inviting. Quite the opposite, in fact. I’ve no intention of getting wet today. And I’m definitely not taking my shirt off. Not for anything.

  Finally everyone settles down and Ms Sternman begins to read the announcements for the day. I don’t usually listen all the way through. I’m never that interested. I don’t plan to swim in any of the races anyway. All I’m interested in is what time they open the kiosk, so I can get started on the lollies. Strawberries-and-cream, frogs, Chupa-Chups, pine apples, Milkos . . . Plus there’s the chips and the sausage rolls and the pies and the Chiko Rolls ...

  ‘Hey, Billy.’ It’s Mr Julius. He’s come back for another attempt. He certainly is persistent. ‘Got your togs with you?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘They’re not in your bag?’

  I know I can’t lie to him. I know that it’s a school rule that you bring your bathers to the carnival, even if you don’t plan to swim. Either that, or you bring a letter, and my mum wouldn’t write me one of those. She worries that I don’t get enough exercise as it is, so there’s no way she’d help me get out of taking my togs to a swimming carnival.

  ‘Yeah, they’re in my bag,’ I admit.

  ‘Aren’t you going to put them on?’

  I shake my head again. ‘Wasn’t planning to,’ I say. Mr Julius sighs. ‘Billy, you don’t have to be afraid of swimming.’

  ‘I’m not,’ I reply. ‘I’m afraid of dogs, and that’s about it. I’m not afraid of swimming.’

  ‘Then why don’t you want to -’

  ‘I just don’t, okay?’ I snap. ‘The others will all laugh at me.’

  ‘No, they won’t.’

  I poke around in the grass with a stick. He has to be kidding.

  ‘Why do you think they’ll laugh at you?’

  Why is he trying to make me say it out loud? Hasn’t he got eyes?

  ‘Billy?’

  ‘They call me stuff,’ I tell him. ‘Whale Boy and

  Free Billy and ... and other names.’

  Mr Julius doesn’t say anything for a while. Then he says, ‘Okay, Billy. But remember, if you can make yourself compete, they’ll all respect you a whole lot more.’ He stands up, squeezes my shoulder and walks away.

  ‘What’s the point of them respecting me if I drown anyway?’ I mutter to myself ‘Who respects someone who’s dead?’

  The first few events take place, and it’s all pretty much exactly what I expect. The first record of the day is broken by Justin Wakeman, which isn’t much of a surprise, even though he’s only in first grade. You see, he’s part of the famous Wakeman family. There are three Wakemans at our school, plus a couple in high school and they’re all great swimmers. I think their mum must be part-dolphin or something. Mermaid, maybe.

  So Justin Wakeman breaks the record for the under-eights fifty-metre freestyle, and eve
ryone cheers. A little while later it’s his sister Tina’s turn, and she breaks the record for the fifty-metre backstroke. More cheering. Of course. They’re like celebrities. One-day-a-year-celebrities.

  While Tina Wakeman’s climbing out of the pool and being hugged by her friends, her big brother Henry strides by. He’s in his swimmers, with his gog gles around his neck and his swimming cap in his hand. His friends John Graham and Matt Hinkley are right there with him, as usual; one on either side.

  I hope he doesn’t see me, because I don’t like him. I really don’t. But of course he does see me, and stops, mutters something to John and Matt, and comes up the bank towards me. I’m partway through a tube of Crimples cheese-and-onion chips when I see Henry and his friends approaching and I put the tube down. I could do without the extra attention.

  ‘Bill. Billy. Billy the Kid,’ Henry says.

  ‘Hey, Henry,’ I reply.

  ‘Bilbo. Big Bill.’

  I know the best one is still coming.

  ‘Free Billy.’ And there it is.

  ‘Hey, Henry,’ I say again.

  ‘You’d be planning to swim today, wouldn’t you?’ I shake my head. ‘No, not really.’

  ‘Why not? Worried you’re going to sink?’

  ‘We could roll him in,’ saysJohn, smirking.

  ‘Or we could just bring buckets of water up here to keep him wet,’ Matt suggests.

  When I reply, my voice sounds a lot weaker than I mean it to. I hate it when my voice refuses to work properly. ‘I’m not a very good swimmer,’ I say. ‘That’s why I’m not going in any races today. Or ever.’ I give a forced laugh. ‘Why tempt fate, huh?’

  ‘You scared?’

  I shake my head. ‘No, Henry, I’m not scared. I just don’t want to, that’s all. I’m not as good a swimmer as you,’ I add, hoping that the compliment might make him be nicer to me.

  ‘You’re right,’ he says. ‘It’s true - no one in this school is as good as me.’

  ‘Henry was at the State Championships last week,’ Matt tells me.