Touch the Sun

by Emily Conolan

  This pen really means so much to me. In the darkest of times, it’s given me hope that freedom does exist.

  Now I pass it on to you, because there is no one else I know in the world with such an enquiring mind and fearless heart. You are a special boy. I haven’t managed yet to work out what Cross the river on the banner of the eagle means, or to find out anything more about Bright Dream. Take this pen, and with Aadan’s help, finish what I couldn’t.

  I love you. Look after Jamilah for me, and tell her I love her too.

  Aunty Rahama

  Through your tears, you flip the letter over and see Aadan’s phone number on the back. You hope fervently that Aunty Rahama was right – that Aadan will be able to help you. The money now in your pocket won’t last you more than a few weeks.

  Rahama was wrong about one thing, though: al-Shabaab certainly do know that you and Jamilah exist, probably thanks to Qasim – and they’re likely coming to find you right now.

  Jamilah is shaking, still clinging to you. Her hair is damp with sweat.

  ‘I don’t want you to leave me alone ever again,’ she says accusingly. ‘We have to stay here together and wait for Aunty Rahama to come home.’

  She has no idea how much danger you’re truly in. And she’s so frightened and so young. How can you make her understand? How can you tell her that Rahama is dead?

  You take a deep, shaky breath. ‘Jamilah,’ you say, stroking her damp hair, ‘Aunty Rahama’s not coming home. I’m so sorry.’

  ‘No,’ says Jamilah, starting to cry. ‘You’re lying!’

  You cup her chin in your hand and make her look at you. ‘I know you don’t want to believe me, but it’s true,’ you insist. ‘The bad guys from Arsenal found her, and we have to go, before they come and find us too.’

  Jamilah buries her face in your chest and begins to sob in earnest. You want to hold her and comfort her, but instead you pull her to her feet.

  ‘Come on,’ you say firmly. ‘We have to go now.’

  Jamilah’s eyes are huge. ‘Go where?’ she asks.

  She has a point. You don’t know. ‘Anywhere safe,’ you say. ‘We need to pack – quickly. And then I need to find a phone.’

  You hear the roar of an approaching engine, which stops right outside your home, then a sliding door opening and closing. You freeze, and Jamilah wraps her arms around you.

  ‘Quick, go!’ you hiss and push her off you.

  There is a metallic rattle as someone tries to lift the locked roller door at the front of the grocery shop.

  Grabbing Jamilah’s hand, you escape through the back door into the alleyway. You hear footsteps approaching.

  ‘We’ll kill them if we have to,’ a voice mutters. ‘But the main thing is to bring back that golden pen.’

  You sprint in the other direction, pulling Jamilah with you so hard that she runs with stumbling, flying feet. You squeeze between two houses, jump a ditch, and then you’re out on the road. You keep running until you’re halfway to Lido Beach.

  You stop running, gasping for breath, and wonder if it would be safe to go and hide in the ruin with the lime lady for the rest of the night.

  And then the bottom seems to fall out of your stomach, like fruit through a wet paper bag.

  ‘The letter!’ you cry to Jamilah. You see it in your mind’s eye, falling to the floor as Jamilah cried in your arms. You left it – and Aadan Williams’ phone number – behind. That number was a lifeline to Australia. You try desperately to remember it, but it’s no good – you only glanced at it, you didn’t memorise it.

  ‘I need that number!’ you hiss. You feel like screaming. Your fists are clenched into balls. How could you have been so dumb? Maybe Rahama was wrong to believe that you could do this.

  Steady on, says a voice in your ear. You know it’s just your imagination, but it feels like Rahama is talking to you. You and Jamilah got out of there alive – you’re doing so well. You’ll find a way through this.

  You reach into your pocket to touch the pen and the money, and try to calm your mind down. Think.

  Al-Shabaab will search the house and take anything valuable or interesting to them. They might even set fire to what’s left.

  You could spend the night in the ruins, and go back to look for the letter in the morning, but you’ll be lucky if it isn’t gone by then. Or you could run back now, without Jamilah, and take your chances trying to steal the letter from under al-Shabaab’s noses.

  The clouds shift and the moonlight silvers the tears in Jamilah’s eyes. ‘What now?’ she whispers.

  If you run back to the house for the letter now, go to scene 11.

  If you decide to spend the night in the ruins and look for the letter in the morning, go to scene 12.

  ‘I have to go back and get that letter,’ you tell Jamilah. ‘It included the phone number of a man in Australia who can help us. If I don’t go back now, it won’t be there in the morning.’

  You pray you’re not already too late.

  You’d like to take Jamilah to the lime lady, but there’s no time. Instead, you leave her hiding behind a pile of rubbish by a building, telling her not to move. Then you run for home.

  You stop in the alleyway, metres from your doorway. You can hear voices inside.

  ‘There’s nothing here of use,’ curses one voice. ‘We’ve searched everything. Torch the place.’

  ‘Wait!’ says another voice. ‘What’s that piece of paper under the bed there? See – there?’

  There’s a brief pause, and a rustle. ‘A letter!’ says the first voice. He lets out a brief, sarcastic laugh. ‘Aunty was saying goodbye to her darlings …’

  Your heart sinks. Now you will have to steal the letter from their very hands. How can you possibly achieve that? You hear a sloshing sound and smell petrol. Oh, no. They’re preparing to burn your home to the ground.

  ‘Careful, you idiot! You nearly got it on me,’ snaps the first voice.

  ‘Get out of the way then,’ replies the second in a surly tone, ‘and let’s go and find the kids.’

  Now’s your chance – while they’re distracted arguing with each other.

  You charge into the room, towards the man with the petrol can. You shove him, and he is doused in petrol. Some splashes onto you too, feeling oily against your skin. The fumes make your head spin.

  As the man with the petrol can fumbles and swears, you leap at the other man and snatch at the letter.

  ‘Oh, so this is important, is it?’ he sneers, holding it up high like a meaty bone in front of a dog. ‘So important you came back and risked your life— Ow!’

  He stops mid-sentence as you give him a hefty kick in the crotch and make another snatch for the letter while he’s doubled over.

  The letter is now in your hands, but the petrol man crash-tackles you from behind. You roll together on the fuel-soaked floor. Some gets in your mouth; it tastes bitter and awful. The other man leans down and snatches the letter from your fingertips. At the same moment, you see a cigarette lighter tumble from the petrol man’s pocket onto the floor beside you.

  You grab the lighter and brandish it wildly. ‘Stop!’ you shout. ‘Give me that letter and let me go, or we’ll all burn!’

  The man you were fighting – who is even more petrol-soaked than you are – looks worried, but the other man, standing over you both, merely smiles. He folds up the letter and slips it into his pocket. When his hand comes out of his pocket, you see that he, too, is holding a lighter.

  ‘Two can play at that game,’ he says. And before your mind can even really process what’s happening – and without any attempt to help save his petrol-soaked friend on the floor – he leaps for the door, reaches back inside, and holds his lighter up to the orange curtain over the window.

  Woomph. The curtain bursts into flame. The petrol-soaked man gives an enraged yell and throws himself at the door too, but he doesn’t make it – now he is a screaming tornado of flame.

  The rest of the room is alight within mil
liseconds, and you are swallowed by the flames.

  To return to your last choice and try again, go to scene 10.

  You sigh. You’ve narrowly escaped from al-Shabaab twice now. To go back and try your luck a third time would be madness. Maybe they’ll overlook the letter. It’s just a piece of paper on the ground. It’ll still be there in the morning.

  While you hold Jamilah’s hand and walk to the ruined theatre by the sea, you entertain a brief fantasy: you will go back tomorrow; the house will be untouched; and you will call Aadan and he will say, Please, call me uncle! and immediately send you two tickets to Australia.

  The little hovel in the ruin is deserted. You wonder what happened to the lime lady. You show Jamilah to the hole in the floor where you hid with Zayd and Rahama, and you huddle there together silently in the dusty dark. Then waves of sleep crash and recede as you lie there, exhausted and on guard, half-awake the whole night.

  Fragments of plans drift through your brain. If you can’t contact Aadan, you could hide here in the ruin until al-Shabaab stops looking for you. How long would that take? Would your few weeks’ worth of money get you through? What would happen if they did find you? If they found Jamilah …

  Or you could go to the countryside, where you might find some people of the same clan as you who would take you in. But the whole country is in the grip of a fierce drought, so there won’t be much spare food to go round. Besides, al-Shabaab controls a lot of the countryside – so the chances of you being caught there are even higher.

  Or you could try to get across the border, into Ethiopia or Kenya. It wouldn’t be easy, and you’d have to spend almost all your money getting there – and al-Shabaab does have a presence there too – but at least those countries are at peace.

  When dawn comes, it’s a relief to be released from the endless circling of your thoughts, and instead to begin to take action. The lime lady left behind a little kettle of water, and you and Jamilah use it to wash, then you kneel on cardboard boxes for your morning prayer.

  Your prayer mat at home belonged to your father. It has three worn patches in the places where he pressed his forehead and knees, five times every day, till the day he died. If it’s still there when you go home, it will be the one sentimental treasure you will bring with you on your journey. You make Jamilah wait in the ruins while you slip back towards your place.

  You hear the yelling before you can see the source. It’s the deep, booming voice of Mr Jabril, the grocery shop owner and your landlord.

  ‘Why me?’ he is wailing. ‘All my savings, my family’s livelihood, gone!’

  The word ‘gone’ hits your chest like a stone. Please no, please no…

  You come into sight of the place you used to live: it’s now a smoking, charred wreck. Neighbours’ houses and shops are damaged too, and the neighbours stand in the street, pointing fingers, laying blame for the damage and haggling over who will pay. An AMISOM guard walks by, looking over the commotion.

  ‘It must have been your tenants! They should pay!’ cries the hairdresser from across the road.

  ‘They probably died in the fire,’ sobs Mr Jabril. ‘Those poor children …’ He shakes his head helplessly.

  You think about running to him. But you don’t want a dozen angry neighbours turning on you. If you get the blame for this fire, you might have to give them all the money in your pocket just to appease them and get away.

  That’s it, then – your lifeline to Australia is gone. So is your prayer mat, Jamilah’s teddy – everything. Your only hope now is that there might be some information on the pen, or even just on the internet, that will help you track Aadan down. But for that, you’ll need a computer.

  By the time you get back to the ruin, you’ve decided: you’re going to spend the money trying to get to Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. Kenya’s the closest country to Mogadishu, and you’ve heard hundreds of Somalis cross the border every year, escaping the war and the famine.

  You take Jamilah’s hand and look around the little hide-out. On impulse, you pick up a stick and scratch your initials into the dirt – you don’t want to leave your home town without somehow saying I was here – but then you think better of it and rub out every trace. Instead, you just write the word ‘goodbye’. Then you wrap your arm around Jamilah’s shoulders and begin the walk to the marketplace.

  BY ASKING A few questions in the marketplace, you find out that there is one man, a carpet-seller, who also does business in Kenya. You see a truck being loaded up with carpets, and you guess that the man in the blue shirt who seems to be giving the orders is the owner. You don’t know how to go about asking this man if he’ll do something illegal – take you and Jamilah across the border.

  Eventually, you approach him and ask: ‘Will you take a package to Kenya for me?’

  ‘How big is this package?’ he asks sceptically.

  ‘Uh … about as big as me and my sister,’ you reply. You take nearly all the notes from your pocket.

  The man narrows his eyes and looks you up and down. He knows what you’re really asking. ‘Can you keep her quiet at the checkpoints?’ he asks, nodding to Jamilah.

  ‘I’m not stupid – I’ll stay quiet,’ she says defiantly.

  ‘Huh,’ says the man drily. ‘Not stupid, eh? You could have fooled me. Look, it’s not up to me to ask why you’re doing this, but just know that if you get caught by soldiers or the police without identity papers, they can throw you straight back across the border. Happens to Somalis all the time. Half my business comes from taking them back there again. I’ll do it, though.’

  After the man has loaded his truck, he pushes you and Jamilah into a hiding place at the back of his truck among the dozens of rolls of carpet. As the door slams shut and the engine starts to rumble, Jamilah begins to cry.

  ‘I don’t like that man,’ she whimpers. ‘It was a bad idea to go with him. I think we should stay here in Somalia.’

  ‘Shoosh, Jamilah,’ you whisper.

  The man’s warning words are echoing in your head, but you choose to ignore them, telling yourself: We’ll figure it out when we get there.

  ‘If you’re quiet, I’ll let you see Aunty Rahama’s story pen.’

  ‘What do you mean, story pen?’ asks Jamilah.

  You and Rahama have always told stories to Jamilah before bed every night. Now you need a story to make Jamilah feel safe and brave. You take Aunty Rahama’s pen from your pocket. The ruby twinkles in the dim light.

  ‘You saw her give this to us after school,’ you say, showing it to her. She nods, her eyes bright with wonder. ‘It’s a story pen – and story pens are magical. They don’t need ink, because they run on love and laughter. When someone holds a story pen in their hands, they will think of a wonderful tale, and everyone else will listen. Are you ready for a story? All this carpet is reminding me of something that once happened to Igal Shidal.’

  Jamilah chuckles. ‘Igal Shidal is always so silly!’ she says. ‘I like those stories.’

  ‘Well, you’ll love this one,’ you say. You feel warmth returning to your voice, as if Aunty Rahama were sitting right beside you with her arm around you.

  It’s dim and stuffy in the back of the truck. The engine rumbles and the truck sways as it makes its way through the morning traffic.

  Goodbye, Mogadishu, you think to yourself. You don’t know if you’ll ever see your home city again.

  You swallow the lump in your throat and say to Jamilah, ‘Did I ever tell you about the time some bad men came after Igal Shidal? They wanted to kill him.’

  ‘That doesn’t sound funny,’ says Jamilah worriedly.

  ‘But Igal Shidal had a plan. He called his wife – he was always so bossy to his wife. He said, “Hey, wife! The bad men are coming! Hurry up! I’m going to pretend I’m already dead. Get a carpet and roll me up in it!”

  ‘So his wife got a carpet and rolled up Igal Shidal. “Now drag me out onto the porch!” came his voice from inside the carpet. “Quickly, before they get here. Oh
, you’re so slow, woman!”

  ‘Igal Shidal’s wife dragged him out onto the porch all rolled up in his carpet. “I can hear them coming!” she whispered. “The bad men are on their way to this house! What shall I do?”

  ‘“Get down on your knees, silly wife, and cry over the carpet, and say, Oh, my poor husband Igal Shidal is dead! They will believe you and leave us alone,” he commanded.

  ‘“Waah! Waah! Oh, my poor husband!” she cried. The men were approaching the house.

  ‘“Cry louder!” said Igal Shidal from inside the carpet. “Is that all the crying you would do if I were really dead?” You see, he couldn’t stop bossing his wife around even when he was pretending to be dead.

  ‘The men came up the steps. The wife was wailing. Igal Shidal was all rolled up in the carpet.

  ‘“Is your husband dead?” asked one of the men.

  ‘“Yes, my poor husband, waah!”

  ‘The man was suspicious. “Really? When did he die?”

  ‘Then came Igal Shidal’s voice, loud and clear from inside the carpet: “Say he died yesterday!”

  ‘“He, um, he died yesterday,” said the obedient wife, but too late, because everyone had heard Igal Shidal’s voice from inside the carpet!

  ‘The bad men unrolled him, and they said, “This man is pathetic. He is such a coward he pretended to be dead rather than face us, and he couldn’t even pretend to be dead properly. Such an idiot is no threat to us! Let him live here with the women and children.” And the bad men went on their way!’

  Jamilah nuzzles into your arm as the truck sways along. ‘Tell them I died yesterday!’ she chuckles quietly.

  After a while, the sounds of the city die away, and the back of the van begins to heat up in the desert sun. The warmth, the darkness and the swaying soothe you both to sleep.

  YOU WAKE A couple of hours later when the truck lurches to a sudden stop. You hear men’s voices.