by Humza Arshad
‘What are you doing down here?’ yelled my dad. He looked just as angry as he had that morning.
‘I …’ I started. ‘I gotta go,’ I said to Umer, and slammed the phone down. I turned to face my dad. That’s when I saw the box beside him. It was about the size of a washing machine, made of wood and had air holes drilled in it in a few places.
‘You’ve got to be kidding!’ I said.
‘This?’ he replied, glancing at the crate. ‘Absolutely not. I told you, if you continued to behave this way, I would ship you to Pakistan. You have forced my hand.’
‘You can’t ship me in a box! That’s illegal,’ I shouted.
‘I have contacts at shipping authority. They will make exception for you.’
‘I’ll starve to death!’
‘Ha!’ he laughed. ‘You are in no danger of starving, boy. Look at you!’
Damn, that was a low blow, even for him.
‘Mum’ll never let you do it,’ I replied. ‘Even if she is angry with me, she’s not gonna let you send me to Pakistan in a wooden crate.’
‘I make the decisions in this house!’ he shouted, before adding: ‘Plus, your mother is out visiting Uzma, so what can she do? Now get in the crate!’
‘I ain’t getting in no crate,’ I replied, stepping back.
‘I won’t seal it yet,’ said my dad, stepping towards me. ‘It is just to check measurements.’
‘No way! You’re crazy!’ I yelled, taking another step back towards the door.
‘Nonsense!’ he yelled, advancing. ‘I am the only sane one here!’
I felt the door handle against my back. I had nowhere to go. This insane old man was going to make me get in his box and there was nothing I could do. And then I heard it. A key turning in the lock behind me. The door began to push inward. I leapt to the side. It was Mum! I was saved!
‘Oh, hello, dear,’ said my dad in a cheerful voice, as he moved to stand in front of his crate.
‘Hello, my darlings,’ said my mum with a big smile on her face.
‘Darlings’? Did she just say ‘darlings’? Like, two of us? Plural? Was I a ‘darling’ again? Was I out of trouble? What had happened?
Mum stepped inside. She had a big tray of Uzma’s gulab jamun under one arm and she placed it down on the hall table as she entered.
‘There we are,’ she said, smiling. ‘A nice treat for us all.’
‘What, even the boy?’ said my dad, sounding confused.
‘Of course for the boy,’ she said with a light, happy laugh. ‘He needs feeding up!’
She turned towards me and took my cheeks in both hands.
‘He is far too skinny,’ she added.
My blood ran cold. My heart pounded in my chest. Looking into my mum’s eyes – seeing the strange smile spread across her face – I knew beyond a shadow of a doubt: they’d got to her too.
My mum was one of them.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Terrible, Terrible, Terrible!
Breakfast was ridiculous. My mum must have been up half the night cooking. And it wasn’t just breakfast foods – it was everything. Yeah, there were eggs and toast and cereal and pastries and all of that. But on top of that there were like six different curries, rice, pakora, samosas, laddoo, gulab jamun. I swear, the table legs were bowing under the weight of it all.
Mum watched me the whole time I was eating; that weird smile, those mad eyes. Eventually I told her I was full and was going to be late for school.
‘Oh, they won’t mind if you are a few minutes late,’ she replied. ‘Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. And so is lunch. And dinner. And snacks.’
I nodded and took one more small bite of the sugary pastry I’d been eating.
‘I gotta run,’ I said.
‘I will be preparing you an extra-special dinner tonight,’ she said, smiling down at me, ‘to make up for your difficult day yesterday. Won’t that be nice, hmm?’
‘Uh, yeah, great,’ I said, grabbing my school bag. ‘Can’t wait.’
This was bad. I couldn’t get out of there fast enough. It might have taken me a while to spot it with Auntie Uzma, but I could tell with my eyes shut that this thing wasn’t my mum. No wonder Grandpa had figured it out so quick. I guess it’s the people closest to you that are the easiest to spot.
Umer and Wendy were already waiting at the school gates when I arrived.
‘Are you OK?’ said Wendy.
‘They got my mum,’ I told her.
‘What?’ they both gasped at once.
‘She went out last night and when she got home she was different. She’s one of them.’
‘Are you sure?’ asked Umer.
‘Positive. One minute she wanted to kill me, the next she was feeding me deep-fried sugar. She’s one of them.’
‘Oh, man,’ said Umer.
‘This is bad,’ added Wendy.
‘Tell me about it,’ I replied. ‘Without the track, we’re done for.’
‘But there must be a way,’ said Wendy. ‘There must be a way we can convince someone we’re telling the truth.’
‘Who?’ I replied. ‘Who can we trust for sure? Even if we could guarantee that person wasn’t a slug, how do we know they wouldn’t go talk to my mum? She’d just say I was just making it up, and then they’d be on to us.’
The others went quiet as they thought about this.
‘Our only shot was to expose them and it didn’t work,’ I said. ‘I was wrong. Hell, I should have never even been up there. I ain’t no rapper. I’ve ruined everything.’
‘Of course you haven’t, Humza,’ said Umer, putting a hand on my shoulder. ‘The track didn’t do what we thought it was gonna do. Nothing happened. That’s not your fault.’
‘Umer’s right,’ said Wendy. ‘The reaction can’t have been caused by the bassline frequency, as I initially thought, because it had no effect on them. It must have been something else.’
She was right. Why hadn’t it happened this time? Maybe it was never the track. Maybe it was something completely different that had caused the reaction in Mrs Masood.
‘Humza,’ said Wendy a moment later. ‘When it happened before, in the library, you said it started as soon as you began playing the track, right?’
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Tell me again,’ said Wendy.
‘I was sat on the floor. I hit PLAY, the bass and the beat all started playing. I was just thinking that my lyrics were actually pretty good, when bang! – a book hit me on the head. That’s when I looked up and saw Mrs Farooqi freaking out.’
‘Your vocal –’ said Wendy, ‘does it come in right at the start of the song?’
‘No,’ I replied. ‘There’s, like, ten seconds of instrumental first.’
Wendy was quiet for a moment. Her mouth fell open.
‘It’s not just the bass …’ she said. ‘It’s not just the music. It’s you!’
‘Me? What you talking about?’
‘I thought it was the frequency of the music, of Mr Turnbull’s unusual bassline, but it’s the whole song! And you’re part of the song! Your voice is part of that frequency!’
‘You mean, it needed me to work?’ I asked.
‘Exactly! It wasn’t until your voice came in that the frequency was just right. There must be something in the unusual high-pitched tone of your voice that mixes with that bassline to cause the reaction.’
‘What you talking about, “unusual high-pitched tone”?’ I replied.
‘You do have kind of a weird voice,’ agreed Umer. ‘Especially when you rap.’
‘What? No I don’t!’
‘It’s sort of like a cartoon,’ continued Umer. ‘But, you know, in a good way. It’s unique.’
A cartoon? What the hell was he talking about? What kind of rapper sounds like a cartoon? Man, I was an embarrassment. This was terrible.
Wendy had been quiet for a while, but then she lifted her eyes to stare at us. She looked like she might cry.
‘That�
�s the answer. The frequency of your voice. Because I removed the vocals yesterday the reaction never happened. That’s why it didn’t work. It’s my fault!’
‘No it ain’t,’ I replied. ‘If I’d been able to perform it would have been fine. So it’s still my fault.’
‘But if I’d just left the track alone you wouldn’t have had to perform at all. It’s definitely my fault.’
‘Trust me, Wendy, it’s more my fault than it is yours.’
‘It isn’t!’
‘It is!’
‘IT ISN’T!’
‘IT IS!’
‘IT’S NO ONE’S FAULT!’ shouted Umer, more forcefully than I’d ever heard him. ‘We’re fighting a bunch of monsters here! We don’t know what we’re doing. We’re making it up as we go along and no one will help us. Of course things are going to go wrong!’
We both stared at him, too surprised to speak.
‘Wendy, you couldn’t have known what part of the track was going to work before now. It’s why you’re so good at science and figuring stuff out – because you always experiment until you do know. Until you understand. And, Humza,’ he continued, turning to me, ‘you’re too hard on yourself. That’s why you couldn’t perform yesterday. You put so much pressure on becoming famous and rich and everyone loving you – of course you’re going to freeze up. You don’t need to be famous to be liked. You’re my best friend. I don’t care if we make music or not. I don’t care if you get famous. I don’t care about any of it. I like you anyway.’
I didn’t know what to say. I just stared at Umer’s big warm face and knew that, somehow, he was right.
‘Me too,’ said Wendy a moment later. ‘I never thought we’d be friends. But I’m glad we are.’
‘Thanks, guys,’ was all I managed to say.
It must have been windy out, because I suddenly realized my eyes were watering a little and I had to blink quite a lot to shift it. (Just to be clear, I ain’t cried since I was six – so don’t even go there.)
Standing at the school gates with my two best friends, I had no idea what we were going to do next. I didn’t know how to fix any of this. All I knew was that it all suddenly felt a bit less scary.
School felt different again that day. There were just as many aunties, just as much food, but the mood had shifted – for us three at least. Yesterday we had a plan, we had a way of resisting them. Today we had nothing. Today the aunties were winning.
Kids didn’t play in the playground any more. They just sat on the floor in little groups, sweating in the sunshine and eating sticky buns and toffee apples. And it was aunties as far as the eye could see. No dinner ladies, no teachers, no caretakers. Just colourful, cuddly aunties. Those mad eyes and weird grins.
Lessons were no better. The three of us just kept our heads down – ate as little as possible, said as little as possible. It was like we were just waiting for the end. Or maybe, just maybe, waiting for them to slip up. Waiting for another opportunity. But I couldn’t see how that was going to happen. They were too crafty. We still had no idea what they were up to. If we couldn’t get to the bottom of it, we were done for.
At the end of the day the three of us trudged out of school in silence. I don’t know what either of the others were thinking – whether they were still trying to work out a solution, or if they were just feeling as stuck as I was. Whatever the case, it was Umer who saw it first.
‘Uh, Humza,’ he said.
I looked up to see what he was staring at. Standing next to his car at the front gate was my dad. His arms were folded, his expression grim – but somewhere in his eyes I could see that little twinkle he gets before dishing out a punishment. Man, this was just what I didn’t need right now.
‘Get in the car,’ he barked.
‘I can just walk home with these guys,’ I replied. ‘I don’t need a lift.’
‘I am not here to give you a lift. We are not going home,’ he said, opening the passenger door.
I turned to the others. They could smell the danger in the air too.
‘Good luck,’ said Umer.
‘Thanks,’ I replied.
‘See you tomorrow?’ said Wendy.
I don’t think she meant it to sound like a question but I guess she couldn’t help it.
‘Yeah, see you tomorrow,’ I answered, then climbed into the car.
Minutes later we screeched to a halt outside a row of shops on the high street. Across the road, in the window of the electrical shop, I could see the video camera. Still on sale. Still twinkling in the light. I shook my head. It all seemed like a long time ago now.
I felt pretty confident my dad hadn’t driven me here on a surprise shopping trip though.
‘Out,’ he said.
I opened my door and stepped out of the car. I looked around the shopfronts, trying to figure out which of these places he was taking me to. The butcher’s to chop me up? The baker’s to incinerate me? The chemist’s to poison me? Turns out it was none of these. It was the last place I’d have guessed.
‘Get inside,’ said Dad, holding open the door of the travel agent’s.
‘Why are we at a travel agent’s?’ I asked him. ‘We ain’t going on holiday.’
‘No – we aren’t,’ he replied, pushing me through the door. ‘You are.’
I could see a familiar-looking woman sitting behind the counter. Mrs Hamid, I think. This was her and her husband’s place. We always came here for our tickets to Pakistan …
Oh no.
‘Dad, please don’t do this,’ I begged him.
He wasn’t listening.
‘Your mother says I cannot send you to Pakistan in a shipping container, even though it is excellent value. She is mad. But she cannot argue with aeroplane. Now sit down while I speak to Mrs Hamid.’
‘Dad!’ I cried, but it was no good.
‘Silence!’ he said, and he pushed me into one of the seats beside the door, before turning to the woman at the desk.
Fantastic. On top of everything, I was now about to be sent to live in Pakistan (probably the one place in the world where there were more Pakistani aunties than at my school). What was the point in even protesting? You never had any say as a kid. Life was just something that happened to you. You just tried to survive for as long as you could.
I sat there feeling numb to it all, staring at the pictures on the wall. No pictures of Pakistan, unsurprisingly. They were all the kinds of holiday destinations people might actually want to go to – big full-size wall prints of mountains, waterfalls and canyons.
Mountains …
Waterfalls …
Canyons …
I knew these pictures from somewhere. I got up and read the captions:
MOUNT FUJI
NIAGARA FALLS
THE GRAND CANYON
My jaw fell open so hard it nearly came off. The last thing Grandpa said. The teachers’ holidays. It all made sense. How could I have missed it? This was the answer! This was the link!
I was out the door and running down the street before my dad could even get to his feet. I heard him shouting after me.
‘You cannot stop this, boy! You are going to Pakistan! Pakistaaaaan!’
The words followed me round the corner and echoed in my head for at least three blocks. But it didn’t matter now. I had something. I had proof!
If I was quick I could still catch Umer and Wendy on their walk home. The two of them went the same way as far as Tunnoch Street, before splitting off in the direction of their own homes. That’s where I could intercept them. I ran like the wind (if the wind was a bit chubby from eating badly and not getting that much exercise).
I got there just in time to see them turning away from one another.
‘Wait!’ I shouted.
They stopped dead, turning to face me at the same time. I sprinted over, out of breath but desperate to explain.
‘Pictures …’ I gasped ‘Fake! … Holidays … teachers … Not real!’ I added.
They both looked a
t me, puzzled.
‘Are you OK?’ said Wendy.
‘What did your dad do to you?’ asked Umer.
‘He took me …’ I managed to say, ‘to the travel agent’s.’
‘Travel agent’s?’ said Wendy. ‘Why?’
‘Doesn’t matter … Pakistan … Not the point,’ I said, shaking my head. ‘Grandpa’s last words … about the holidays … he figured it out …’
‘Figured what out?’ said Umer.
‘They faked the holiday photos …’ I explained, my breath beginning to come back. ‘They used the photos at the travel agent’s … Mrs Hamid must be in on it … They used the big photos on the wall there … Made it look like the teachers are on holiday … But it’s all a lie … The online pictures are fake!’
‘That’s interesting,’ said Wendy, ‘but how does it help us?’
‘Don’t you see? It’s proof. Proof there’s a plot,’ I replied.
Neither of them looked convinced.
‘I know it doesn’t seem big, not compared to giant slugs or whatever, but now we know how they’re covering it up. We can use it against them!’
‘How?’ asked Umer.
‘We can catch them in the act,’ I replied. ‘When they next take someone there to fake a photo we’ll be there to watch them do it.’
‘Stake out the travel agent’s?’ said Wendy.
‘Exactly!’ I replied.
‘But how does that help us?’ asked Umer. ‘Because we can follow them,’ I replied. ‘Find out where they’re taking everyone. Find their base. Find Grandpa!’
‘But we don’t know if they even have a base,’ said Umer. ‘What if they’re just eating everyone?’
‘Yeah, well hopefully they ain’t just eating ’em. But if they are, we can find out where they’re eating ’em. That’s got to be proof enough to get the police involved.’
The others thought about it. Wendy was nodding.
‘We can do it,’ she said. ‘We’ll all need to be there in case we have to take breaks for the bathroom or whatever. And it could take a long time. We’ll need an excuse. A reason to be out so long.’
‘Can we say we’re eating at yours?’ I asked her. ‘We can say we’re watching a movie afterwards.’
‘Uh … sure,’ said Wendy, smiling.