Boy Overboard

  ‘Oh no,’ mutters Rashida.

  I take the knotted t-shirt off my head, pull Bibi’s headscarf off and put the t-shirt hat on her head instead, stuffing her hair under it. Bibi understands what I’m doing and knots her skirt between her legs to look like baggy shorts.

  ‘Quick,’ I say to Omar. ‘Give Rashida your hat.’

  ‘I haven’t got a hat,’ squeaks Omar. Then he remembers the shorts on his head. He gives them to Rashida.

  ‘Put them on,’ I say to Rashida. ‘Tuck your hair up.’

  While she does, I wrap the blanket round her and rub my hand over her face until her makeup is so smudged it looks like dirt and grass stains.

  I signal for us all to sit down. I grab my soccer ball and start bouncing it from knee to knee. I knee it to Rashida. She knees it to Bibi. Bibi knees it back to me. I return it, and soon we’ve got a rhythm going.

  I pray that Omar doesn’t try and join in. Normally we’d let him, but today his lack of skill could be fatal.

  He doesn’t.

  Not too fast, I beg Rashida silently as the ball goes round the circle. You haven’t had that much practice.

  A shadow falls over us.

  A pirate stops right in front of us, studying the ball as it goes back and forward. I pray he doesn’t know how brilliant females can be at soccer. I pray he assumes anyone with knee skills like Bibi and Rashida must be male.

  He’s not tearing their hats off and dragging them onto the pirate boat, so it must be working.

  Suddenly the pirate grins, takes a step back and swings his foot at the ball.

  Even as I see it coming I know I should let him kick it. But my leg responds faster than my brain. I trap the ball and slide it to one side. The pirate’s kick misses by a mile and he falls over backwards onto the deck, his automatic rifle clattering down next to him.

  The other pirates laugh.

  The people around us give a quiet moan.

  We wait, frozen, for the pirate to shoot us all.

  He doesn’t.

  Instead he gets up, takes a step back, and kicks me in the hip.

  Very hard.

  Pain explodes up and down my body. I writhe on the deck, my knees hunched to my chest, my eyes full of tears. For a long time I can’t even straighten my legs. All I can do is squint anxiously at Bibi.

  Don’t attack the pirate, I beg her silently. Please don’t.

  She doesn’t. She wants to, but Omar is hanging on to her as tight as he can and she can’t shake him off.

  Finally, after Rashida has rubbed my hip for ages, I manage to sit up.

  The pain brings more tears to my eyes, but I can still see what’s happened.

  The pirates have gone.

  Their boat is a dot on the horizon.

  The smugglers have abandoned us. We’re alone in the middle of the ocean, a boatful of starving wailing people and three scared sailors.

  This is it, I think. It can’t get worse than this.

  31

  I’m Dubbo Abattoirs United and I’ve got the ball and everything is good.

  The sun is shining.

  The grass is green.

  The goalposts are solid gold.

  Mum and Dad are among the spectators, smiling and waving.

  My hip hurts but it doesn’t stop me dazzling the cup final crowd with my footwork.

  What stops me is Bibi’s scream.

  Fearfully I look around the stadium. I can’t see the problem. There’s no army truck on the pitch. No soldiers with guns. Nobody’s being chained to the goalposts. And yet I can still hear Bibi screaming.

  I open my eyes.

  The sky is black. A bitter wind cuts through the huddled people on the deck. Bibi is clutching onto me, screaming into my chest.

  I look up and see why.

  A huge dark foam-spewing wave is crashing down onto us.

  32

  I’ve lost Rashida. I’ve lost Omar. Bibi’s with me but only because our belts are tied together with her headcloth.

  We’re back to back, scooping with vegetable tins. The freezing oily water is up to my waist. It’s up to Bibi’s chest. Here below deck we can’t see the storm, but it sounds like it’s tearing the boat apart.

  ‘This is hopeless,’ yells Bibi for the millionth time.

  ‘No,’ I yell. ‘It’s working.’

  But even in the gloom we can both see it isn’t. This tiny space is packed with people, all scooping, but the water is winning. Every time a wave smashes onto the boat, more water pours in here than we can possibly scoop up in soup bowls and vegetable tins and fling out again.

  ‘The boat’ll sink,’ yells Bibi. ‘We’ve got to tell the sailors.’

  I haven’t got the heart to tell her that the sailors are already down here, floundering around under the water trying to mend the bilge pump.

  We both flinch as a huge wave crashes into the boat, pushing the back of it up out of the sea. The engine roars and sprays us with hot oil.

  ‘Keep scooping,’ I say to Bibi.

  It’s all we can do.

  ‘How could he,’ says Bibi. ‘How could that congealed lump of yellow camel-snot take the only bucket?’

  Poor Bibi. We’re numb with cold. And dizzy with exhaustion and hunger. And so thirsty. This is torture, being surrounded by water and not being able to drink any. It must be worse for her, she’s only ten.

  I think of Dad’s ancestors, countless generations of bakers who got up at 3am even though they needed more sleep and who stuck at it, dragging sacks of flour, kneading dough, twisting their backs to reach into scalding ovens, loaf after loaf after loaf after loaf after loaf.

  They didn’t stop and I’m not going to either.

  I glance over my shoulder at Bibi.

  She looks totally exhausted. Even in this faint light I can see how pale she is, hair plastered round her face, scooping with her eyes closed. Her lips are blue.

  A lot of the men down here keep looking at her. They can’t believe a female can keep going this long. They don’t understand how she can do it.

  I know how.

  Her father’s a baker.

  33

  What’s going on?

  The people up on the deck are yelling and screaming. I can’t hear what they’re saying because of the engine noise right next to my ear.

  They sound terrified.

  The people down here have stopped scooping and are climbing up the ladder to see.

  I don’t want to see.

  I don’t want anything else to happen. Bibi and I will keep going down here till we drop, but I haven’t got the strength for anything else.

  I keep scooping.

  ‘Jamal, come and see.’

  Someone’s yelling at me from the top of the ladder.

  It’s Rashida. Thank God. She’s alive.

  ‘Rashida, come down,’ I say.

  She doesn’t hear me. My voice is too tired to shout. It doesn’t matter because I’m moving towards the ladder anyway. I still don’t want to go up, but people behind us do and I’m too exhausted to get out of the way so me and Bibi get pushed up the ladder.

  We stagger onto the deck and my mouth falls open.

  Towering over us, huge, is a warship.

  Some of its guns are longer than our whole boat. Plus I can see rockets with armour-piercing warheads. And machine guns with laser sights.

  All pointing at us.

  People on our boat are panicking. Some of them are grabbing babies and toddlers and running to the railing and holding them up to the warship.

  ‘Don’t shoot,’ they’re yelling. ‘There are children on board.’

  I’m not panicking.

  Even though the warship could blow us out of the water with one press of a button, I’m not scared.

  I recognise the warship’s flag. It’s a flag I’ve seen before, on the doctor’s t-shirt in the camp.

  I’m shaking all over. I’m laughing and crying at the same time. I grab Bibi and Rashida to share the wond
erful news with them.

  ‘Australians,’ I shout. ‘They’ve come to rescue us. We’re saved.’

  34

  There’s an Australian serviceman peering into my cabin. I can see him in the doorway, outlined by the light from the passageway.

  It’s Andrew, I can tell by his uniform and his ears.

  When he was carrying me and Bibi onto the warship, and we were all hooked onto the cable and sliding through the air, he could see how scared we were.

  ‘Hang onto my ears,’ he said.

  At first I thought he’d said it wrong. He speaks our language, but not that well. Then I realised he meant it.

  ‘When God was handing out ears,’ he said, ‘I asked for handles. Knew they’d come in useful one day. Hang on.’

  So we did.

  He didn’t care if it was hurting him. Australians are like that. Really generous. Also Andrew’s an officer, so he’s probably been trained to withstand pain.

  ‘Jamal,’ whispers Andrew now. ‘Are you still asleep?’

  ‘No,’ I whisper. ‘Bibi is, but I’m not.’

  Andrew creeps into the cabin, careful not to trip over the piles of cables and winches lying around. He bends over Bibi’s folding bed and puts his hand gently on her forehead.

  ‘Good,’ he says. ‘Her fever’s gone.’

  He crouches next to my bed. He’s holding a tray with two plates on it.

  ‘Thought you might both still be hungry,’ he says, handing a plate to me. ‘The speed you ate that first meal, I thought you were going to swallow the cutlery as well.’

  He clicks on a torch and shines it onto the plate.

  Fish fingers, chips and peas. Same as last time. Andrew says it’s traditional Australian food. I love it.

  ‘Thanks,’ I whisper.

  Andrew’s face falls. Suddenly he’s looking upset. ‘Jamal,’ he says quietly. ‘I want to say how sorry I am.’

  I stare at him, panic turning my first dinner into a hard ball in my stomach. Why is he sorry? Why is he looking so sad? Has he heard bad news?

  ‘Is it Mum and Dad?’ I blurt out. ‘Has something happened to them?’

  Andrew looks confused for a moment. Then he puts his hand on my arm. ‘No,’ he says gently. ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure they’re fine. Their boat must have taken a different route. We’ve got a plane out looking and once we’ve dropped you off on dry land, we’ll join the search ourselves. We’ll find them.’

  Australians are really good at calming you down.

  ‘Or,’ I say, ‘they might be waiting for us when we arrive.’

  ‘They might,’ he says.

  I believe him. That’s another thing about Australians. You trust them.

  ‘What are you sorry about then?’ I say. Another scary thought has hit me. Rashida.

  ‘What I’m apologising about,’ says Andrew, ‘is the time it took to get you all off your boat. You were cold and hungry and your boat was leaking. We should have done it straight away, but there was …’

  I can see he’s struggling to find the right word. It can’t be easy, expressing yourself in another language.

  ‘… paperwork,’ says Andrew.

  ‘That’s OK,’ I say. ‘I understand about paperwork. My mum’s a teacher.’

  Andrew smiles, but he still looks a bit upset.

  ‘How’s your hip?’ he says.

  ‘Hurts,’ I say.

  ‘I’m not surprised,’ he says. ‘The size of that bruise. When I was a kid a truck hit me and I didn’t have a bruise that big. I’ve spoken to the doctor who looked at it. He says it needs to be X-rayed, but we don’t have an X-ray machine on the ship.’

  I’m not exactly sure what an X-ray is. Probably a traditional Australian method of curing bruises. I’m sure there’ll be loads of X-ray machines around when we land.

  ‘That’s OK,’ I say. ‘Thanks anyway.’

  ‘I’ll leave you to eat in peace,’ says Andrew.

  I don’t want him to go.

  ‘Andrew,’ I say. ‘How come you speak my language?’

  ‘Night school,’ he says. ‘The navy pays you more if you’ve got a second language.’ He grins. ‘Anything else you’d like to ask?’

  There are a million things.

  I want to know if Bibi and I will be able to go to school at night when we’re living in Australia. I hope so, because that’ll leave the days free for soccer practice.

  I want to know how to cook fish fingers, chips and peas, so I can make it for Mum and Dad and Bibi.

  I want to know where Andrew lives, so if possible we can live close.

  But there are even more important things to ask.

  ‘How’s Rashida?’ I say.

  ‘She’s fine,’ says Andrew. ‘She was a bit dehydrated, so the doctor’s got her on a drip, but she’ll be up soon.’ He smiles again. ‘Anything else?’

  There is something else. I’m scared to ask because just thinking about it makes me remember the storm and the waves smashing over us and how some people were swept into the sea. But I have to ask anyway.

  ‘Have you found the boy with the soccer ball yet? His name’s Omar.’

  ‘Not yet,’ says Andrew. He gives me a sympathetic look. ‘People are scattered all over the ship. I’m sure he’ll turn up. And I’m sure your ball will too.’

  ‘It’s not the ball I’m worried about,’ I say.

  Andrew nods. ‘I know,’ he says. ‘Enjoy your meal. I’ll leave Bibi’s plate on the floor. See you later.’

  ‘Andrew,’ I say. ‘When it’s your birthday and the government brings your cake round, I hope it’s a big one.’

  ‘Thanks,’ says Andrew.

  He looks a bit puzzled as he creeps out. I remember I’m not absolutely sure about the Australian government and birthdays.

  After a while I sit up and start eating.

  A little later a voice comes out of the gloom, making me jump. ‘You can get gut-ache eating too many chips,’ it says.

  I realise someone is watching me from the doorway. I hear the thump of a soccer ball bouncing on the lino in the passage.

  ‘Hey,’ says Omar, coming into the room. ‘Is that dinner on the floor for me?’

  35

  We’re in Australia.

  Almost.

  We’re crowded into one of the warship’s rubber boats, speeding towards the coastline.

  Australia looks so green. Except for the droopy brown palm trees. And the grey buildings with the paint flaking off. And the wooden jetty with plastic bags washed up against it. But the rest of it is really green.

  Some of the people in the boat are clutching each other and weeping. I don’t blame them. Being here feels even better than I imagined.

  But there’s one thing we haven’t seen yet.

  Mum and Dad’s boat.

  Bibi is next to me, almost in the water with excitement. ‘Look,’ she yells. ‘Is that it there?’ She’s pointing to a rusty shape at the edge of the bay.

  Omar peers at it. I admire his coolness. His parents are on that boat too. I bet inside he’s boiling with excitement like me.

  ‘No,’ says Omar. ‘It’s a storage tank.’

  I go off the boil. He’s right.

  I stare up and down the coastline, desperate to see Mum and Dad’s boat.

  ‘Jamal and Bibi,’ shouts Andrew from the front of our boat. ‘Don’t lean out so far.’

  ‘He’s worse than Mum,’ mutters Bibi.

  I agree. Australians can be a bit over-protective. We’re wearing life-jackets and Bibi’s holding a soccer ball. If we fall in we’re hardly going to sink.

  It’s just my insides that are sinking.

  Mum and Dad’s boat isn’t here.

  Rashida can see how disappointed we are. ‘Perhaps it landed in a different part of Australia,’ she says. ‘Perhaps they’re on the jetty waiting to meet you.’

  Of course. That’s it.

  Bibi and I lean out of the boat again and squint at the jetty. I can see quite a few
people waiting for us to arrive. They’re a bit hazy through the spray and sunlight. Any of them could be Mum or Dad.

  When we reach the jetty, Bibi and I are first off.

  ‘Mum,’ we shout as we push through the people. ‘Dad.’

  Nobody replies.

  Most of the people on the jetty are wearing uniforms of one type or another. For a wild moment I hope that some kind Australian sailors have lent Mum and Dad their uniforms, but as I study the faces around me I see this hasn’t happened.

  They’re not here.

  Panic sweeps through me. My mind does all the things I’ve tried to stop it doing these last few days. Imagines Mum and Dad fighting pirates. Dying of thirst. Being swept away by a storm.

  I struggle to keep the panic and sadness inside me. Poor Bibi’s already crying and if I start now everybody could end up distressed. Half the people on our boat have friends or family on the other boat, including Omar.

  Andrew comes over and puts his hand on my shoulder.

  ‘We still haven’t found the other boat,’ he says quietly. ‘But we will, I promise.’

  I look up into his face and what I see makes me feel calmer. Not the freckles or the red curly hair. The expression in his eyes. I can see that when Australians make a promise, they keep it.

  ‘Cheer up,’ I say to Bibi. ‘Everything’s going to be OK.’

  She doesn’t look convinced.

  I am. As Andrew leads us off the jetty, I feel like running and shouting and scoring about fifty goals.

  This is Australia. I’m walking on an Australian pathway. Australian grass is growing nearby. Australian flies are landing on my face.

  I hug Bibi. ‘We made it,’ I say.

  She hugs me back and gives a little smile through her tears. ‘The grass looks good for soccer,’ she says.

  Rashida and Omar catch up with us. Rashida’s lips look even greener here in Australia. They’re definitely trembling more. She puts her arms round me and Bibi and Omar and squeezes us tight.

  ‘Thank you,’ she whispers.

  I thank her back and remind her that if she hadn’t kept us alive with her flour, we wouldn’t have been around to help her with the pirates.