OUR 5 NEW QUESTIONS
1. What is your sister’s name (and where is she now)?
2. Why wasn’t your mum in the last picture?
3. What happened to the cat?
4. How long did it take to walk to France?
5. Who are the bullies who dropped bombs on your house?
After I had finished writing them out, I put the list in the front pocket of my backpack. I would have to wait until the break was over to find out if Ahmet was ready to answer any of them.
I know everyone in school likes fall break, but I don’t. Not really. Mum still has to work and she can’t afford to send me to camp or extra activities, so I have to spend most of my time with Mrs. Abbey. Usually Michael’s and Josie’s parents come and take me to their house for a day, but Michael’s parents were taking him on a vacation to France, and Josie was going camping, and Tom and his brothers were visiting family near the beach, so there was no one to play with. The week felt extra long and extra boring, because London had what Mum calls a “Gray Day Week.” That’s when all the days are so cold and gray and wet and windy that you don’t want to get out of your pajamas or your bed, and the whole week feels like one long gray day that you can’t wait to be over.
But on the Sunday morning before school opened again, just as Mum was reading her newspapers and I was trying to decide what we should do for our Sunday Adventure, the phone rang. Mum picked it up and when she put it back down again, she was biting her lip and frowning. That meant she had forgotten something important and was feeling angry at herself.
“Darling, I’m so sorry—I completely forgot! But that was your uncle Lenny on the phone reminding me that he’s coming to lunch today.”
I jumped up in excitement.
“With your aunt Christina and Baby Jacob,” she added.
I sat back down and made a face. “Can’t Uncle Lenny just come on his own?” I asked.
Mum shook her head. “No, he can’t. Your aunt and Jacob haven’t been here in a while, so it’s nice that they want to come.” And then noticing that I was still making a face, she added, “And guess what? Uncle Lenny is bringing lunch—roast chicken! Your favorite! AND he said he wants a Scrabble match, so you’re to set the board up immediately!”
I jumped up and ran to my bedroom to get the Scrabble board from underneath my bed. I love Scrabble more than all the other board games, because it’s the only game that I don’t ever get bored playing. Dad always used to let me win by placing his letters in silly places so that he would get the lowest points. But Mum and Uncle Lenny never play low-scoring words on purpose, because Mum says that helping me win is cheating. She does let me use the dictionary though—because otherwise it wouldn’t be fair. After all, she and Uncle Lenny are older and know lots more words than a nine-and-three-quarters-year-old could ever know.
And just like that, I didn’t mind Aunt Christina and Jacob coming at all! Because there was nothing I loved better than eating Uncle Lenny’s roast chicken. Except playing Scrabble with him.
Just like Josie, Uncle Lenny is in all my memories too. When Dad died, I remember him being at the hospital with us and hugging Mum and me a lot. That was when he started calling me his “brave little tiger.” I don’t know why, because I didn’t feel even the tiniest bit brave.
But I didn’t mind. Because after the Funeral, he was the only person who stayed behind and helped Mum sort everything out. None of my other uncles and aunts who visited us that day ever came back to see Mum and me again. Mum’s friends try to visit us when they can, and Josie’s mum is always asking us if we need any help, but they’re busy with work just like Mum is. Sometimes I think most of the people who came to the Funeral were all really witches and wizards who had appeared out of thin air, just so they could eat a buffet and shake their heads a lot before disappearing again. It was good they disappeared, because most of them smelled like old mothballs and liked to pinch my cheeks until they hurt. That’s another reason I love Uncle Lenny. He’s never, ever pinched my cheeks or smelled like mothballs. He smells like warm bread most of the time, and freshly baked cookies some of the time.
He’s a taxi driver and only works at night. He loves his job and tells us the funniest stories about all the different kinds of people who have jumped into the back of his car. Like the time a famous actress got in and ordered him to drive around for a whole hour just so she could get some sleep. Or the time a large Italian family spent the whole ride silently fighting over a single portion of fish and chips.
Whenever Uncle Lenny visits us, he always brings a large bag of groceries—and a chocolate bar just for me. He doesn’t usually come with my aunt Christina, because she doesn’t like us. I don’t know why. But it’s okay because I don’t like her either. She’s very beautiful and is always perfectly dressed with perfect hair and with perfect makeup on her face. But she wrinkles up her nose whenever she sees something she doesn’t like—which is nearly all the time, so she always looks as if she’s smelled a bag of bad eggs. She has a fake smile too. It’s one of those smiles that shows lots of teeth but that never travels to any other part of her face. I don’t trust people who can’t smile with their whole face. It means they’re trying to hide something from you. Fake smiles always make me want to get as far away from the Fake Smiler as possible.
Their son Jacob is okay. But he’s only two and likes to break things, so I try to hide all my favorite toys from him when he comes over. After I finished setting up the Scrabble board, I helped Mum tidy up the house and was making my bedsheets extra straight when the doorbell rang.
“All right, all right, all right! How’s my favorite nearly-ten-year-old doing?” shouted Uncle Lenny when I opened the door. He always says that, even though I know I’m the only nearly-ten-year-old he knows, which means he can’t have any other favorites.
“Okay.” I shrugged.
“Only okay?” he asked, bending down and looking me in the eyes. “Hmm! Might need to send you to the Smile Doctor.”
I smiled wider.
“That’s better!” He ruffled my hair and gave me a kiss on the cheek, then heaved two large grocery bags into the kitchen.
“Afternoon!” said Aunt Christina. Her lips were pinched together, and she was wearing so much perfume that it made my nose tickle.
“Jacob’s asleep, so you’ll have to play with him later!” she said matter-of-factly as she carried Jacob through the door and stuck out her pointy face at me. I stood on my tiptoes and gave her a kiss. She pulled away quickly.
“Right! What have you been up to, then?” asked Uncle Lenny as he came and steered me to the kitchen table. I think he must be so used to driving his taxi that he liked to drive people around too.
“Nothing!” I shrugged. “Do you want to play Scrabble with me now, Uncle Lenny?”
“We’ll have a game after lunch, my little tiger.” He smiled. “I’m not on until five today!”
“Darling, why don’t you tell Uncle Lenny all about your new friend?” asked Mum as she set the table.
“Oh yeah! The pomegranate boy!” said Uncle Lenny. “Your mum told me. What’s happening there, then?”
“Lots!” I said. I began to tell him all about the Big Fight and the Mystery of the Murdered Plant Pot and the Great Baked Beans Bag Trap and Ahmet’s story. And as we ate our lunch, I told them all about the bombs and the fires and the orange boat and the tents and Ahmet’s cat and the railroad tracks and the wall with the barbed wire on it.
Uncle Lenny shook his head and muttered, “Poor tyke!” every few minutes, and Mum nodded along looking sad sometimes, but Aunt Christina looked bored. Then, just as I was preparing to tell them about my new list of questions, Aunt Christina said, “Doesn’t surprise me you would want to be friends with a refugee kid at all, sweetheart. You’d have lots of things in common with him. What with your gran having been a refugee too.�
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Uncle Lenny and Mum looked up sharply.
“I can’t even bear to think about it….Imagine! Being a war refugee back in the day? Before they all got loads of benefits and houses nicer than ours…”
Uncle Lenny looked up angrily and was about to say something when, just then, Jacob began to cry. Aunt Christina jumped up and, with a sniff, said, “Oh dear, seems he’s christened the diaper again!” before rushing out of the room.
“Mum, is that true?” I asked, looking at Mum so hard that it felt like my eyes were about to pop out of my head. “Was Gran a refugee too?”
“All yours,” muttered Uncle Lenny as he got up and walked over to one of the shopping bags. “I’ll get dessert, shall I?”
Mum looked at me for a moment, and then she said, “Yes, sweetheart, it is. Your Grandma Jo. We went to see her with Daddy when you were little. Do you remember her?”
I nodded. Not because I really remembered anything, but because I had looked at all the photographs hundreds of times. I was five, and it was the last time my mum and dad and me went on vacation in a real-life plane. We went to a town called Salzburg, which is in a country called Austria, because that’s where Dad lived before he moved to England. He used to talk about the mountains and the rivers and the way the birds always seemed to follow him around. He looked so happy in all the photographs. So did Mum.
I seemed to be crying in most of my photos, so I’m not sure if I was happy or not. I don’t really remember anything about the trip except for the large green wooden caravan Grandma Jo had in her back garden. Dad used to sleep in it during summer vacations when he was a boy. My granddad had built it before he died, which is why Dad wanted to become a carpenter. There’s a photo of me and Dad sitting on its steps and it’s the only photo of me where I’m not crying. Even then I must have liked the idea of sleeping in a bright green caravan.
I couldn’t really remember anything about my grandma Jo. But we had lots and lots of photos of her and Dad, and I always look at them whenever I miss Dad too much.
She had short gray hair and wore glasses that were tied to a long golden chain, and she always wore flowery tops and white trousers. I wished I could have remembered her more, but sometimes no matter how hard you try or how badly you want to, your brain can’t reach that far back.
“Why was she a refugee?” I asked. “Did she run away from bombs like Ahmet?”
Mum stayed quiet as Uncle Lenny placed four large chocolate éclairs on the table in front of us. I love chocolate éclairs because it’s like having three desserts in one. But as much as I wanted to eat my éclair, I wanted to hear the answers to my questions more.
Uncle Lenny sat back down and cleared his throat. “Don’t think they’ve done World War Two in school yet, have they?” he asked my mum quietly.
Mum shook her head.
“World War Two?” I asked. “You mean there was another one?”
Uncle Lenny nodded. “Yup. Just like the one you learned about last year, but twice as bad!” he whispered, as though it were a secret.
Mum put my éclair on a plate and pushed it toward me. “All you need to know, darling, is that Grandma Jo was a wonderful person and that she helped lots of refugees just like your friend Ahmet run away from a war too,” she said.
“Were they running away from Syria as well?” I asked, wondering just how long a war lasted.
“No, darling,” said Mum, putting her own éclair on a plate. “They ran away from a different war. One that started in Germany, and they were running away from people who called themselves Nazis.”
“Oh,” I said, wondering just how many wars I needed to learn about.
“Anyway, the important thing is she survived! And she got to see you!” exclaimed Uncle Lenny as he gave my hair a stroke.
“Exactly,” said Mum, tapping my hand. “Now, eat up, and let’s get a game of Scrabble going before Uncle Lenny has to leave!”
I nodded and, knowing that my mum didn’t want me to ask any more questions, broke open my éclair.
That afternoon, Uncle Lenny stayed and played two whole games of Scrabble with us, and Aunt Christina watched Jacob break one of Mum’s vases, rip a book, and throw my Lego bricks across the room. Mum won the first game and Uncle Lenny won the second one, and I got the lowest points I had ever gotten in history. But I didn’t mind. I don’t think you can really focus on playing a game when you’ve just found out that your grandma was a refugee, who had helped lots of other refugees run away from a war too. Even if you’re playing a game that’s as fun as Scrabble.
When we all got to school that first Monday after vacation, it turned out that nearly everyone had heard of Ahmet’s story. It had spread over the break more quickly than news of a new flavor of chips, and just as quickly as he had become famous for being “the Boy Who Beat Brendan the Bully,” Ahmet became famous for being “That Refugee Boy.”
I don’t think anyone kept their promise to Mrs. Khan of not asking him any questions, because everyone in class tried to sneak in at least one whenever they talked to him. Even Josie and Michael and Tom couldn’t help themselves and started to ask him things like, “Did you have cheese sandwiches in Syria?” or “What was the weather like in Greece?” or “Did you ever eat snails and frogs in France?” I don’t think Ahmet minded because we were his friends. If he understood the question, he would just answer yes or no, and if he didn’t understand, he would just stare at us or shrug. But there were lots of people he didn’t know asking him lots of questions too. Some of them asked so many questions in one go that even we couldn’t understand what they were saying—and we could speak English!
Some classes even began to send Messengers to see if they could find anything out. Messengers are usually the smallest kids in a class and are paid in candy or soccer stickers or extra lunch tokens to get information. Some of them are okay and leave you alone if you tell them that you don’t want to say anything. But the ones who work for the school bullies are especially annoying. It’s not their fault really, because they get beaten up if they go back with nothing new to tell, but sometimes they won’t listen to you even after you’ve already given them an answer. The most annoying Messenger in school is Victor.
Victor’s extra skinny, even though he eats fries every day, and he has a gold earring in his ear. He works for two upper-school bullies whose names I don’t know but who always hang around the lower boys’ bathroom and shake anyone who goes in until everything falls out of their pockets. But he also works for a group of girls who always stand around the water fountain, so you never really know who he’s Messenger-ing for.
After everyone found out Ahmet was a refugee, Victor followed us around for nearly a whole week. At recess, at lunchtime, and even after school let out, he would suddenly appear and ask lots of questions that even I found strange. Like, “Where did you get your shoes from?” “Are you scared of fireworks?” “Can you make a tent from a shirt?” and “Are you really nine or are you secretly older?”
He got so annoying that even the recess-duty teachers began to notice and told him to leave Ahmet alone. Except Mr. Irons. He was the only teacher who didn’t say anything. After he got told off by Mrs. Sanders and Ms. Hemsi one break, Victor stayed away, but his questions stayed with us. Sometimes words hang around longer than people, even when you don’t want them to. And whenever I was on my own or just with Tom and Josie and Michael, Victor’s questions would pop into my head and make me wonder what they meant.
The only thing that was even more annoying than the Messengers was Brendan the Bully. Because instead of being nicer to Ahmet after seeing his pictures and hearing his story, Brendan the Bully became even more horrible. He seemed to have forgotten that Ahmet could turn into a lion and punch him hundreds of times, because he began to whisper, “Hey! Smelly Refuge Bag!” whenever he saw him, and in class, he would throw spitballs whenever Mrs. Khan or
Ms. Hemsi weren’t looking. When we told Ahmet to tell Mrs. Khan or Mrs. Sanders about it, he shook his head and said, “I not scared. Lots of badder people in camps. My dad say I fight them. So, I fight him.”
When Ahmet said this, I thought he was very brave, so on Halloween, I brought in one of my favorite Tintin comic books for him to look at—because in it, Tintin stays and fights lots of bad guys, even though the bad guys are bigger and there are lots more of them. There are always more of them!
“See? You! You’re like this! See?” I said, showing him the book. I was dressed as a vampire and Ahmet was dressed as a green monster—although Tom said it was the Hulk. We were sitting on the playground on our own because Tom and Josie and Michael were still eating their lunch and taking too long.
“Tintin!” he cried out when he saw the cover.
“You know Tintin?” I asked, surprised. I hadn’t thought about it before, but I guess Tintin really is famous everywhere!
“Yes!” said Ahmet. “I read all time. My dad—he read them to me.”
I nodded, remembering the voices my dad used to make when he read the comics to me too. After a while, I said, “I have all of them. You can see them if you like.”
“I keep this?” asked Ahmet.
“Oh,” I said. I hadn’t really meant to give him the book—I had only wanted to show it to him. But I knew I could ask Mum to find me another old copy in the library and save it for me when it was about to be thrown away, so I shrugged and said, “Sure!”
Ahmet gave me a big smile and started to flick through it. He stopped at a page and pointed at Captain Haddock. “My dad…he had this,” he said, moving his finger so that it pointed to Captain Haddock’s beard. “You?”
I shook my head. “No, my dad didn’t have a beard. But also…my dad…he’s dead….”
Ahmet nodded sadly and looked down at the picture. “I not know where is Dad. Maybe he dead too.”
The Boy at the Back of the Class Page 8