Kick the Moon

by Muhammad Khan

  When I finally rock up, I see golden light spilling into our street, and Amma standing in the doorway with her shawl over her head, hugging herself in the chill night air. Nervous puffs of fog escape her lips. Catching sight of me, she comes flying out.

  ‘You had me worried sick! I don’t want you hanging around with those—’

  ‘Sorry, Amma,’ I say, dodging the hug and the lecture as I vanish up the stairs. ‘We had two-ninety-nine burger meals, and I gotta puke.’

  Can’t let her touch me. Can’t let her get a whiff of the weed clinging to me like sweat. It will break her heart. No way am I doing that to her.

  Locking myself in the bathroom, I crash on to the toilet seat, holding my pulsating head. Snot swings from the tip of my nose like a wrecking ball. How I hate Imran and Noah and …

  Daevon? My homie, my hype man, my brother from another mother?

  There was a time I would have done anything for the big guy, but now it’s like he’s gone Skrull – replaced by a shape-shifting alien. Cos the mate I knew, the boy with the heart of gold, would not be down with humiliating a girl for some dumb initiation challenge. And since when did taking drugs become a thing?

  I wipe away my snot. Zigzags of it streak my cheek as the shakes kick in. The bathroom tiles begin to pulsate, and my eyes tear up. Even though I don’t want it to, my mind forces me back to the moment Imran and Noah entered my life …

  ‘Stop hanging round the house like a flipping girl!’ Dad would say with disgust, watching me colouring in my Spider-Man picture. ‘Go play football with the other lads!’

  So I traded art for freezing my nuts off in a game of street football. Wouldn’t have been so bad if I could play for shit. All I got were kicked shins and grazed knees. But the really humiliating part was getting shouted at by Noah and Imran every time I missed the ball. They made me feel like a factory reject.

  Coming home, Dad would ask how many goals I scored. I’d lie, and he’d smile.

  Tonight, those lads Dad wished I was more like have got me doing drugs and want me to humiliate a girl.

  Wiping my eyes, I wonder what life might have been like if I’d turned out as smart as my brother Amir – killing it at Harvard in business management, sponsored by a Fortune 500 company. Or like my sister Shaista – girl boss and vlogging genius.

  But I’m just Ilyas Mian: the girly-boy who draws stupid comics that nobody will ever read.

  ‘Amma!’ my eighteen-year-old sister yells at 7 a.m. ‘Ilyas is doing stuff in the bathroom. He’s been in there for over twenty minutes.’

  Shaista’s downstairs, but her jarring voice still manages to seep through the crack in the bathroom door.

  ‘Well, who doesn’t do stuff in the bathroom, beyta?’ my mother replies, exasperated. ‘That’s what it’s there for.’

  ‘Oh don’t be so obtuse, Amma. He’s doing haram stuff to himself.’

  I can imagine the dirty hand gesture Shaista must be making.

  ‘No I’m not!’ I shout from the doorway, only it comes out all garbled because I have a toothbrush jammed in my mouth. I needed to brush my teeth twice to fix my skunky breath.

  ‘You aren’t the only one rushing around trying to get ready this morning,’ Amma grumbles.

  ‘But I am the only one juggling studying Level Two Hair and Beauty with running a successful vlog and earning an actual income.’

  ‘A little empathy wouldn’t go amiss,’ Amma tells Shais. ‘You and Ilyas were thick as thieves when you were small.’

  I twist the tap, blasting every last blob of toothpaste down the plughole, then breathalyse myself into cupped palms. Result. Snagging a towel, I skitter down the stairs to end this diss-fest.

  ‘Thief being the operative word!’ my sister retorts. ‘Ilyas stole every diary I ever owned and scribbled pictures in them.’

  ‘Not like you ever used them!’ I shoot back, wiping my face as I join them.

  ‘Not the point,’ she persists. ‘I happen to like blank diaries. Blankness is very therapeutic.’

  Amma and I exchange glances.

  ‘You’re siding with him again!’ Shaista is looking furious now. ‘God I wish I was a boy so I could get some respect around here.’ She storms upstairs and slams the bathroom door for dramatic effect.

  ‘Sorry, Amma,’ I say.

  My mum shakes her head, a wry smile wavering on her lips. She takes her large glasses off, polishing the lenses with her cornflower-blue dupatta. ‘Have you fed and watered Sparkle?’

  Sparkle is Shaista’s Mini Rex rabbit. Nine years ago, Shaista announced that she wanted a ‘teeny-weeny blue-eyed bunny, with velvety-soft white fur’ for her birthday. (She actually wanted it to poop Skittles, but that was never gonna happen.) Dad drove all the way up to Derby to pick up Princess Shaista’s dream gift. Except a year later, Amma and I were the ones left looking after poor Sparkle.

  I nod. ‘Yeah, course – at 6.30 a.m., straight after praying Fajr. I’m like clockwork.’

  Amma frowns at me, yanks the damp towel from my hand, and attacks my face with it. I protest, but she grips my chin, fixing me in place. ‘See?’ she says holding out the corner of the towel for me to inspect. ‘You would’ve turned up to school with toothpaste smears on your chin, and some bright spark would’ve made a crude joke.’

  My eyes widen. Amma is a part-time librarian, full-time family wrangler, and without her, I’d probably be an even bigger loser than I already am.

  ‘I love you, Amma,’ I say, and I mean it.

  Amma draws me into a hug, and suddenly I’m four years old again, lost in the soft jasmine and spice scent of her on a warm summer’s day.

  ‘Foz, no huggy-huggy,’ Dad says, coming out of the kitchen, raking stubby fingers through salt-and-pepper stubble. WORLD’S BEST DAD is printed on his mug. ‘The lad’s nearly sixteen.’

  Slipping out of Amma’s arms, my cheeks prickle with shame.

  ‘Ilyas will always be my baby –’ Amma sticks her nose in the air, dupatta slipping from her head to her shoulders – ‘even when he’s married with ickle babies of his own.’

  Dad looks like she just told him she’ll be a contestant on Love Island next week. ‘You’re making him into a target for bullies, Foz. Tough love – that’s what boys need. Trust me, I was one.’

  Sloping off, I leave them to argue over the correct way of parenting me.

  ‘Oi! Don’t forget to mow the lawn tonight,’ Dad calls, pointing at his eyes and then at me, letting me know I’m under surveillance.

  ‘Mow the lawn on your face first,’ Amma quips.

  In the hallway, I unzip my backpack, making sure my finished homework is inside. It’s not. Panic detonates in my gut before I remember it’s still on my USB. I glance up as Shaista thunders down the stairs. Honey-blonde hair flat-ironed, hazel contacts, face powdered like a corpse, and candy-coloured rose-patterned vintage heels (a love letter to the Grim Reaper) on her feet.

  ‘What are you staring at?’ she demands.

  It’s like I’m looking at her through a Halloween Insta filter.

  ‘Nothing,’ I say quietly. ‘Can you borrow me your printer?’

  ‘Sorry, I don’t speak Street. Proper grammar or out of my way.’

  I try again. ‘Can I borrow your printer, please? Only I need to print off my history homework, and there’s always this massive queue at school.’

  She folds her arms across her narrow frame, shifting her dead-fish-eye contacts from me to the memory stick, like it’s a poisoned stick of gum or something. ‘First, answer me one question.’

  ‘Er, OK?’

  ‘What were you thinking just now when you looked at me. And don’t even think about telling porkies.’

  I shift from foot to foot, scratching my upper arm through my school blazer. ‘Um … something dumb.’

  She rolls her scary eyes. ‘Want the privilege of using my printer? Then spit it out.’

  I try to invent something, but my mind defaults to comic book mode. All I see is an alien
race of fish-eyed zombies demanding one thousand human souls in exchange for not invading the planet. A pointy-toed shoe taps impatiently.

  ‘Um, your hair … your skin … and those eyes …’ I say, as if that explains anything.

  ‘You have hazel eyes!’ she snaps. It’s something she has never forgiven me for.

  ‘I can’t help it, though. But you, with that foundation … it’s like you’re trying to be …’ I trail off, shaking my head. If I don’t shut up now, I’ll be banned from using her printer for life.

  ‘What?’ she says, getting in my face. ‘Trying to be what, exactly?’

  ‘White,’ I finish in a tiny voice. Man it’s like she used the Phoenix Force to get the truth out of me.

  ‘Dad!’ Shaista hollers, batting her eyelids, contacts sliding around like frogspawn. ‘My sweet little brother just called me an Uncle Tom.’

  ‘No I didn’t! Why you lying, though?’ I say, backing away because I know Dad will take her side. Being the only girl in the family has its perks. ‘I don’t even speak like that.’

  ‘What’s that?’ Dad says, voice trailing from the kitchen where Amma is now quoting parenting skills from Mumsnet at him. That argument escalated quickly.

  I cuss under my breath, grab my bag and fly out the front door. I really don’t get Shaista. Mad at me when I wouldn’t answer her question; and even madder when I actually did. Big Sister Logic.

  My bike is old and dinged, but blazing with twenty-one superhero emblems I spent half-term painting on its frame – the twenty-first being PakCore’s very own shooting star. I pelt out into the street making rocket engine sounds. Out of nowhere, a car brakes sharply, its grill roasting my thigh as it screeches to a halt. I swerve to the side of the road and freeze, my mouth hanging open as the horn blares.

  ‘Soz!’ I say, raising a hand in apology.

  The car is a silver BMW, one of those classy hybrids that cost about a million pounds. Through the windscreen I watch a blonde woman release the steering wheel to fling her hands in the air like a seriously pissed-off mime. Beside her is a girl from my year – Kirsty or Kimberly? – one of the popular girls. She glances up at me, then back down at her phone. Course she does. I’m not on her level.

  The lady lowers her window, and I wait patiently for the earful that’s coming my way. ‘MOVE!’ she shrieks.

  Veering back into the street, I pump the pedals hard, anxious to put as much distance between me and the BMW as possible.

  At the traffic lights, my phone pings. I fumble for it in my pocket and pull it out: a message from my brother Amir. I stuff it back into my pocket, unanswered. I’m still blanking him. After promising Dad he’d expand the family business when he got his management degree, Amir’s decided he’s too good for it, and is planning to work for some big US company instead. I wouldn’t even mind, except taking over the family business has now become my responsibility when all I want to do is make comics.

  The green light comes on, and I pedal fast. No time to hang about. Stanley Park Academy is cracking down on latecomers this term. A ‘late’, even if it’s your first one, now equals a break-time detention. Like that’s gonna change the Ofsted inspectors’ minds. Mrs Waldorf needs to retire. She’s been around since the dinosaurs, even if she does dress like a teenage contestant from RuPaul’s Drag Race.

  As I wheel through the gates, our deputy principal, Mr Gilchrist, flings out a beefy arm and clamps a paw around my handlebars, making me lurch against them. Dude is stronger than my brakes.

  ‘Oof! Sir!’ I complain, rubbing my chest. ‘You nearly killed me!’

  ‘Well then, I’ll just have to try harder next time, won’t I?’ He starts chuckling for some reason. ‘Now off your bike – you know the rules. Properly. That’s it. Good man!’

  Gilchrist is so extra. Thinks the moment you come through the gates, you lose the ability to control your bike. Two years of riding, and I’ve never had an accident. Not including the near miss with the hybrid just now …

  ‘Hey, gorgeous!’ says a female voice.

  In my world, female voices do not say amazing words like this.

  I glance up in hopeful surprise and nearly have a heart attack. Jade Henley-Peters is girlfriend goals. Her long blonde hair hangs like a curtain of pure silk, framing wide butterfly blue eyes. She’s biting her lower lip right now, the tender flesh losing its rose-pink colour beneath her perfect white teeth.

  Back up! my brain warns.

  Good advice. I’ve seen enough teen movies not to fall victim of the old they’re-talking-to-someone-behind-you moment. So I glance over my shoulder. But nobody is behind me. ‘Me?’ I say, looking back at her in surprise.

  She laughs. ‘Of course I mean you.’

  No lie: she is looking directly at me.

  ‘Oh my God,’ she says, placing a delicate hand at the dip in her throat. ‘I picked up some super-sexy underwear at La Senza.’

  ‘Yeah?’ I say, stroking my jaw thoughtfully, acting like my circuits aren’t overloading.

  ‘Just come round after school and watch me try it on. Swear to God, the bra does amazing things to my tits.’

  ‘Sounds great,’ I tell her, making my voice deep and squinting like a superhero. ‘Whereabouts do you live?’

  Her pupils shift no more than a millimetre, but it’s enough to tell me something is very wrong with this picture. A gust of wind sweeps away her platinum hair exposing an earbud wedged in her delicate ear, a mic hovering beside her lips.

  The air becomes ionized.

  ‘Keep going, babes,’ comes the tinny voice of the friend from her earbud.

  I duck my head and wheel my bike off as quickly as I can. If anybody heard me, I’d never live it down.

  ‘We are ready to start,’ warbles Mrs Waldorf into the microphone.

  No one gives a shit. After all these years, exactly why this still baffles Mrs Waldorf is a mystery. She taps the microphone in case it’s malfunctioning. The irritating whistle of feedback makes people no more than glance her way, before resuming their conversations. Her bloated face fills with alarm as she looks to her senior teachers for assistance. Mr Gilchrist bounces up onstage and grips the edges of the lectern, like he’s about to Hulk out and fling it into the audience.

  ‘Good morning, children!’ he booms. He’s just about the only person who can make a greeting sound like a death threat. Conversations end; egos self-destruct. ‘Right, much better.’ He nods at Mrs Waldorf, who gives a grateful girly back-kick.

  ‘That woman is butters!’ whispers Daevon, surprising a laugh out of me.

  ‘Good morning and welcome back to Stanley Park,’ Waldorf mutters into the microphone, barely moving her thin red lips. ‘I’m sure you all had a lovely half-term break, but it is time to refocus and get back into the flow of things.’

  A flutter of grumbles spreads through the rows. The innocent Year 7s glance round in horror. They’re such newbies.

  ‘It gives me great pleasure to welcome Mrs Wallington to the stage. She’s going to be taking assembly today with the assistance of some wonderful Year Eleven students who went on our highly educational trip to Morocco before half-term. Let’s all give them a big Stanley Park welcome!’

  Mrs Wallington smiles assuredly as she canters up to the lectern to lacklustre applause. Every year is the same. A bunch of privileged kids go to a developing country to gawp at how primitive brown people can be. Said privileged kids muck in, take rides on camels, sample the culture by wearing colourful kaftans and pulling off some dodgy dance moves, which we’re expected to laugh at, and then there’s a whole montage of them hugging little kids or giving them piggybacks, and some ‘hilarious’ pictures of teachers in their pyjamas pretending to look shocked. And the soundtrack is Taylor Swift. Every. Single. Time.

  ‘White Saviour Barbies, fam,’ I whisper to Daevon. We both kiss our teeth and shake our heads.

  My sour grapes are instantly sweetened as Jade’s beautiful head appears above the lectern like the rising sun. I could
stare at her all day. A carousel of Jade and her pretty friends and some smug-looking boys acting like they got lucky in the dorms take it in turns to read cue cards about how the trip has changed their lives forever.

  Projected on to the screen is an image of Jade looking flawless next to some grinning guy in a fez. Standing in the souk, they’re posing in front of a whole galaxy of glittering lanterns of every shape and colour. I could be your brown guy, Jade. I think wistfully. You wouldn’t need to buy a lantern off me to make me smile.

  Must’ve been drifting, cos when I come to, I sense major awkwardness. The Morocco-trip kids have stopped speaking and are looking vexed.

  The doors fly open dramatically, and standing there with red cheeks and windswept hair is the girl whose mum nearly mowed me down this morning.

  ‘Oh! Kelly, perfect timing,’ says Mrs Wallington, throwing an arm out like a ringmaster.

  The girl flushes as she clambers on to the stage while a grumpy teacher closes the doors behind her. She’s wearing red Dr Martens, which look like they belong to her dad. Jade flashes the girl a death stare, thrusts a cue card into her hands, and walks off, hair swishing.

  This Kelly girl starts reading like a pro. I can legit imagine her reporting for the BBC.

  ‘These rich kids, fam,’ Daevon whispers, shaking his head. ‘It’s like they’re a whole other species. They’re gonna end up with all the top jobs, lording it over the rest of us.’

  Daevon likes to pretend he’s ghetto cos he thinks it’s cool. His dad is a barrister, and his mum is a primary school teacher. Speak slang in their presence and suffer the consequences.

  ‘You’re rich,’ I remind him.

  ‘My dad is,’ he corrects. ‘I’m just a wasteman.’

  Only he’s not. Daevon is smart and funny when Imran and Noah aren’t around.

  ‘So here are some of our best bits and a few of our bloopers too!’ one of the boys onstage finishes, making us glance up at the screen. I prepare myself for a montage of bullshit, consoling myself that at least this means the cringe-fest is nearly over.

  A rhythm and a beat start up, and almost involuntarily I begin flexing to the irresistible sound of Afrobeats. Cheering and whooping flare around me. Shakalewa’s ‘Rotation’ is a real crowd-pleaser. Some kids raise their arms up to dance, hands clapping, fingers clicking; others sing the words, voices soaring up to the rafters. The fresh beat reaches into the very foundations of Stanley Park and gives it a good shake. Suddenly the cringe photos on the screen or the fact that us poor kids never get to go places like Morocco doesn’t matter. There is a rippling energy in the hall that frees us from the mundanity of being in school, gives us permission to cut loose. Man, I want to get up and bust a move, but I bob my head instead.