You Must Be Layla

by Yassmin Abdel-Magied

  ‘Sir!’ Layla yelled, shocked. What was he doing? They were supposed to be testing whether the moulds worked with the air hose, not eating them! This wasn’t part of the plan! She had only brought five pieces anyway, and now she was down to four.

  ‘Oh well, you said you wanted to test the pieces, didn’t you? And they’re supposed to be edible actuators? I’m just testing if they’re edible first!’ Gilvarry said, beaming at Layla’s incredulous expression. Gilvarry smacked his lips together. ‘And you know, I must say – they are quite delicious!’ he said, chortling, his belly rolling with laughter. Slapping his stomach with both hands and then rubbing them together, Gilvarry quickly became serious. ‘That being said though, lassy, we do need to test if these delicious blocks actually do actuate, don’t we?’

  Layla nodded. That was why she was here, after all – not to have her hard work eaten up by her teacher!

  ‘And you said these would be air actuated?’

  Layla nodded again.

  ‘All right then, let’s see how we go.’

  Gilvarry walked over to the air hose and switched on the diesel engine linked to the pneumatic pump. He brought the hose over to the workbench, fixed on a nozzle that would fit the gummy worm arms and then attached the nozzle, ready for testing.

  ‘All right, Layla,’ Gilvarry spoke in his deep and serious workshop voice. ‘Head over to the air hose and read out the pressure reading on the gauge. We might have to test a few different pressures to make this work. Once you’ve checked the pressure reading, press the big green button labelled “AIR”, and that amount of pressure will come down through the hose and into this little worm you’ve got here.’

  Layla nodded again, slowly walking over to the coiled air hose and pump set up. The pump itself was sitting underneath the coiled hose. Layla crouched down so she was at eye level, and ran her hand over the top surface, eyes scanning for the gauge and button. The pump was covered in a thin layer of dust and oil – it looked like it hadn’t been used in a long, long time. Layla gulped, hoping this would work.

  Aha! She found the gauge tucked at the back between the concrete wall of the room and the pump. Using her thumb to wipe the scum off the front face, she squinted, trying to make sense of the faint markings on the gauge’s face.

  ‘Sir, there are two sets of numbers here?’ she yelled out to Gilvarry.

  ‘Ah yes! Good work, Layla. The inside numbers are bars and they’re related to atmospheric pressure. It’s probably not going to be useful for us. Read the outside numbers, which should be in black – that is in PSI, or pounds per square inch.’

  ‘Ah, all right,’ Layla replied uncertainly. ‘I think we’re at about 80 PSI?’

  ‘Good work. All right. Let me just get my gloves on and we will test this little gal out, shall we?’

  Gilvarry pulled out a set of tough-looking grey leather gloves from the front pocket of his apron and quickly donned them. Then, with a nimbleness that seemed impossible given how thick the gloves looked, he picked up the small gummy worm mould attached to the air hose, and then glanced at Layla, who was still crouched beside the pump. Her cream shirt had grease marks on the front, and her long skirt ballooned around her, giving her the appearance of a brown fairy on a maroon lily pad.

  Gilvarry nodded at Layla. ‘All right, lassy. Switch it on!’

  Layla breathed in, then pressed the green button right next to the gauge. She pressed down once, hard, then let go. The pump made a strange sound – thud, thud, thud, thud – and Layla was worried that she’d broken something, but Gilvarry looked unperturbed.

  ‘That’s the sound it’s supposed to make. Now …’

  As he talked, the gummy worm mould started to move! The mould, which was straight, and resembled the size of Gilvarry’s finger, began to curve. Slowly at first, and then faster and faster, until it began to coil in on itself and stretch longer, and then … BANG!

  The gummy arm exploded, bits of red and green gummy worm flew all over the room and right into Mr Gilvarry’s face. The teacher’s beard was covered in specks, and a chuck hung off the edge of his moustache. Gilvarry looked down, poked his tongue out and licked it off his bristly facial hair.

  Layla had jumped up at the noise, tripping slightly on her skirt.

  ‘Ha!’ he chortled. ‘Well, clearly 80 PSI is a little too much! Let’s try that again with another worm. Hopefully we have enough to get it right, hmm?’

  They tried 50 PSI and 25 PSI, and both of those moulds exploded in a similar fashion, though not as loudly. With the final one, Gilvarry suggested they try with a much, much smaller number.

  ‘Let’s go the other way, shall we? Try putting it in 1 PSI, and we will slowly increase the pressure to see what works.’

  1 PSI, the arm barely moved. 2, and there was a slight twitch. 3 PSI and the arm curved and then … stopped! Just at the point where the mould looked like a bent finger.

  ‘Oh, it worked!’ Layla clapped her hands, excited. She had been holding her breath nervously, as not only was this the last mould she had brought, but it was really hard to read the gauge so accurately on such a small face. But, it had worked! Alhamdulilah!

  ‘Well done!’ Mr Gilvarry said approvingly. ‘It looks like you’re all set! You’ll just whack these arms on whatever body design you’ve got, and you’re good to go.’ Gilvarry ran his sausage fingers through his beard. ‘Have you thought about whether there is another way to get enough air into these arms?’ Layla shook her head. ‘If this is going to be big, you might need to consider it, because these pneumatic pumps are a little expensive.’ Gilvarry smiled. ‘But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. I emailed you all the instructions for the competition on Monday. Make sure you get in nice and early, so you can get a good spot to set up your demonstration.’

  Layla nodded, absentmindedly. All right, it was crunch time. Or perhaps she should call it candy crunch time. He he. He he.

  That weekend, Layla spent the days threading liquorice cubes onto wooden skewers, making a bear shape out of the lollies. Dina came over on Saturday afternoon and helped – even though Layla was technically in Shutdown Mode, Dina knew the drill. Layla also totally avoided social media that weekend. It’s because of Shutdown Mode. She told herself this pretty convincingly, but deep down though, she knew it was because she didn’t want to see all the Snaps of Baz’s huge party. Instead of focusing on the FOMO, Layla focused on building the creations with Dina; together they built a whole family of Huggy Bears, like a Huggy Bear version of the Husseins. The twins loved their replica Huggys, posing excitedly for selfies with them on Sunday evening. Ozzie’s replica even got a bit of fairy floss on top of his lollipop head as a cool afro, which he was clearly pleased about (although he’d never admit it).

  The actuator arms were attached to the bodies using some clear fishing wire, which Layla had in her jewellery making kit, threaded through the gummy worm arms and then tied to the wooden skewers in between the liquorice blocks. There was a little bit of slack in the twine too, to allow for the movement of the arms as they curved. Layla was pleased with the results and sang to herself as she packed the Huggy Bears into plastic containers, ready for transportation the next morning. As she laid each bear down into their clear shipping containers she whispered a little dua.

  ‘Inshallah this will all be worth it,’ she muttered, as a plea to Allah.

  Dina smiled at her best friend as they cleaned up the kitchen table at the end of the day. ‘You got this, gurl. Queen Laylz always wins.’

  Layla smiled back at her best friend and nodded; tired but determined. In the fridge the Huggy Bears all went, and off to bed Layla traipsed. Tomorrow was a big day.

  CHAPTER 19

  LAYLA’S sleep was dreamless. She woke up before her alarm, before Baba even walked into her room to shake her awake. The sun had yet to fully come up.

  Ah! She could pray fajr on time today, blearily rubbing her eyes. Grunting, she got out of bed and slipped into her rubber slides, Layla walked to the ba
throom and splashed water on her face before she did wudhu. Drying off, she shuffled back into her room and pulled her prayer scarf over her head – a large white scarf made from light material that covered her head and arms, all the way down to her knees. As she stood at the foot of the prayer mat facing Mecca, she felt a cool sense of calm wash over her.

  Whatever happens today, Allah’s got my back. She raised her hands to her ears. Allah-hu-Akbar!

  Layla’s hands shook with nervousness as she got out of the car. They had arrived at the hall, where the Grand Designs Tourismo was being held. The hall was in the middle of the city, and usually held large concerts and exhibitions. Layla had been to some of those exhibitions before – a big secondhand book sale, a jewellery making exhibition, she’d even been pulled along to one on houses (that was more Mama’s interest). But Layla had never expected that one day she would be exhibiting something here herself.

  After parking the car deep underground, Baba helped her carry her lunchbox shipping containers into the lift. When the lift doors opened, Layla gasped sharply. The enormous hallway, usually large enough to play a football match in, was packed. There were parents and teachers, students walking around in teams holding all sorts of boxes and contraptions, kids running around, even a news camera crew near one of the doors. On the other side of the hallway from the lift, Layla spied a large banner with the word ‘REGISTRATION’. She pointed to the sign and motioned for her father to follow.

  As they stood in the registration line, something started to gnaw at Layla. The people in front of her all had a packet of something in their hands, and they all had an A5-shaped landscape placard pinned to the front of their shirts with a large number.

  Why don’t I have one of those?

  As she looked around, she realised all the students had a similar placard. A bead of sweat started to form on Layla’s temple.

  Baba, who had been enjoying himself by looking around at the melee, noticed Layla’s unusual silence.

  ‘Everything okay? Don’t worry about the size of the hall and the number of competitors. You’ve got a great project, habibti.’

  Layla shook her head. ‘No, it’s not that Baba. I think there might be another problem.’

  Layla thought back to that conversation with Mr Gilvarry where she had tuned out. He had been talking about some sort of paperwork, right? At the time, she’d completely dismissed him, having gone into Shutdown Mode. But now, she wondered if she should have been listening.

  They got to the front of the queue and were called up by one of the workers behind the registration desk. The desk was long and thin, with about ten people sitting behind the bench at intervals, all with namecards and paperwork in front of them. The lady who called Layla up had large, black voluminous curls, quirky-shaped red glasses and freckles on her deep brown skin. Layla walked over, oddly relieved she’d got the only brown-skinned person at the registration desk.

  ‘What’s your name and school, lovely?’ the woman asked, her name tag indicating her name was Ms Taringa.

  ‘I’m Layla Kareem Abdel-Hafiz Hussein,’ she said, ‘or just Layla Hussein for short, and I’m from MMGS.’

  ‘Ah! Another student from Mary Maxmillion,’ Ms Taringa said, smiling. ‘Are you in any of the larger teams?’

  ‘No, I’m here by myself, in a team of one,’ Layla rasped proudly, despite the sick feeling in her stomach starting to creep up her throat.

  ‘Hmm,’ Ms Taringa’s well-manicured eyebrows knitted together as she ran her thin pencil down the line of names on the paper in front of her. ‘Hmm …’ she made a tsking sound, got to the bottom of the page, flipped the paper over, and searched the names there as well. When she clearly hadn’t found anything, she started again. ‘Maybe it’s under Layla and not Hussein …’ she murmured quietly, almost to herself.

  After a few minutes, Layla’s throat was starting to close up with the stress. The registration lady glanced up at her with a puzzled look on her face. ‘Did you submit all the paperwork in time, Layla?’ she asked. ‘I can’t seem to find your name here at all, not under your first or last name, not even under a different school.’

  Layla shook her head, wordless. She hadn’t submitted any paperwork at all, but she didn’t want to admit that just yet. This couldn’t be happening. ‘I’m not sure … I mean, my school has known about this for weeks – maybe ask Mr Gilvarry, the teacher in charge of all the teams?’

  Ms Taringa smiled at the mention of the tech teacher. ‘Ah! Mr Gilvarry! No worries. I will check with Mr Gilvarry. Is there anything you will need for your set up? A power point, an air source, anything like that?’

  Layla nodded. ‘Yes, ma’am,’ she said, her nervousness making her more formal. ‘I’ll need a pneumatic pump or air source near me.’

  ‘All right.’ Ms Taringa looked under a pile of pieces of paper in front of her and pulled up a map of the exhibition hall, which clearly marked areas with electricity sources, water sources and air sources.

  ‘Okay, air sources. You will be at the back of the hall. Here’s a table number – go inside and start to set up.’

  Ms Taringa handed Layla a small plastic card with the number 895 in bold letters.

  Layla let out her breath in a quiet hiss. Okay, maybe she would be able to get away with this.

  ‘Layla, did you do the paperwork?’ Baba asked, voice soft as they walked away from the registration desk.

  Layla shook her head. She didn’t want to talk.

  ‘Let’s just try to get through the first round, okay?’ she whispered under her breath, shutting the conversation down.

  The pair threaded through the crowd of people to make it to the front of the main exhibition hall. A tall, bald security guard in all black blocked the door, and when Layla approached, held out his beefy hand to stop her.

  ‘Card,’ he demanded, his voice dull with boredom.

  Layla reached into her jacket pocket and fumbled for the plastic card she had just been given, handing it to the bouncer. He looked at the card, turned it over, flicked it and then handed it back, nodding.

  ‘Good luck,’ he said, equally toneless, then he stepped to one side to let them access the door.

  Layla handed her father the boxes she was holding, pressed the bar on the door down and pushed both double doors open. The sight that it revealed was both glorious and intimidating.

  Rather than the wild chaos that filled the hallway, the exhibition hall was cloaked in a library-like hush. The ceiling was impossibly high, with bright fluorescent lights dropping down from the roof, illuminating the enormous room in a soft, blue-white hue. Rows upon rows of tables stretched out in front of them, with groups of students in blazers of all colours and crests huddled around each table, whispering quietly. Other students were walking around, their movements fast and focused, reminding Layla of the way ants moved in a determined, choreographed manner. This sight was truly awesome.

  Layla looked up at her father, her face a mix of worry and excitement, the anxiety of registration forgot. She’d never been to anything like this before. Gosh, this was exactly the reason why she’d wanted to attend MMGS – for things like this. Whatever happened, this was why she was at MMGS. This was real adventure.

  Baba placed his hand on her shoulder and squeezed it reassuringly. ‘Yallah, habibti. Let’s find your table.’

  Layla and Baba weaved in and out of the tables, making their way toward the back of the room. They passed all sorts of contraptions and inventions: walking plants, drones of different shapes and sizes, even a lamp that seemed to be able to talk. When they reached the back, they found the desk and began to set up. A piece of paper with the judging schedule was sitting on the desk and Layla picked it up to read. ‘Okay, first round starts soon!’

  ‘Do we need to go anywhere for it?’ Baba asked, arranging the Huggy Bears on the table. The large surface of the table looked empty, with only the Huggy Bears to fill the space. Layla looked around her – it seemed other teams had brought props and signs to
fill the space. She sighed. Wow, there was so much she was unprepared for.

  ‘No, the judges come to us.’

  ‘Ah, khalas. I guess we just sit and wait then?’

  Layla nodded, in response. Before she sat down, she found the air source and tested the operation of the edible actuator arms. Fortunately, this pump had a digital read out, so she could pump exactly 3 PSI. As planned, the Huggy Bears all moved their arms in a hugging motion. They worked! Now, just to wait.

  CHAPTER 20

  LAYLA had sat down for barely a moment before she saw a familiar red beard making his way to her table.

  ‘Mr Gilvarry!’ she exclaimed happily, jumping out of her seat.

  She was so excited to show her tech teacher what her final product looked like, but as soon as she saw his facial expression Layla was stopped in her tracks. Gilvarry wore a look of frustration, made even more obvious by the smooth, expressionless faces that flanked him. Her tech teacher had arrived with a man and woman in tow; tall, gangly and serious, and by the look of their suits, they were important.

  When the three adults reached Layla’s table, Gilvarry began to talk. Layla had never heard him sound so serious. His voice had lost every bit of its usual jovial quality.

  ‘Layla, these two people are part of the Grand Designs Tourismo administration and they’ve come to me because there’s no record of you having registered for the competition. If you haven’t registered, Layla, you won’t be able to compete.’ Mr Gilvarry’s face was so red that his skin colour matched his beard and moustache.

  Layla couldn’t tell if he was angry at her, or the admin people. ‘I reminded you to register a little while back, do you remember? You did register, yes? Show them your paperwork.’