After the fourth sketch, which looked suspiciously similar to the first sketch, Layla flicked the pencil out of her fingers with frustration. Unsure of where to progress, she fingered the beads on her necklace hidden underneath her blouse.
Man, I miss making jewellery. Jewellery was easy, you simply came up with a pattern and then threaded beads onto some string. If you really wanted to go wild you could make a pattern with the string, almost like knitting, before threading the beads on – but still, it was basically beads on string. Some of her earring ideas were a little more exotic and inventive, and Layla enjoyed playing around with different sizes of beads, various colours and unusual materials. She once made earrings out of small bolts and nuts, and they looked really cool, except they were so heavy that they made her ears bleed. That got Layla thinking. Maybe there was some way of building this bear in the same way she made jewellery?
Layla focused her eyes on the sheet in front of her, wiped the surface of the page for good luck, said a quick prayer (Bismillah) and started sketching.
Layla had realised that jewellery was all about patterns and modules – she just took many pieces that looked the same and put them together in a way that made something new. Why couldn’t she do the same with this?
So, the seventh version of the Huggy Bear that stared up at her from the page was exactly that: a bear made out of edible parts that you could put together easily to make something greater.
I’ve just made a robot out of edible Lego. Haha!
The ‘parts’ or ‘ingredients’ were simple: the basic building block was a liquorice cube, held together by wooden skewers that Layla knew she had at home for BBQs. The skewers were like the string in jewellery, and the liquorice acted like the beads. Layla loved liquorice, so it wasn’t hard to think of that as the basic building ‘bead’.
The liquorice made up the body and legs of the bear, the arms were made out of gummy worms melted together (that would be the actuator), and the head, well, the head gave Layla a bit of trouble. She wanted the head to be half of a chocolate egg or something, but she couldn’t think of how to attach it to the neck and body. She couldn’t poke a skewer through a chocolate egg, because the chocolate would explode into tiny, useless pieces. As she was thinking, Layla started chewing the end of the pencil, a habit she’d picked up when studying for her scholarship test. Shame I don’t have a lollipop I could chew instead. She surveyed the damage she’d done to the pencil after a few minutes. Lollipop!
That was it. The bear’s head was going to be made out of a lollipop. The neck and head joint would be taken care of, and the lollipop stick could pierce straight into the liquorice cube. It was perfect!
Layla surveyed the sketch in front of her and pursed her lips. She wasn’t sure this was going to work, but she liked the fact that every single part of this weird delicious contraption was edible, so even if she didn’t win, at least she’d get a treat at the end of it.
The shape of the Huggy Bear sorted, it was now time to focus on the actual robot part – the edible actuator arms. Layla knew from her research that she’d need to use some sort of mould to cast the shape she needed. She also had a pretty good idea of what she wanted the arms to do – to go from being straight while resting at the sides of the bear, to arms that lifted up, almost shoulder level and then curl in, as if it is giving a hug.
Furrowing her brow, Layla turned to a new page and wrote: ‘THE ACTUATOR ARMS’ in big bold letters at the top. Pretty cool! Then, she sketched. She sketched all kinds of possible arms shapes and sizes, scribbled notes in the margins, some relevant and some completely unrelated.
‘Arms need to be able to curve’ was scribbled next to ‘be brave!’, which she was trying to remind herself of, and ‘Allah has your back!’ then ‘Channel the jamel!’, her mantra. Layla drew everything and anything that came to mind, because that’s what Mr Gilvarry said good brainstorming was.
With that philosophy, Layla filled pages and pages with sketches, and slowly got close to what she thought would be possible to try to make. The final draft sketch looked familiar. Layla closed her eyes and tried to imagine what it was that the drawing reminded her of. Ah! It looked like when she took a tray of ice cubes out of the freezer, but it had over-filled and so all the ice cubes were joined together. But in Layla’s sketch, it was a single row of ice cubes – or, in reality, melted together gummy worms – that were all connected, making it strong but also flexible.
Layla needed to try to make it to see if it worked! First, she had to find a small novelty ice cube try as a mould, and then she would have to melt the gummy worms together and test it all out.
Satisfied with that plan of action, Layla glanced down at her right wrist and checked out the time on her watch. Crikey! Time had flown by, and if that time was right, Baba had been waiting out front for something like half an hour! She packed her sketchbooks and pencils into the bag in a hurry. Oh dear, I’m going to get into so much trouble. This was turning out to be a theme for the Sudanese teen.
As Layla ran across the oval to the front of the school, her mind felt at ease for the first time since she was suspended. Shutdown Mode had helped. Now everything was under control: she had a plan for the project, she knew what she needed to do, she could see the path to success. Even though she hadn’t built anything yet, she trusted in her ability to put things together – she’d always managed to figure it out when it came to jewellery, and that’s got to be a good start!
When Layla arrived at the pick-up area, she was puffed. Her scarf had slipped backward, and a bunch of tight black afro curls had popped out and made an appearance. Beads of sweat ran down her face, and she wiped her forehead with her sleeve to soak up some of the perspiration, leaving a damp spot on the cream blouse.
Her family car was the only one in the pick-up area, and she could see her dad sitting in the front, eyes closed, hands on the steering wheel. Layla hoped he was listening to some Qur’an or something peaceful, so she wouldn’t get into any trouble!
Layla trotted up to the car and opened the rear door. The icy air of the air conditioning billowed out, almost instantly drying the sweat on her face. The sonorous voice of her father’s favourite radio presenter droned out of the speakers, and Layla breathed a sigh of relief: Baba never got mad when he was listening to this radio show.
‘Hey, Baba!’ Layla squeaked chirpily, throwing her backpack onto the back seat before shutting the door and jumping into the front.
‘Mmmm, Layla, kayfik?’ Baba responded in Arabic, asking how her day was. He must have really been enjoying the radio, as he made no mention of her tardiness. They travelled all the way home without talking, just quietly listening to the delightful voice through the speakers. Layla leaned her head against the window and breathed deeply, closing her eyes, relaxed.
When she opened her eyes, she was surrounded by darkness. She felt her shoulder shaking and realised her dad was trying to wake her up.
‘Yallah ya, Layla. We’re home!’ She hadn’t even realised she had fallen asleep, but the nap had lasted the whole trip home.
At dinner that night, her parents asked her how things were progressing.
‘Good, Alhamdulilah!’ she said, enthused at her progress. ‘I know what the whole thing is going to look like. I’ve designed a body for the bear, got a plan for how I am going to make the gummy worm actuator arms, and now just need to start building and testing!’
Her parents beamed at her, pleased. They were still unsure about whether this was a winning bet, but they were supportive of Layla. When she worked hard she could make almost anything happen.
‘Mama, I’m going to need help with a few things. Can we go to the shops and find a mould that would work, and also start testing the gummy worm melting mixture?’
Fadia nodded. ‘Yes, we can go after dinner, inshallah. Oz, you can come too if you’d like to drop a few more resumes off?’
Ozzie bristled. ‘I already did, Ma. I told you that. I’ve handed my resume in to every si
ngle place in the shopping centre. No one has got back to me, even though some of them have signs out the front saying they are looking to hire people!’
Fadia frowned. ‘Maybe I can ask around at the hospital to see if there are any entry level jobs. I know you didn’t want me to help, but surely it’s not a bad idea?’
Ozzie closed his eyes and muttered under his breath. ‘Okay, fine, whatever.’
Layla felt for her brother, but her mind was somewhere else. She was focused on getting what she needed for the Huggy Bear. Layla knew exactly where to go: her favourite store, Dollars and Cents. It was her domain. She’d spent years as a child, running up and down the overcrowded aisles while her father was shopping for the week’s groceries. D&C had all kind of strange items; super cheap confectionary (Layla knew they were in aisle eight just behind the wrapping paper section), arts and crafts material (that’s where she sourced all her good beads and string from), random electronics, stationery, furniture, souvenirs, cooking utensils. Whatever you could dream up, D&C had it. But today, she wasn’t there for the jewellery section. No, today she was there because she wanted to make something different. In her late-night shopping outfit of black skinny jeans, her red converse shoes and an oversize hoodie, Layla strode into the store, picked up a basket and skipped into aisle eight, where she knew the lollies would be.
Let’s get to it! And they shopped for gummy actuator parts like there was no tomorrow.
Back home, Layla stood at the stove, slowly adding gummy worms to a saucepan of boiling water. Baba was standing next to her, offering advice and instructions.
‘Now, I don’t know much about robots,’ Kareem said. ‘But if we’re doing some cooking, I’ve got you covered.’ Baba loved to cook, and his culinary skills were turning out to be unexpectedly useful for this competition.
Layla stood over the saucepan, slowly stirring the thick, greeny-red goo that used to be three packets of delicious gummy worms. Bubbles slowly and lazily pushed their way to the surface, as the goo simmered over the heat. It was thick like honey, and it smelled like how gummy worms tasted – delicious. Layla breathed in deeply, the steam warming her nostrils and dampening her face.
‘All right, that looks like it’s about the right consistency,’ Baba said, after about half an hour of slow stirring. ‘Let’s put it in the mould.’
Layla nodded and grabbed a tea towel from the rack to insulate herself from the saucepan heat. Wrapping the grey furry towel around the handle, she lifted the saucepan, with the goo still simmering, then put it on a placemat on top of the marble benchtop. She started to ladle the goo into one of the D&C moulds – a cheap, white plastic. The goo trickled slowly from the spoon, and Layla wiggled the utensil slightly to speed it up.
‘La, la,’ Baba interrupted her when he noticed Layla’s movement. ‘Don’t try to make it go any faster because you don’t want to create air bubbles in the mould, habibti. Just let it settle in naturally.’
Layla nodded and waited. Once all four moulds were filled, she placed them in a cool corner on the kitchen bench, cleaned up the kitchen and went to bed. Tomorrow was Friday, and she would hopefully be able to test the actuators at school. If it worked, she was in business for the competition next week. If it didn’t work … well, she couldn’t really think about that now, could she?
As she drifted off to sleep, her doona up to her chin, Layla’s mind started to wander. It was in quiet moments like this where Layla would usually begin to stress herself out. She wondered about the other competitors for the first time since entering the competition. What was Peter’s group making? What would the other schools be like? Had she forgotten anything? A knot started to form in her stomach, and her mind raced.
Was she good enough? She’d always won competitions where you had to make things, but that was at ISB. This was different, these were people with a lot of money, a lot of support, and they all had big teams – she was all by herself! What had she done?!
Layla squeezed her eyes closed, tightly, and willed her mind to stop.
Breathe, she reminded herself. Breathe!
Then she started the one thing that always helped clear her mind just before she went to sleep. She started tasbee7. Sometimes Layla used a string of beads to keep count, sometimes she just counted on her fingers. Tonight, Layla was all about the fingers. Three touches of each digit; beginning with her index finger on her thumb, and then switching so her thumb touched the top, middle and bottom of every other finger. Layla repeated the ritual three times in a row, making it forty-five in total. Subhanallah, forty-five times; Alhamdulilah, forty-five times; Allah-hu-Akbar, forty-five times.
It was a ritual that she had seen her mother often do after praying, but it had been one night in Sudan as a little girl, when she couldn’t sleep, that Grandma suggested she do the same. It was a kind of Muslim meditation, and almost always worked wonders.
CHAPTER 18
THE next morning before class, moulds in hand, Layla strode into the tech room, looking for Mr Gilvarry.
‘MR G! Mr G!’ she yelled, walking through the workshop and into the adjoining rooms. She heard muffled voices from behind a closed door – a room she had never been into. It was the senior school workshop, and it had the big machines: Layla was a little intimidated by them, if she was honest. But today, she could hear Mr Gilvarry’s booming voice coming from the other side of that door, so there was no time to waste.
Layla placed her hand around the door handle, the smooth metal surface cool to the touch. The door was made of reinforced steel, with large rivets on its inside edge, reminiscent of a bank vault. Much heavier than she expected it to be, Layla resorted to using her body weight, leaning her shoulder against the door to push it open. The movement caused a scandalously loud screech on the concrete floor, so everyone in the room turned around at once. Door fully open, Layla stood in the entrance, embarrassed.
In the room was Mr Gilvarry, Peter and four other members of his team, all crowded around a large robot in the centre of the main workshop table. Gilvarry was in his usual bus driver get-up, but he also had on a large dark red PVC apron, making him look like a terrifying MasterChef competitor, if the prime-time show was for cooking up robots rather than food. Peter and the rest of the boys were in dark blue work overalls with lots of pockets and reflective safety strips across their bellies and arms. Layla only recognised Matty from her class; the other boys all looked older.
Peter clocked Layla as she walked in, and his face twisted in recognition before he dismissively turned away from Layla and back to the robot in front of him.
The robot on the desk was, in one word, magnificent. The boys had clearly been working on it for some time – it was a humanoid-looking robot, the size of a small child, with an iPad screen instead of a head. The body and legs of the robot were held up by a neat skeleton of Meccano pieces, draped in ‘skin’ made from what appeared to be an opaque carbon fibre the colour of toffee. Instead of feet, there were wheels: thick, fat wheels with deep tread, clearly enabling it to traverse all sorts of terrain. But the arms of the robot looked unfinished – the skeleton was there, joined to the body at the shoulders, but there were no hands. And it looked like Layla had interrupted a debate about the hands: a few different prototypes littered the table around the robot, and Peter picked one up to fiddle with it.
Gilvarry looked at Layla. ‘Ah, Layla! Good to see you. These boys are just working out a final kink in their project – how are you going with yours?’
Layla realised she was holding the moulds in her hand, and quickly hid them behind her back.
‘Oh, yeh, good,’ she replied uncertainly.
Seeing Peter’s robot had made her feel incredibly self-conscious about her edible robot. How could something she came up with in one night beat something like … whatever that was? Well, at least I don’t have to deal with a huge team! She had the benefit of being able to make all the decisions, and then taking all of the credit! YASSS!
Layla focused on her teacher.
‘Actually, I was wondering if I could get your help doing a test?’
Gilvarry’s moustache bristled, in what Layla assumed was a movement of approval. He turned to look back at the team, who had resumed a quiet discussion about one of the prototype hands. ‘You boys all right here?’ he asked.
Matty looked up and nodded.
Gilvarry dusted his hands on his apron and walked toward Layla. ‘All right then, lass. Let’s have a look at what we can do.’
Gilvarry closed the door behind them, lifting it slightly from the ground so it wouldn’t cause a mind-bending screech. He winked at Layla. ‘This building has all sorts of little idiosyncrasies, lass. It’s all about getting to know how something works and making it work for you.’
Layla nodded, and followed Gilvarry into the junior students workshop, where she felt quite comfortable – particularly compared to the big kids’ workshop. Gilvarry stood in the middle of the room, and Layla continued past him toward the workbench closest to the air hose.
‘Okay, I have these moulds, and I want to see if they can be actuated.’ Layla placed the moulds she had been hiding behind her back on the table. She realised they looked so small compared to that huge humanoid thing Peter’s team had built. Huggy Bear seemed so lame now …
Gilvarry clasped his calloused hands behind his back and he leaned down to look at the multi-coloured moulds. His red beard tickled the surface of the workbench as he scrutinised Layla’s work.
‘Hmmmm, interesting!’ he muttered under his breath, moustache twitching. ‘So these are edible, are they?’ Unclasping his hands from behind his back, he placed his left hand in his pocket and picked up a mould with his right, squeezing it between his index finger and thumb. Gilvarry’s hands were large and hairy, and the mould looked like a tiny toy between his sausage-like fingers. He brought it closer to his face, squinting as he inspected the mould. Then, in one swift movement, he opened his mouth, threw the mould in and started chewing.
You Must Be Layla Page 13