I Am Thunder

by Muhammad Khan

  My lips trembled. ‘Well . . . you’re going to catch an STI off Tariq!’ I turned and fled, wishing I could hit DELETE on the last five minutes of my life.

  Where had it all gone wrong? I should be happy for Salma – she was living large. True, I thought Tariq was low-key pervy, but maybe he’d just been acting out.

  So why had I opened my big, fat trap and brought her mum into it? My traditional upbringing? Ami’s spooky warning? Or maybe none of that mattered and I was just being overprotective.

  I sighed heavily, confused and guilty and ashamed of how quickly the whole thing had escalated. Though my parents were dead against it, I didn’t think having a boyfriend had to get all X-rated and haram. Salma and I were both fifteen now. OK, so try-before-you-buy was out, obvs. But if you dated a Muslim guy, he’d respect that, right? And maybe down the road, you’d end up getting married anyway. So what was the big deal?

  CHAPTER 6

  When I got home, I knew something major was going down. The depressing soundtrack of old Indian songs drifting out of Dad’s bedroom made that clear.

  ‘Ami, is Dad sick?’ I asked, immediately forgetting my troubles with Salma.

  ‘His heart is broken,’ Ami said in a reverent whisper.

  ‘You guys didn’t have another argument, did you?’ I asked, casting my school bag aside.

  ‘Bevakoof! Go and ask your daddy to explain it to you.’

  I went upstairs, a fist already forming round my heart. I knocked quietly on Dad’s door, before going in. I crossed the room and perched on the side of his bed.

  ‘Dad, are you OK?’

  He was so deep in the doldrums, I had to ask twice before he even acknowledged me.

  ‘No, Muchi – it is as I foretold.’ He stared ominously at the ceiling. ‘I worked for racists, I was attacked by a racist, and now I am deemed worthless by racists. This is what stupid ISIS and al-Qaeda have done!’

  Dad was on a rant. Mixing up racism with terrorism was a bit like switching chilli powder for gunpowder. He was smarter than that. But when Dad got depressed, logic left the building. He channelled Dilip Kumar – Bollywood’s ‘Tragedy King’ – and every bad thing that had ever happened to him, real or imagined, just added to the drama.

  ‘Come on, Dad,’ I said, gently. ‘It can’t be that bad.’

  He looked at me as if he’d just spotted Judas. ‘I’ve been fired.’

  The bomb dropped. Without Dad’s small-but-steady income, how would we survive?

  A few questions later, I had pieced the story together. A woman got reported to social services for keeping her son off school to look after his younger brothers and sisters. Dad went round to investigate, and once the woman cottoned on to why Dad was there, it was like a switch had been flipped. Coming over all Psycho, she chased him round the house with a butcher knife. Dad tried to fend her off with a chair and accidently knocked her over. He was immediately suspended pending investigation.

  Trouble was, Dad was convinced he already knew what the outcome would be.

  ‘Maybe we should go back to Pakistan . . .’ he said, stroking my head.

  My heart stopped. Had he forgotten I was born here, and England was the only home I’d ever known?

  The doorbell rang, making us both jump.

  ‘It’s the police!’ Ami cried.

  ‘They’ve come to take me away,’ Dad said, stepping into his slippers, and shuffling off to answer the door.

  It wasn’t another Dilip Kumar Moment. The police really had rocked up, and they wanted Dad to accompany them down to the station. He wasn’t being arrested, but they needed a statement. As the stone-faced officers spoke to my father, Ami wept like a child.

  I might’ve been embarrassed, had I not been paralysed by fear. I had never seen Dad looking more devastated. I wanted to scream at the police, to ask them why they weren’t out catching real criminals instead of terrorizing a respectable family man who had never so much as got a parking ticket. But I was a coward. I had no voice.

  Dad wouldn’t hear of me going with them. Ami and I watched helplessly from the front door as the officers escorted Dad to their car. He was still in his slippers.

  Glancing over his shoulder with mournful eyes, he said, ‘Look after your Ami, beyta.’

  It broke my heart.

  At least they didn’t cuff him, I thought. The neighbours were out in force, watching the spectacle unfold as if it was an episode of EastEnders being filmed right here on our street. Pakistani man being taken away by the police? They were bound to think terrorism was involved.

  ‘Salma!’ I called, spotting her by the lockers. Time to end this stupid feud.

  ‘What? I’m busy.’ She spun the discs on her combination lock.

  ‘Look, I was totally out of order,’ I admitted, rushing over before she bounced. ‘I’m sorry, OK? Bringing your mum into it was stupid.’ I swallowed, trying to stop my throat from sealing up. ‘And I was jealous.’ Now my cheeks were on fire. ‘I was afraid that . . . It’s always been: Salma and Muzna Against the World, starring you and me and nobody else. I thought I was losing you.’

  Salma glared, not impressed by my lame apology.

  At least I’d tried. My feet were blocks of cement as I tried to walk away from the only friend I’d ever had. A playful shove startled me.

  ‘Sisters before misters, girlfriend. ’Member dat!’ Salma said, grinning.

  I tried to match her smile.

  ‘What’s up?’ she asked, BFF-sense kicking in.

  ‘Sharing is scaring.’

  She raised a well-defined eyebrow. ‘Mhm? Situation like that calls for a skinny latte. My treat.’

  Five minutes later, I was stirring my latte, watching the caramel-brown swirls melt into each other.

  ‘You sure he can’t get another social work job elsewhere?’ Salma asked.

  I shook my head. ‘Nobody’s interested in employing someone with a criminal record.’

  ‘That’s crap! Your dad gave them the best years of his life. Then they go fire him cos some crazy woman tried to cut him?’ She shook her head ominously. ‘What goes around comes around.’

  ‘Shh!’ I glanced around nervously.

  Salma was talking karma, but you couldn’t say stuff like that any more. People got triggered. Society was waiting for the next brown person to snap and run around screaming ‘Death to infidels!’

  ‘Don’t worry, Muzi,’ Salma continued. ‘Your dad’s smart, yeah? He’ll get a better job lickety-split. Have a little faith in the Big Guy. That’s Allah, by the way, not your dad . . . Now, excuse me, but if you’re not going to drink that, I know someone who could do with a double.’

  I relaxed, sliding my cup over. ‘Not worried you’ll end up a fatty, like me?’

  ‘First of all, hon, you’re thicc not fat. Second of all, they call it skinny for a reason. It melts the blubber, and shoots it all out the other end.’ She blew a wet raspberry at me, then downed the latte.

  ‘So, how’re things with you and Tariq?’ I asked. I wanted to know what having a boyfriend was like for someone who shared all the baggage of being a Pakistani girl.

  ‘OK-ish . . . Truth be told, he’s going through a rough patch at the minute. You know? Parents rowing twenty-four seven.’

  ‘Marriage: that sacred union of bliss and bust-ups.’

  ‘I know, right?’ she agreed, but the smile never touched her eyes. ‘He’s scared they’ll end up getting divorced. Then him and his brother will get separated.’

  ‘Oh,’ I said. ‘That sucks.’

  Poor Tariq. As if being split up wasn’t bad enough, news of it would go viral. The gossip queens in our community would see to it. And then people would start looking down on their whole family.

  ‘Muzna, get down here right now!’ roared my father, the next day.

  My heart was in my mouth. He’s finally found out about Kasim!

  After all this time, he was still the first thing I thought of whenever my dad was angry.

  I rush
ed downstairs, to see what was up. My parents wore identical scowls. Ami was cradling the phone to her chest.

  ‘It’s Salma’s mummy!’ she hissed. ‘She was under the impression Salma had been here since five o’clock yesterday! I bet a boy’s involved.’

  The phone was thrust into my trembling hand. ‘H-h-hello?’

  ‘Muzna, beyti? This is Salma’s mum. I’m going out of my mind here a bit. Salma’s switched her phone off, and Parveen tells me she didn’t come over for a sleepover yesterday. Is that right?’

  ‘No, auntie-ji,’ I confirmed in a small voice. ‘She’s not here.’

  ‘Oh God! She’s been gone nearly twenty-four hours. Where could she be?’ she asked, her voice shrill with worry.

  ‘I’m sure she’s fine,’ I said, with fake confidence. ‘Salma’s super-sensible.’

  ‘If you know something, you tell her right now!’ Ami snapped unhelpfully.

  ‘Do you have any idea where she might be?’ her mum said, almost as if she was embarrassed to ask.

  ‘I don’t know,’ I said, wishing I did. ‘She, um . . . She didn’t come here though. Maybe she went round another friend’s house?’

  ‘You’re the only person she’s ever trusted.’ She gave a long, suffering sigh. ‘OK, I’ll call round her cousin’s . . . If you hear anything, let me know. Please.’

  She hung up.

  My heart thudded. Where could Salma have vanished off to for a whole day? And why had she dropped me in it? I didn’t want to jump to conclusions, but Tariq’s name kept blinking in my head like a red alert. Had he abducted my mate and left her lifeless body in a ditch somewhere? No. That was the sort of nonsense my parents had programmed me into believing to scare me off boys – which after Kasim-gate, had worked like a charm.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Ami asked Dad as he grabbed his car keys.

  ‘Twenty-four hours!’ He shook his head in disbelief. ‘I’m going to round up a few friends to help her look.’ He rubbed the back of his head. ‘These are not good times, Parveen, and poor Salma no longer has a daddy.’

  ‘I’m coming too,’ I said, snagging my jacket off the coat tree.

  ‘No!’

  I saw the look in his eyes, and I backed off. I realized my parents actually believed I was in on her disappearance.

  Salma’s phone kept going straight to voicemail. I’d left tons of messages, each more hysterical than the last. I told her to call me back immediately, letting her know there was a search party headed her way.

  With nothing more I could do, I turned to prayer. I don’t mean the full-body movements, facing-Mecca type of prayer. We just weren’t that sort of family.

  I raised cupped hands, and whispered hopefully to God. ‘Allah, please don’t let my friend be in trouble.’

  As an afterthought, I added, ‘Don’t let Tariq have murdered her either!’

  I awoke to the sound of an argument downstairs. Groggily I detached myself from the bean bag I’d fallen asleep in. My face felt like it was made of putty, and my brain throbbed. I crept towards the banisters to eavesdrop. My parents spoke in harsh, garbled whispers. As I crept closer, a squeaky floorboard betrayed me.

  ‘Muzna!’ Dad cried.

  Spooked out of my skin, I stumbled down the stairs.

  ‘Sit,’ he instructed, pointing to an armchair in the sitting room.

  I glanced at Ami, but she wouldn’t meet my eyes. I began to wonder if Salma was dead.

  ‘I have been a liberal father,’ Dad began, placing his hands on his hips. ‘But I am having to draw the line somewhere. From this point on, I am forbidding you from ever speaking to Salma again. No speaking, texting, emailing or anything else. OK? Not even in school. Understand?’

  I blinked, unable to believe what he was saying.

  ‘If you defy me, Muzna, I will know,’ Dad warned. ‘Everyone in the community will come to know, and they will call your father shameless! I have lost my job, yes. I have unjustly been given a criminal record, yes. But at least I am still respected in my own community. Do you understand me, beyta?’

  Tears fell freely from my eyes. When had they started? ‘W-what did she do?’

  ‘I am too ashamed to say,’ Dad said, looking very uncomfortable.

  ‘I will tell you this much,’ my father continued, launching into it like I knew he would. ‘One of my friends had his flight to Islamabad cancelled. Returning home, he found his house had been broken into and called us. A few of us left the search to assist the poor man. Imagine our shock when we discovered that girl upstairs in bed with his nephew – naked!’

  I dropped my eyes, as if I’d been the one caught instead of Salma. Shame boiled in my chest.

  ‘Her poor mother,’ he lamented. ‘Tomorrow, everyone from London to Lahore will know about it. They will say, “Saleem’s daughter was her best friend, so she must be like that too.” You cut all ties with that wicked child right now, Muzna! Do I make myself clear?’

  I stared at him, gaping in horror. Salma was my sister. He had no right to—

  ‘DO I MAKE MYSELF CLEAR?!’ he bellowed, a vein throbbing dangerously on his forehead.

  ‘Yes!’ I squealed in terror. I had never seen my father so angry.

  ‘You listen to your father!’ Ami ranted. ‘No daughter of mine will bring shame on this family as long as I live!’

  It was over. The friendship that meant everything to me would cease with immediate effect. Yet again, my parents were calling the shots. And yet again, I was too much of a coward to challenge them.

  Dear Salma,

  My parents have forbidden me from ever speaking to you again. They’ve taken my phone and made me delete you from WhatsApp, Snapchat, Insta – everything. Dad even cut you out of the school photo on the mantel! Now there’s a hole where your face used to be, like the gaping hole in my heart.

  I see the rest of my life as one big, shapeless lump of grey – an ugly thing I will never have any control over. Your friendship gave me life; you gave me hope.

  Why did you have to do that stuff with Tariq in somebody else’s house, anyway? You’ve got the community calling you and your mum filthy names! They’re boycotting your family and attacking anyone who won’t follow their rules.

  If I speak to you, some snitch is going to snap a pic and show it to my parents. Then I’ll get shipped off to Pakistan and probably have to marry one of my cousins! Please try to understand there’s nothing I can do. I know I’ll never make another friend again. But you, Salma, are beautiful and cool and funny – you’ll land on your feet. You always have, always will. You just need to learn to trust people.

  Maybe some day, when the crazy has blown over, we can be friends again. I really hope so.

  I love you, Salma. Don’t you ever forget that! You are my life and soul. But it turns out I’m not allowed to have those things.

  Goodbye.

  CHAPTER 7

  ‘Muzna!’

  It was the moment I’d been dreading.

  I glanced up at Salma. Oh God, she did not look good. Frazzled hair and hollowed eyes. I scanned the canteen. Suddenly it seemed like every Asian kid had their phone out. Bada Bhai was watching.

  ‘Muzi, for God’s sake, speak to me!’ Salma said, giving a strained chuckle. ‘Please?’

  Would it really cost me so much to defy my parents?

  My eyes filled with tears as I pressed my lips shut. Shakily I got up, barely aware of the plastic tray I was gripping so tightly it might have fractured. I was too afraid to hand Salma the envelope I’d been carrying around for days. Too many eyes. Too many eyes. So I left it on the table instead, praying it wouldn’t end up in the bin.

  ‘Muzna!’ she shouted after me as I hurried towards the exit. ‘I’ll never forgive you for this!’

  I legged it out of there, sobbing, wishing with all my heart I was a better friend.

  I’ll never know whether it was because someone reported the incident in the canteen or just an unhappy coincidence. Either way, my fate was sealed.


  Ami broke the news while applying Amla oil to my hair. Working the fragrant liquid into my scalp, she grumbled over how much her own hair had thinned with age.

  ‘Your uncle Tanveer is offering your father a job at his restaurant in Ether Downs,’ she said, her voice strangely flat.

  ‘South London?’ I said in surprise. ‘How’s Dad supposed to manage that commute?’

  Ami took a quivering breath. Had she been crying? ‘We are moving, Muchi. This costly place will be sold off to pay our debts. We will live like refugees in a small flat above the restaurant.’

  ‘Ami!’ I said, whipping round to face her. ‘Are you . . . Is this because of Salma?’

  A shadow fell over her face. ‘Have you not listened to a word I’ve said? Nobody wants to employ your father. His brother is offering a lifeline. We must take it.’

  ‘But what about me?’ I said, devastated.

  Ami shut me down with a look that had fangs.

  ‘What’s this Me?’ she asked. ‘Growing up in this country has made you selfish. We are Pakistani, Muzna! Never forget that. Family comes first.’

  ‘You know, without my job, we cannot afford to live here any more,’ Dad announced at the dinner table, eyes protruding like boiled gooseberries.

  I glanced over at Ami, who immediately shook her head.

  ‘Really?’ I replied, acting like this was the first I’d heard.

  His moustache twitched with indignation. ‘We are moving to Ether Downs. Uncle Tanveer has offered me a job at his restaurant, and I have accepted. He’s a three-star Michelin chef, you know!’ He beamed with pride.

  First they’d taken my friend; now they were taking my home. Did he expect me to jump for joy?

  ‘It’s not intellectual work, like social work,’ he admitted. ‘But Allah works in mysterious ways . . .’

  ‘I’m in my final year, Dad,’ I pleaded, seconds from blubbing, the calm protest I’d so carefully worked out forgotten.

  ‘Don’t worry, Muchi,’ he said, patting my shoulder. ‘I would never sacrifice your future because of my own misfortune. Tanveer has recommended a top school, a thousand times better than Rigsby. Ofsted rated them “outstanding”!’