The Boy at the Back of the Class

by Onjali Q. Raúf

  I looked to the right over at Mrs. Grimsby, her face all sour and pink and angry, and decided I didn’t like her very much. She’s the grandmother of a girl named Nelly who’s in the year below us. Nelly’s one of the most popular girls in school, mainly because she’s won every burping competition the school’s ever had. She can even burp-sing famous songs and is always challenging everyone to try to beat her.

  I was looking up at Mrs. Grimsby and thinking about all the things she had said when Josie suddenly poked me on the arm. “Look!”

  When I looked back through the railings, Mrs. Khan and the new boy were on the playground and already talking to the woman with the red scarf. So I ran just as fast as I could and gave the new boy the special orange.

  As usual, he didn’t say thank you and he didn’t smile, but I saw his eyes widen when he saw the drawing of the smiley face and the sticker on the orange. And for the first time ever, he looked up at me with his lion eyes and didn’t look away. I knew right away that he wasn’t frightened of me anymore.

  I stared back and gave a small smile. I wanted him to know that it didn’t matter if he was a Refugee Kid, whatever that meant. I still wanted to be his friend. I think he must have understood, because he gave me a nod that no one else could see. I wished he had smiled back, because you can only ever know that a person’s really your friend when they like you enough to smile back at you. But it was okay because the nod felt like a promise, and I knew that I wouldn’t have to wait too long before the smile followed.

  When I got home that night, I stayed up for as long as I could and waited for my mum to come back from work. It’s always half past nine by the time she gets in on Mondays because Mondays are late nights at the library. I’m supposed to be in bed by then or she gets upset, but I didn’t mind getting in trouble—not if it meant I could find out what had made the new boy a Refugee Kid and why Mrs. Grimsby thought they caused trouble and took people’s jobs all the time.

  On the bus home, Michael said Refugee Kids came from big tents in the desert. But then Josie said that no one was allowed to live in tents in England except for when they were going on a camping trip, because it was against the law. And Tom said he’d heard of refugees on the television but couldn’t remember why they were running away and that England didn’t have any deserts with lots of tents in it anyway. It was all very confusing, but I knew my mum would know because she works in a library, and libraries have books about everything.

  My mum is amazing and the smartest person I know—even smarter than Mrs. Khan. She works two jobs—she’s a librarian during the week and on Saturdays she’s a nurse. She looks after people who can’t eat or walk or remember things properly anymore or who are too sick to live on their own. Because Mum has to work all the time, I don’t get to see her lots—except on Sundays. Sundays are our special Adventure Days—we used to have them all the time with my dad. Whenever he had a day off, he would wake us up early and pack us all a lunch, and we’d set off in the car. Usually to the seaside or a safari park or, if the weather was cold, for bowling or a movie.

  We can’t really afford to do any of those things now, because when I was six years old, my dad died in a car crash. Sometimes I worry that I’m forgetting him, even though I miss him every day. But when I think hard and dive right down into the deepest part of my brain, he’s still there. He was the funniest dad anyone could ever have. He used to be a carpenter and loved to build things out of whatever he could find.

  This is what Dad looks like in my memory:

  He always talked a lot more than Mum and loved to make up stories. But more than anything, he loved listening to music. He had a huge music collection, and he was always fixing the old-fashioned record player my grandfather had bought for him for his thirteenth birthday. He taught me how to play the big black discs on it and how to polish the large golden sound horn properly.

  Mum was going to sell it last year to help pay the bills—because apparently the older something is, the more money it’s worth. Only for things, that is—not people. But luckily my uncle Lenny made her give it to me instead. Uncle Lenny’s my mum’s brother and is the best uncle in the world even though he’s married to my aunt Christina, who I don’t really like, and has a son named Jacob, who likes breaking things. He tries to visit us at least once a week, usually on his own. He’s always asking me if there’s anything I need. I love that about him. And I’ll always love him for helping me keep Dad’s record player. It’s in my room now, but I never play music on it unless Mum is out of the house. She doesn’t like me using it very much. I think it reminds her of when my dad used to dance around with her after he’d made a chair or table he was proud of, and it makes her too sad.

  I had been playing one of my dad’s favorite old records to stop myself from falling asleep, when I suddenly heard my mum’s key in the door. You can always tell when it’s her key in the door and not my uncle Lenny’s, because it jangles the loudest. I quickly turned the song off and ran to the living room.

  “Well, hello there, munchkin!” said Mum. I could tell she was surprised to see me because her eyebrows had jumped up and disappeared into her hair. “What are you doing up so late?”

  “I can’t sleep,” I said.

  “Ah!” she said. Giving me a hug, she looked at me with a frown and touched my forehead. She always touches my forehead when she’s worried about me.

  “You’re not feeling ill, are you?”

  I shook my head.

  “Have you had your dinner?”

  I nodded. I usually have a can of soup and a bread roll on the nights Mum can’t make it home in time for dinner. Mrs. Abbey from next door comes and helps me make it when she knows I’m going to be on my own. She’s old and has trouble walking, but sometimes she makes me fish sticks if she’s feeling well. My favorite soup is tomato because it reminds me of tomato ketchup, one of my favorite things to eat in the whole wide world. You can add a dollop of it to any dish that’s not a dessert, and I’ll bet you my allowance it’ll make that dish taste instantly better. It’s third on my list of top foods, after chocolate and ice cream that comes in a cone from an ice-cream truck.

  “Well, then,” said Mum as she put her bags down. “Let’s see if a little hot chocolate doesn’t help! Come and keep me company while I have some tea. I’m not that hungry today.”

  I followed Mum into the kitchen and watched her get out the cocoa jar and switch on the kettle. And then before I knew it, I asked, “Mum, what’s a Refugee Kid?”

  I didn’t really mean to blurt it out like that, but sometimes my mouth does things my brain isn’t ready for.

  Mum stopped what she was doing and stared at me.

  “A refugee kid?” she asked, with a frown on her face. “Where did you hear those words?”

  “At school,” I said. “Someone called the new boy in our class a Refugee Kid.”

  “You’ve got a new boy in your class?”

  I nodded.

  “And Mrs. Khan didn’t tell you anything about him?”

  I shook my head. “Only that his name’s Ahmet and he’s never been to London before. I’m trying to be his friend, but he doesn’t talk to anyone, so I can’t tell if he wants to be friends too….”

  “I see….” Mum fell silent. She poured the milk into the saucepan and waited for it to heat up. I knew she was thinking about something serious, because she was rubbing her chin a lot. Mum only ever rubs her chin when she is about to say something serious.

  “Mum?” I whispered.

  But she stayed silent, which made me start to worry. Mum usually answers my questions right away. Maybe what Mr. Brown had called the new boy wasn’t a nice thing to call him at all.

  While I waited for my hot chocolate, I went and sat down in my chair and looked out the window. Our apartment isn’t very big but we have a small table near the window with four chairs around it.
I always sit in the chair next to the fridge because I like being able to open the fridge door without getting up. It’s like looking into an extra room in the house—but one that’s filled with food.

  Whenever I go to Uncle Lenny’s house, I always look in his fridge, because his is so big it almost touches the kitchen ceiling. If he had to, Uncle Lenny could live in there. He’d have to take out all the shelves and things, but he could definitely live in it standing up if he wanted to. I think it’s good to have a fridge that’s big enough to stand in. It means you’ll never run out of food like we do sometimes. And if you do, you can go and have a wonder in it.

  When Mum had finished making the hot chocolate and her tea, she sat down in her chair, which is opposite mine, and took out two lumps of sugar from the sugar jar. Keeping them balanced on a spoon, she slowly swirled them into the tea in little circles. We both watched them get smaller and smaller until they disappeared.

  “Mum…can you tell me now? What’s a Refugee Kid—I mean, where do they come from?”

  Mum gave me a look. She has at least twenty different looks that give me secret messages, and I know what all of them mean. This one usually meant, Stop asking me. But then she said, “Do you remember those lifeboats on the TV, darling? The ones with lots of people squeezed in that you were asking about?”

  I nodded. It had been in the middle of summer vacation. Mum and I were in the living room. She was doing a crossword and I had been coloring in some drawings I had done, and the news was on in the background. The TV screen had suddenly changed from a woman reporter standing on a beach to a video of lots of people in boats in the middle of an ocean, all looking scared. I had felt sorry for them and asked Mum what was going on.

  “Do you remember what I said?” asked Mum.

  “You said…that they were trying to find somewhere new to live because their home wasn’t nice to live in anymore.”

  “Exactly, my love. They were what people call refugees. And children like the new boy in your class are called refugee kids, because they’ve had to leave their homes and travel very far to try to find a new house to live in.”

  “Do you mean like Dena?” I asked, wondering if Dena was going to be called a Refugee Kid in her new school too. She had to move to Wales because her mum and dad couldn’t find a house in London.

  Mum shook her head. “Not exactly,” she said. “Dena’s mum and dad wanted to move. They had a choice, and they wanted to live in a much bigger, nicer house than the one they already had. But refugee children have been forced to run away—because bad people have made it impossible for them to stay. Those bad people drop bombs on their houses and destroy all the beautiful parts of their cities. And the places where the refugees used to live have become so horrible and so scary that they can’t live in them anymore. So they walk for miles and miles and get into boats to travel to countries they’ve never been to before, and they go to strange places they don’t know, just so they can find somewhere that’s safe enough to live in again.”

  “Oh,” I said quietly. I wondered what the refugees had done to make the bad people so angry. Last year, two first graders in school had tripped Brendan the Bully to get back at him for chasing them, which made him so angry that he smashed open their lunch boxes and stomped on all their food.

  “What did the refugees do to make the bad people want to hurt them?” I asked, thinking it must have been something very bad to make someone want to drop a bomb on their houses.

  Mum shook her head. “Nothing at all, darling. The bad people are just much stronger than they are and like to feel big and powerful by bullying them. You see, some people think that by taking things away from other people and hurting them, it gives them more power. And the more power they have, the more they want and the greedier they get. So they go on hurting more and more people until everyone wants to run away.”

  “Just like the bullies at school!” I said, feeling angry.

  “Well…I guess it is sort of like that.” Mum smiled. “Except the bullies the refugees are running away from are a lot bigger and far more horrible. They force people to leave behind everything they ever had. Even the people they love most in the world.”

  I thought about the new boy and felt sorry for him. Maybe he had been forced to leave behind lots of things that he loved most in the world, and that’s why he didn’t talk to anyone and needed so much Seclusion. I tried to think of what I would leave behind if I had to run away from lots of bullies, but I couldn’t decide. All I know is that I could never leave my dad’s record player behind—or his favorite hammer, which is still in the bottom kitchen drawer.

  Mum got up and took her mug to the sink. “Now, I know you want to make friends with this new boy, but you mustn’t be too eager. He’ll need lots of time and space first. Okay?”

  I nodded, even though I didn’t really understand what she meant. If I was the new boy, I would use up all my time to make as many friends as I could—especially if I had just run away from bullies that were bigger and more horrible than the bullies at school. I wondered if I should tell my mum about all the lemon candies and chocolate frogs and the orange with the smiley face I had given him, but then she said, “The world has never been kind to refugees,” in a sad way. She sounded just like she did whenever she talked about my dad. So even though I wanted to ask at least four more questions, I decided not to say anything else.

  “Now drink up and off to bed! I’ll come and tuck you in, in just a few minutes.” Mum came and ruffled my hair. She always ruffles my hair when she wants me to think she’s happier than she really is.

  I drank the rest of my hot chocolate just as quickly as I could and ran to bed. Mum only ever tucks me into bed when she’s home early, so this was a special treat. I love being tucked into bed—even more than I love beating everyone else in a race or scoring a goal. It’s the best feeling in the world to be wrapped up all warm and fuzzy in a blanket by someone you love more than anyone else on the planet and who loves you right back.

  As I lay waiting for Mum to come in, I thought about all the things she had said—about the bombs and the boats and the bad people who were so greedy that they made everyone want to run away from them. I had so much to tell Josie and Tom and Michael! Especially as I don’t think their mums and dads would have told them half as much as my mum had told me.

  It’s one of the things I love most about Mum. She always tries to answer my questions no matter how tired she is or how hard my questions are. And she always tells me the absolute truth. Michael’s parents are always saying, “Not now, dear,” or “We’ll tell you when you’re older,” and Josie’s mum keeps telling her that girls are supposed to be quiet and not to ask so many questions. But my mum never says anything like that to me. I think it’s because of all the books she reads. Mum says that the best books leave you with more questions than answers and that that’s the fun part—you have to try to find the answers for yourself somewhere else. And Dad used to say that the more questions you ask, the smarter you’ll be. Because that’s the only way you’ll ever know more than you already do.

  I think this is the first time in my life that I’ve ever wanted to be extra, extra smart about anything, because by the time Mum had come to tuck me in for the night, I had a long list of questions in my head that I wanted to ask the new boy. Eleven exactly. This is what they looked like:

  MY 11 QUESTIONS

  1. Where did you have to run away from?

  2. What language do you speak?

  3. Who’s the woman in the red scarf?

  4. Do you have any brothers or sisters?

  5. What did the bullies do to make you run away?

  6. Did you have to get on a boat like the people on the news?

  7. What sports do you like best?

  8. What’s your favorite fruit?

  9. How far did you have to walk to get away from t
he bullies?

  10. Do you like it here or do you miss your old house more?

  11. Do you have a best friend?

  My eleven questions would help me know everything I needed to know about the new boy so that I could be his friend. And I was going to find out the answer to every single one of them.

  As soon as I got to the bus stop the next day, I told Josie and Tom and Michael everything my mum had told me about Refugee Kids and about how the new boy had to get on a boat that probably didn’t have bathrooms on it so that he could run away from bombs and all the other bad things that the bullies had done to his country.

  “But my dad said Refugee Kids are dangerous and that they lie and steal things,” said Josie, looking confused. “He told me to stay away from the new boy and not to talk to him, because he was probably a criminal!”

  “But my mum and dad said we should be extra nice to him. Look!” And opening up his backpack, Tom showed us a big bag of candy. “Mum said to give these to him at lunch. And she said we had to be nice to him and not to ask him too many questions.”

  “My mum said the same,” said Michael as we got on the bus to school. “Except she told me to give him a banana. And my dad said Refugee Kids were running away from the war that’s on TV all the time. He didn’t say anything about any bullies!”

  We all looked over at Josie, who was chewing on the ends of her hair and frowning. She didn’t say anything, but I knew she was thinking that her dad must have made a mistake. There was no way the new boy could be dangerous or a criminal—not when he was the same size as us and had just run away from bullies and a real war.