‘Get down,’ you say to Jamilah. ‘This is a checkpoint, and Kenyan soldiers might want to check the truck. Get under the carpet and don’t make a sound.’
‘Not like Igal Shidal,’ Jamilah whispers, and despite the horrible situation you’re in, a tiny smile crosses your lips.
You wriggle down just in time: with a rolling, metallic roar, the back of the truck is opened, and light floods in.
You feel the truck bounce as the soldiers jump up into it to search it, and then: Thump. Thump. They are hitting and kicking at the carpets, and getting closer and closer to where you are lying!
One of them kicks the carpet you’re under. The carpet muffles the blow, so it doesn’t hurt, but you have to fight hard not to cry out in surprise. You desperately need to cough. You try to swallow and force away the clawing itch in your throat.
‘Unroll these carpets,’ you hear a soldier’s voice command.
‘What, all of them?’ says the truck driver’s voice. He must be inside the truck too as he sounds close. ‘I can unroll one or two, sir, but to do them all would take—’
‘Shut up and do it or you’ll be arrested!’
You feel your carpet move as the driver grabs the carpet nearest to you. You hear a hiss as it is dragged from the van, and the flapping sound of it being unrolled. You can also hear your heart booming like a hip-hop anthem. You’re still trying desperately not to cough.
The truck driver speaks again, his voice low and persuasive this time: ‘Sir, I know that if I were to deliver this consignment on time, my customers would be so happy they would pay extra. Is there a way to fast-track this?’
He’s offering the soldier a bribe to let you through without unrolling any more carpets! It works. There is some muttering, the door slams shut, and you’re on your way again.
You whisper thanks to Allah under your breath: ‘Alhamd lilah!’
Two hours later, you almost wish that the soldiers would search the truck again just to give you some air. This metal box you’re in is now as hot as an oven. Jamilah’s head rolls around on her neck. Her eyes are glazed, and her lips form little raised squares of dry skin. Your own tongue feels like a bloated, dry sponge in your mouth. You give Jamilah sips of the water the driver gave you. It’s now as warm as a cup of tea.
Finally, after what feels like another two hours, the driver stops, in the middle of the desert. The air that rushes into the back when he opens the door is hot and dry, but at least it’s fresh. Relieved, you climb out into the searing afternoon sunlight. The road ripples like oil in a blue-hazed heat mirage. Enormous salt pans glitter, and sandy wind stings your skin. A tough, black thorn tree is the only sign of life.
The driver refills your water bottle from a blue plastic drum he keeps in the front of the truck.
‘Do a wee if you need to,’ he says gruffly, but you and Jamilah shake your heads – you’re both so dehydrated that you don’t need to. ‘We’ll stop for the night at Garissa. You two will need to stay in the truck.’
He gives you some water to wash yourselves before you all begin the Asr prayer. Your croaky voices reciting the words, and the buzzing of the flies seeking out moisture in the corners of your mouth and eyes, are the only sounds.
You set off again. The truck slowly cools as the sun gets lower. You eat some flatbread the driver gave you earlier for dinner, and slowly the cracks and pinpricks of light in the back of the truck dim to black.
You wake briefly when the truck comes to a standstill at Garissa and the driver takes his rest. In the morning the truck’s engine starts again, and by late afternoon you can hear the honking and hubbub of a big city.
The truck pulls to a stop and the driver opens the door and helps you and Jamilah out. Your legs feel shaky. The truck’s parked in a large vacant garage, which seems to be below ground. There is nobody else in sight.
‘We’re in Eastleigh, a suburb of Nairobi,’ the driver tells you. ‘This is where all the Somalis in Kenya live, except the ones in the camps.’
You have to pay the driver extra to cover the bribe he gave at the checkpoint, which leaves you with only two five-hundred-shilling notes left – enough for one or two days’ food. You feel sick handing over the money, but he saved your life, so you thank him. Then you walk up the garage’s steep entry ramp and out onto the street.
You hold hands with Jamilah as you walk along the sealed road, both of you wide-eyed. Mogadishu is a big city, but it’s nothing like modern, overdeveloped Nairobi. Skyscrapers tower above you. A rubbish truck with sweeper-brooms rumbles past, making you jump. A woman chatters in Swahili on a mobile phone, shopping bags over her arm, her hair exposed and shining in the afternoon light.
You lead Jamilah into a grocery shop. A bell beeps and cold air blasts your head as you walk through the door. When you try to buy two bananas, the shopkeeper points you to a money-changer down the road.
You swap your remaining thousand Somali shillings for three crisp Kenyan notes: a hundred, a fifty, and a twenty. You blink, hoping that these Kenyan shillings can buy much more than a Somali shilling does at home. The notes are brown, yellow and blue, with a bearded, baggy-eyed man printed on them.
You return to the grocery shop to buy the two bananas. The shopkeeper takes your twenty-shilling note, and he doesn’t give you any change.
You and Jamilah then wander down the street until you see a beautiful green park. Looking around tentatively, you find a bench and sit down to eat.
A Kenyan man in a suit walks past. A dog with a rope on its neck walks beside him, and you stare curiously. Won’t the dog bite him?
‘What are you looking at, refugee scum?’ the man mutters in English as he passes you. ‘Nick off back to Somalia, filthy kids.’ His dog snarls.
Jamilah tucks her feet up under her on the bench. You clench your jaw and squeeze her hand.
‘Don’t worry. Not everyone here will be like that,’ you say to her.
You need a plan for how to survive. Your money might be nearly gone, but Aunty Rahama also left you the pen. What if there’s some extra information on there that would help – like another copy of Aadan’s number in Australia?
You take the pen out of your pocket and unscrew it to examine the memory stick hidden inside. You could break the memory stick out of the pen and sell the rest, but it’s too beautiful, it meant too much to Aunty Rahama, and you wouldn’t want to risk breaking the memory stick itself. The pen’s ruby glints in the sunlight.
You still haven’t told Jamilah everything – not about the interview with Zayd, or what really happened after Aunty Rahama gave you the pen, while Jamilah was waiting at home scared out of her wits. But she’s been so brave on this trip, and you’re in this together now. You decide she’s old enough to know the truth. But before you can begin—
‘Hey,’ says another man walking by, ‘what’s that you have?’ He’s speaking Somali, but with a strange accent. He has a pot belly and is wearing a white shirt with lots of chest hair poking out of its neck.
‘Nothing,’ you reply quickly, but he comes closer, suspicious.
You quickly slip the pen away into your pocket, cursing yourself for having brought it out in public.
‘That looked like a valuable pen,’ says the man. ‘Since when do young kids have something like that?’
‘He thinks we stole it!’ whispers Jamilah urgently.
The man is right on top of you now. ‘Give it to me!’ he demands. ‘We need to hand that over to the police. Come on, now.’
‘This is our pen! Go away!’ shouts Jamilah, and then, to your horror, she pulls a horrible face at the man.
You slap Jamilah’s knee and shoosh her. You know from the truck driver that if you get into any sort of trouble in Kenya, you could be thrown out of the country by the police for having no identity papers.
You glance around. You and Jamilah can probably run faster than this overweight man, so if you start running now maybe you’ll have a good chance of getting away.
On th
e other hand, if you tell him the truth about why you have the pen, he might just believe you – though it is an incredible story.
What will you do?
If you run away from the man, go to scene 14.
If you tell the man your story, go to scene 13.
To read a fact file on crossing borders ‘illegally’ click here, then return to this page to make your choice.
You take a deep breath and prepare to tell the man your story. But to your amazement, he starts laughing at Jamilah.
‘That face!’ he chuckles. ‘Goodness me, child, that was uglier than a monkey’s butt!’
You laugh too. ‘I’m sorry about my little sister,’ you apologise. ‘She can be very … naughty.’
‘That’s all right,’ says the man. ‘So, you say it’s your pen, huh? I find that hard to believe. Why are you sitting on a park bench looking like a pair of unwashed monkeys if you have something as valuable as that in your possession?’
You like this man straight away. He tells you his name is Sampson. His fat belly shakes when he laughs – and he laughs a lot.
Your story pours out of you: how you came to have the pen; how you came to Kenya. What happened to Aunty Rahama. Jamilah listens wide-eyed, adding in the bits she knows. It’s such a relief to have a kind adult to speak to.
When you’re done, Sampson says: ‘Come and walk with me. I have a shop with better food than those overpriced bananas.’
Sampson’s shop is at the base of a tall apartment block.
‘It’s all Somalis living here,’ he tells you, gesturing to the enormous building. ‘I was raised a Christian, then I fell in love with my wife, a Somali Muslim, so now do you know what I call myself? I’m a Chris–Mus!’
You want to tell Sampson that’s not right, that he can’t be both at once, but he is laughing too hard at his own joke for you to speak over the top of him.
‘Chris–Mus, get it? Like the holiday!’ He wipes away tears as he takes out his key, removes the ‘Back in 5 minutes’ sign from the door, and leads you inside his shop.
You look around. There are bags of rice, and boxes of biscuits, tuna and hot sauce. There’s a yellow desk with posters stuck to the front of it advertising international calling cards, and on top of the desk, next to the register, is a large grey computer.
You have a bold idea. ‘Mr Sampson, sir?’ you ask.
‘Just Sampson is fine, my dear boy.’
‘My sister and I used to live behind a grocery shop in Mogadishu, and we’re used to helping out. We would be happy to sweep your floors and unpack your boxes, or anything you’d like, if …’
‘Come on, out with it! You want a place to stay? No worries! Just ask!’
You gulp. Sampson’s generosity is amazing. ‘Actually, I wanted to know if we could use your computer, to read what’s on the pen’s memory stick.’
‘And we want a place to stay, too!’ cries Jamilah joyfully.
You pinch her. In your culture, it’s more polite to refuse at first, so as not to seem overeager or greedy. But Sampson just laughs.
‘All right, my little flower. Just don’t pull that monkey-butt face at me again, okay? Aiieee! I thought my face would crack off just from looking at it!’
He grabs his face in mock pain. Jamilah laughs until she is gasping for breath. Her laughter is the best sound in the world.
For the last few hours of the day, you and Jamilah work hard in Sampson’s busy shop. You want to prove that you are worthy of the trust he’s put in you.
That evening, after all the customers have left, Sampson locks the door and flips the ‘Open’ sign over to ‘Closed’, and you plug the pen into his computer. Sampson and Jamilah crowd around you.
The computer whirs, clunks and hums. Your fingernails are digging into your palms.
Please let Aadan’s number be on here, as well as the interview with Zayd. Please let there be some clue about what to do next.
You gasp – there are three files on the memory stick! The first is, indeed, a sound recording of the interview with Zayd.
‘Let’s hear it!’ Sampson cries. You’re dying to find out what’s in the other two files, but you want to be obliging to your host.
You, Jamilah and Sampson listen to the interview together. Hearing it all again takes you right back to the lime lady’s ruin: the terror of hiding in that hole and hearing al-Shabaab drag Zayd away. Listening to Rahama’s voice again is bittersweet. At the end of the interview, you wipe hot tears from your eyes. Jamilah lets out a loud sob, and you hug her close.
‘Phew,’ says Sampson. ‘Now I know why Arsenal came after you. Your aunty was going to broadcast that? She’s a hero.’
The second file is titled ‘Bright Dream’. It’s an email from Aadan to Aunty Rahama.
To: [email protected]
From: [email protected]
Dearest Rahama,
I’ve started to look into Bright Dream (www.brightdream.org.sm). On the surface, they look like a regular orphanage, raising funds for kids of war.
If they’re doing something dodgy, it should show up in their bank account transaction history. Their donations form lists an account with Nile Bank, number 1793 2026. I haven’t been able to guess their password, though.
Rahama, I’m so proud of what you’re doing, and I know how much you care about your work, but it feels more and more urgent to me that you get out of Somalia. How is your visa application going? I dream of the day you and the kids will be here living in Australia with me.
All my love,
Aadan
The third file is a Word document called ‘My Story’. But when you try to open it, a notice comes up: ‘This file is password protected. Please enter your password.’
Why would Rahama have left a password-protected document on this pen and not told you what the password is? Did she expect you to guess? You try a few different words and names, but nothing unlocks the document.
My Story, you think. Whose story is on there? What does it mean? You sigh.
‘What are you sighing for, boy?’ asks Sampson. ‘You have the email address of your aunty’s boyfriend in Australia now. You can contact him that way.’
He’s right! You were so busy reading the body of the email that you failed to notice Aadan’s email address there at the top!
‘Can you help me send an email?’ you ask.
‘Leave it to me,’ says Sampson. ‘We can use my email account. I can write tonight to tell him where you are, and let him know what’s happened. You can use my phone to call him as soon as he replies to the email. Now, let’s get you comfy for the night.’
Sampson makes a bed of blankets at the back of the shop for you both. ‘I’m sorry I can’t take you home,’ he apologises. ‘We have my wife’s whole family visiting in our tiny apartment at the moment – you couldn’t squeeze a mouse in there! I wish I could show you more hospitality. There’s a saying in Swahili: Kwenye ng’ombe kuna pembe –where there are cows, there are horns. You take the good with the bad, hey?’
Once Sampson has left and you’ve completed your Isha’a prayer, Jamilah falls asleep straight away, but you lie awake listening to the hum of the shop’s refrigerator and the rumble of passing cars. You hope that Aadan will reply soon with a number you can call him on. What could be hidden on the password-protected document? And how can you find out more about Bright Dream if you can’t log in to their bank account?
Just as you’re starting to drift off, two pieces of the puzzle click into place. Bright Dream’s account is with Nile Bank – and the Nile is the most famous river in Africa. Zayd said: Cross the river on the banner of the eagle. What if ‘the river’ is Nile Bank? What if ‘banner of the eagle’, or something like it, is Bright Dream’s internet banking password?
‘Cross the river on the banner of the eagle,’ you say eagerly to Sampson the next morning as soon as he walks in the door, then you explain your thinking.
Together, you, Sampson and Jamilah go to the Nile B
ank log-in page online and try ‘banneroftheeagle’ as the password. No luck.
And there’s been no email reply from Aadan yet – no luck there either.
‘What is the banner of the eagle, anyway?’ asks Sampson. He types the words into Google. His computer hums and whirrs again, then an image comes up in the search results.
Sampson gasps. ‘The terrorist flag!’
You recognise the flag, but you never knew it was called ‘the banner of the eagle’. It’s a black flag covered in white Arabic calligraphy.
‘It’s not a terrorist flag – it’s an old Muslim flag,’ you say. ‘It’s been around for ages. It doesn’t belong to Arsenal, but they’ve taken it and twisted it for their own use … just like everything else.’
‘What does the writing on it say?’ asks Sampson.
‘It says: “There is no God but Allah, and Mohammed is his messenger.” It’s the Shahada – the Muslim declaration of faith.’
For a moment, you forget about the search for the password as you think of your mosque. These words – the Kalima Shahada – are written on the inside walls in beautiful calligraphy. As you close your eyes, you can almost smell the sweet, earthy smoke of the uunsi incense they burn there. You remember the voice of your imam, and your heart aches as you wonder if you’ll ever find another mosque anywhere in the world just like it.
Sampson interrupts your thoughts. ‘What if the password is “Shahada”?’ he suggests.
‘I don’t think so,’ you say. ‘It would be too obvious – only someone pretty stupid would pick that.’
‘Or someone who thinks they’ll never be caught,’ says Jamilah.
She has a point. You type in Shahada, and to your astonishment the page changes and a world of numbers opens up before your eyes. You’re inside Bright Dream’s bank account!
Your and Sampson’s eyes goggle.
‘Whoa,’ breathes Sampson. ‘That is much too much money for an orphanage to have.’
He’s right. The numbers have so many zeros in them that you can’t keep track, so you click ‘Display in US dollars’, and even then, it’s still in the millions. There is some serious money moving in and out of this account.
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