Tender Earth

by Sita Brahmachari

  We walk the rest of the way into school together, past the Unfriendship Bench.

  ‘Where do you live?’ I ask.

  ‘Finsbury Park. It took ages to get here this morning, there were so many delays.’

  ‘I went there not long ago. A friend of my nana’s lives in a place called the Caring Community – do you know it?’

  Pari shakes her head. ‘It doesn’t sound much like where I live.’

  I’m not sure if she’s being sarcastic. Pari has one of those faces that’s quite hard to read unless she’s actually smiling, laughing or in a state. She kind of keeps it in the same constant expression, like she’s trying to control what she gives away and what she keeps to herself.

  ‘You’re so lucky to have a grandmother,’ she says as we walk into Mrs Latif’s class and sit down next to each other.

  It’s too long to explain to her that the Nana I was talking about isn’t alive . . . but it gets me thinking. Pari doesn’t really know anyone in my family, so what harm would it do if I told her about going to see Simon and picking up the Protest Book?

  ‘Do you have any grandparents?’ I ask as we get our planners out.

  She shakes her head.

  ‘It’s just my mum and me and—’

  ‘Settle down now, class,’ Mrs Latif says.

  ‘I like her outfit!’ Pari whispers.

  Mrs Latif’s wearing an embroidered tunic dress, leggings and golden pumps.

  ‘Reading books out!’ she orders, as she looks up and down at our desks and types the register into her computer. I think she’s memorized all of our names.

  I put my hand up.

  ‘Sorry, I’ve forgotten my book.’

  ‘I’ll let you off this once, Laila, but you are expected to have it in school every day.’

  She looks in her bag.

  ‘Here – you can borrow this. I finished it on the bus on the way here. I nearly missed my stop! This young woman is a total inspiration.’

  Mrs Latif puts I am Malala down on my desk. ‘You haven’t read it, have you?’

  I shake my head.

  ‘Right then. Half of you –’ Mrs Latif reads a list off her screen – ‘Carlos, Nita, Lara, Stella, Chirelle, Christopher, Lycette, Owen, Carmel, Rikesh, Pari, George, Nathan, Omar, Kelly, Milena . . . please take your books and make your way to the library for your reading assessment.’

  Pari hangs back so she doesn’t have to walk with Stella. She makes a worst-luck face that we’re not together as she follows Milena out.

  Mrs Latif taps me on the shoulder.

  ‘Hello! Laila! Didn’t you hear the bell?’

  I look up to see the last person’s on their way out of the classroom.

  I’d completely forgotten I was even in school I’m so wrapped up in this book. I can’t believe what I’m reading; how brave a girl my age can be. It seems impossible what she went through just to have the right to go to school. I want to go home to my perch right now, curl up and read the rest of the book. While I’m reading I keep thinking about the things in Nana Josie’s Protest Book. Simon’s voice and Bubbe’s are floating around my head . . . Why are people’s lives so different? Why can’t there just be some things that all humans should have? I keep thinking about Bubbe and Stan when they were children, and that boy I heard on the radio at Bubbe’s, Bubbe’s frightened-little-girl eyes, and the expression in the eyes of the girl selling tissues on the tube . . . and Pari.

  ‘That’s how I felt when I read it,’ Mrs Latif says. ‘I couldn’t put it down. Do you want to borrow it?’

  ‘Can I? Yes, please, miss!’

  ‘Please make sure you bring it back to me though. It’s one for my children’s shelf!’

  ‘I didn’t know you had children, Mrs Latif?’

  ‘I haven’t yet, Laila!’ She laughs. ‘But I hope to . . . If I do, and when she or he is old enough, I will definitely give them that book to read. Now, you’d better get on . . . you’ve already got one “late” registered – you don’t want another!’

  I meet up with Pari outside the library at morning break.

  We go into the toilets together and Kez is there. We’re side by side washing our hands.

  ‘Everything all right?’ she asks.

  ‘Still grounded!’

  Kez and me are at the dryers now but Pari’s still at the sink washing her hands when Rebecca peers around the door. ‘Coming, Kez?’

  Kez looks a bit torn but she goes anyway. ‘Yes . . . see you guys later!’

  When Bubbe described what was going on between me and Kez it sounded so normal – so how come it feels like I’m being pulled in two all the time?

  ‘Why are you grounded?’ Pari asks.

  ‘I went off without telling anyone.’

  ‘Where to?’

  ‘I took the tube to see my nana’s friend in Finsbury Park.’

  ‘So, what’s the problem?’

  ‘I didn’t tell anyone I was going. Anyway, I’m not allowed on the tube on my own.’

  ‘Why not? I take it every day.’

  Being with Pari makes me think I’m that word that Simon used – mollycoddled. Why should I be grounded for doing what Pari has to do every day?

  As we walk along the corridor through the break-time crowds, all the chatter sounds like thousands of pent-up stories ricocheting off the walls. If I tell her in the middle of this din, mine won’t be heard by anyone else. Pari leans in close to hear me better. I tell her about Nana Josie and going to pick up her Protest Book and the Banner Bag with her beautiful painted banner in it . . .

  ‘I went on a march once with my dad, when he lived with us,’ Pari says.

  ‘What sort of march?’ I ask.

  ‘I can’t remember – I was really young. I just remember being carried on his shoulders and people singing a song about peace . . . “Give peace a chance”? Something like that.’

  ‘Want to come back to mine sometime and see Nana’s Protest Book and her banner?’ I ask.

  Pari smiles at me like I’ve offered her something incredible.

  ‘I’ll ask my mum. She sometimes needs me to help her out. I’ll have to see. Where do you live?’ she asks.

  ‘Just across the road from school.’

  I’m lying on Mira’s bed reading the Malala book when Mira finally calls.

  Mira: Hi, Laila! Sorry I missed your call. Everything all right at home?

  Me: Yeah, I suppose. I’m grounded – did Mum tell you?

  Mira: Ah yes, we had a first family phone conference about that! What made me laugh was Mum going on about your orange umbrella, as if that was evidence of something!

  Me: Yeah, I don’t know why she keeps going on about that. I only went for a walk, but she doesn’t believe me.

  Mira: Should she? Who did you walk with? There’s no one you want to tell me about?

  Me: No.

  Mira: So, how are things with you and Kez now?

  Me: Oh fine. She’s got all her bat mitzvah stuff to do. I haven’t seen much of her. How’s your college? Have you finished the painting of me? . . . What are you laughing at?

  Mira: You never used to talk to me like this.

  Me: Like what?

  Mira: I don’t know really.

  Me: Is the painting you’re doing of me a baby painting? Let me guess . . . baby me on the day I was born?

  Mira: You’ll have to wait and see! Tell me something else.

  Me: Pari – this girl in my tutor group’s coming over next Friday.

  Mira: That’s good. What’s she like?

  Me: Nice, I think! I don’t really know her yet. I’d better go actually – I’ve got loads of homework.

  I hear this strangled sort of sound on the other end of the line.

  Me: Are you OK?

  Mira: Please don’t go, Laila. Mum says you’re redecorating my room turquoise.

  Me: No! That’s what she thinks . . . but I’m not.

  Mira: You should move in, you know. It’s sweet you keeping it for me, b
ut it’s mad sleeping out on the landing . . .

  I can hear tears in Mira’s voice. For the first time ever I feel like she actually needs to talk to me.

  Me: What’s it like in Glasgow?

  Mira: I love the city, people are really friendly, but the course is hard, though I’m learning loads . . . I just didn’t expect to miss you all this much, and with Jidé being away too . . .

  Me: Is he doing all right?

  Mira: Yes. I managed to skype him the other day. He thinks he might go and work there when he’s qualified. He says there’s so much for him to do.

  Me: You would really miss him though.

  Mira: I would. I miss everyone.

  Me: Even Mum and Dad?!

  Mira: Even them!

  Me: Krish?

  Mira: He came to see me at the weekend, so I’ve had my fix of him! I miss you, Lai Lai.

  Me: Miss you too, Mimi. Why don’t you come home when Janu comes? For a weekend?

  Mira: I can’t, Laila.

  Mira blows her nose really noisily.

  Mira: I think this is what homesick feels like!

  Mira would never believe it if she could see me crying too. I’m glad I’m in her room with the door closed, because if Mum or Dad came upstairs now they would definitely try and talk things through and that’s the last thing I need. Even though I’m at home all the time, I think I might be homesick too – for how it used to be.

  Before I go to sleep I ring Nana’s chime loads of times. The sound relaxed me before but it doesn’t work this time, so I open the Malala book. How could anyone shoot a little girl just because she wanted to learn something?

  Mum peeps around the door.

  ‘It’s so late, Laila! Get some sleep now.’

  I lie on Mira’s bed for a while and listen to Mum and Dad moving around in their loft bedroom. When they’re quiet I sneak out to the landing. Even with the new cream, my arms are so itchy, but there’s no way I’m wearing the gloves Mum’s trying to make me wear at night to stop me scratching in my sleep.

  I stare at Mira’s painting of a woman in the mist walking with her dog by the sea. I like the way she’s made everything look floaty like a dream.

  ‘Laila! What on earth are you doing standing out here? It’s the middle of the night! Laila, are you awake?’ Mum takes me by the shoulders, leads me to Mira’s room and stands over me till I get into the bed. I stay there but I can’t sleep for the rest of the night.

  ‘What was going on with you last night, Laila?’ Dad asks as he hands me my tea at breakfast. ‘I don’t know if I can deal with another sleepwalker in this house. It was bad enough with Krish. If I’d known moving rooms would unsettle you so much I never would have dismantled your old high bed. You could have stayed put. We were going to let Mira decide how she wants to arrange that room, but just tell us if you need to move back in. We can always buy you a new bed . . . a low bed, if you want.’

  I’m only half listening because I’m looking up a website about Malala.

  Dad raises his voice. ‘Laila, please don’t ignore me . . .’

  ‘I’m not moving back. Sorry, Dad. I don’t know why, but I sleep better on the landing.’ I manage to get the words out through my yawn.

  ‘Seems like it!’ Dad shakes his head.

  Mr Rivera stands by the door of the music block as we file in. He’s wearing a spotty mustard-yellow waistcoat today. Me and Pari have voted him and Mrs Latif the best-dressed teachers in school.

  We usually file into Mrs Latif’s class in an orderly queue, but I’d say the way we enter the music room is more of a scrum. Mr Rivera is about the same age as Mrs Latif but he only started teaching this year. I like the teachers who didn’t know Mira or Krish so I don’t have to have one of those conversations while they ask me how they’re getting on at college and what they’re doing now. I suppose it’s nice that they care though.

  ‘Settle down now, Seven Dials. Can you all sit at the mini keyboards in pairs?’

  Mr Rivera has to repeat the same instruction a few times before everyone is finally seated. A few of us are still squabbling over chairs.

  ‘Oh, come on! How long does it take you to follow a simple instruction? This is the thing: there are fifteen keyboards and thirty-one people in this class. It doesn’t take a mathematical genius . . . One group will have to work as a three.’

  Stella’s standing in the middle of the room on her own. She’s pursing her lips together. They’re a bit dry and cracked and her bottom lip’s bleeding a bit.

  ‘You want to sit with us?’ Pari asks, so quietly that I’m amazed Stella even hears.

  Stella pauses for a moment and then pulls up a chair, leaving a space between her and Pari.

  ‘Did you complain to Mrs Latif about me?’ Pari comes straight out with it.

  Stella locks eyes with Pari and you can sense a bristling tension between them, as though they might have a fight or something. I feel like getting in between them both, like a referee. Pari turns to Stella and nods calmly.

  ‘I told her I was sorry. I said I would say sorry.’

  Pari looks Stella straight in the eye.

  ‘For what?’ Pari challenges.

  ‘I don’t know, saying stuff that upsets you about immigrants and stuff. I’m not the only one who says things . . .’

  ‘And are you sorry?’ Pari cuts in.

  ‘I said so, didn’t I?’ Stella’s picking at a thread on the crest of her blazer.

  ‘That’s not actually being sorry though, is it? You know that thing Mrs Latif asked about truth and lies?’ Stella nods. ‘Well, I don’t want you to say sorry if you’re not,’ Pari whispers, as Mr Rivera explains the lesson.

  ‘That’s a bit more peaceful . . . Now, I’m going off-piste here with you, Seven Dials, because I want to see what you can do as composers. I’d like everyone to think of a title. Here, I’ve thought up the kind of thing I’m after . . .’ He looks behind him at the PowerPoint on the screen.

  Misty Morning

  Sunflowers

  Wild River

  Hurricane

  Flood

  People look a bit blank.

  ‘Or perhaps something man-made.’ He starts writing on the whiteboard.

  Turbine Hall

  Factory

  Tube

  Train

  Bus

  ‘I don’t understand,’ Carlos says.

  Mr Rivera switches into Spanish with Carlos. I can’t believe how fast they talk.

  After a few minutes Carlos looks happier. ‘OK, I get it,’ he says at last, switching back to English.

  There’s a general rumble of people starting up conversations and Mr Rivera has to shout over it. ‘I, for instance, could compose something called “Seven Dials Music” that would blow most people away – a deafening postmodern discordant affair!’

  Mr Rivera chats to someone for a few minutes and the volume in the room gets even louder. I swear some people only ask him questions to distract him.

  ‘His class does my head in! Next time I’m bringing earplugs!’ Stella says.

  ‘Everyone clear about what they’re doing now?’ Mr Rivera shouts over the din. ‘Title first, then you can start on the music and add vocals afterwards if you want . . . No more than three-minute compositions. Oh, yes, I forgot this bit. Keep the titles to yourselves. We’re going to play a guessing game afterwards and see if we can match the list of titles to your compositions! You can add some percussion instruments if you want . . .’

  Hardly anyone’s listening to him now. It’s only because he’s standing right by us that we can hear. ‘Zane, if you’re going to use the bongos it has to be because it’s integrated into your idea, not just to make a racket!’

  Stella winces. I think she really has got a headache.

  ‘Are you OK?’ I ask her.

  ‘This is why I like Mrs Latif’s class. I hate noise! It stresses me out.’

  I’ve never thought about it before, but what I’m realizing is that people aren
’t just one thing or another. I thought working together in a group with Stella would be a nightmare, with her mouthing off, but she’s actually really quiet, just trying to listen most of the time.

  ‘You come to school on the underground too, don’t you?’ Pari asks Stella.

  She nods.

  ‘Why don’t we do something around the tube journey to Finsbury Park?’ Pari suggests. ‘At least we’ve all done that.’

  ‘Do you come in on the tube too then?’ Stella asks me.

  ‘No – but I’ve done that route.’

  We try a few things out to get the atmosphere of a tube journey. It’s really hard.

  ‘Some days it’s funny if someone’s clowning about, but mostly it’s just boring!’ Stella says. ‘Everyone pretending they’re in their own little world. We could start with a steady rhythm to set it up, maybe? I don’t know . . .’ She plays the same five low notes over and over.

  ‘That’s good, and then there’s all this stuff going on underneath . . . people behaving one way, but really thinking all sorts of other things,’ Pari says.

  ‘Yeah!’ Stella nods.

  ‘What sort of things?’ I ask.

  ‘You know, like –’ Stella wags her finger:

  Don’t get too close to me

  Don’t cramp my space

  Don’t get too close to me

  Don’t get up in my face.

  Pari laughs. ‘That’s good. I know what you mean. We could travel in together sometimes if you want.’

  ‘Yeah, OK.’ Stella looks a bit surprised, but a faint smile spreads across her face.

  The school-counsellor man comes in and goes to talk to Mr Rivera. He looks at Stella but she’s already getting up.

  ‘I’ve got to go. I don’t usually mind missing migraine . . . I mean music,’ Stella jokes, ‘but I was actually getting into that.’ She nods towards the counsellor to say she’s coming.

  ‘Thanks, you two,’ she says as she walks away.

  ‘What for?’ Pari asks

  Stella shrugs. ‘You know. Not shutting me out.’

  ‘Why don’t we carry on with it together later?’ Pari asks.

  Stella’s face looks completely different when she smiles. I suppose everybody’s face does, but Stella hardly ever smiles so you really notice it when she does.