Camel Rider

by Prue Mason

  ‘We’re not staying around here.’

  ‘We’ll travel in convoy.’

  ‘Can I take my hamster?’

  ‘Just hurry!’

  ‘Will we be able to get petrol when we get over the border?’

  ‘We’ll need water.’

  ‘Can we still get money out of the cash machines?’

  ‘I don’t know! I don’t know!’

  ‘Stop crying! Don’t panic!’

  ‘I want to go home!’

  It’s weird seeing everyone looking so scared, especially when they’re only wearing their dressing gowns and pyjamas. I’m glad I’m dressed. I still want to laugh, which is freaky because I don’t really think anything is funny at all.

  ‘This is no joking matter, Adam.’ I’m almost stunned by a whack around the ears. It’s Mr Hartliss. His wife, Margot, is Mum’s best friend in the compound, but I don’t like them much. They know my mum flew out last night and that my dad won’t be back until tonight.

  ‘You’d better come with us.’ Mr Hartliss frowns at me. ‘I don’t know how we’re going to get you over the border without a passport, but I guess with what’s going on here that shouldn’t be a major problem. Now, quickly go and grab some clothes, and some food and drink, and put everything in a bag. Make sure you bring plenty of water. Be back down outside as quickly as you can.’

  I run into the house and call out for Chandra. But there’s no answer. I swear. Loudly. She’s either taken off to her friend’s place or she’s hiding and is too scared to come out. Pathetic!

  I hear Tara scratching at my bedroom door. I must have accidentally shut her in when I raced downstairs. I go up and let her out. She whimpers and cringes like it’s all her fault.

  ‘It’s okay. It’s okay,’ I say to her. But it’s not okay and she knows it. I pat her and gently pull her warm ears, which are silky and smooth.

  But I can’t spend all day patting Tara. I’ve got to get some stuff. Tara watches me as I up-end my clothes drawers: T-shirts, shorts, jocks and socks spill out onto the floor. I dump all the books out of my school backpack. I’m definitely not taking them with me. With any luck they’ll get blown up.

  Before I lose it totally, I stuff my clothes into the bag and I remember Mr Hartliss said I had to get some food and drink. I race back down to the kitchen. I grab three tins of dog food for Tara, then I go to the fridge. The first thing I see is the box of After-Dinner Mints that Mum keeps for when she has people over for dinner. Chocolate’s food. I grab the box and a big bottle of Coke, plus a wad of cheese slices. I give Tara one. She loves cheese. I rummage around, but there’s nothing else, only a lettuce, some carrots, tomatoes, a couple of avocados, heaps of half-empty bottles of jam and chutney, half a container of milk and a plate of leftovers. Our fridge is always boring.

  Mr Hartliss said to get lots of water so I grab the last three bottles of mineral water from the box under the stairs and stuff them in my bag as well. Then I remember Dad’s thermos water bottle he carries with him when he goes walking. Because the water will stay cold, I fill up the bottle with icy water from the drink fountain. And it’s got a strap, so I sling it around my neck and under my arm. I feel like I’m going exploring.

  As I grab the house keys out of the drawer, I see an envelope with the two hundred dirhams that my mum leaves for Chandra in case of emergencies. Nobody can say this isn’t an emergency.

  I take the bundle, which is in a great wad of five and ten dirham notes and cram it into my pocket alongside my Swiss Army knife and my mobile.

  I guess it’s kinda dumb to take the mobile because it’s only one of those ‘pay as you go’ sorts. Mum wouldn’t trust me with it otherwise. It’s probably only got about ten or twenty dirhams left on it so it won’t get me far, and the battery’s low as well. I always forget to charge it. Maybe I’ll call Jason from the Hartliss’s four-wheel drive. That’d be cool. I grab Dad’s special charger, which you can use in the lighter of a car. Maybe Mr Hartliss will let me charge up my phone while we’re travelling.

  ‘Come on, girl,’ I say to Tara, as I pull the heavy, wooden door closed and lock it. Tara is starting to get excited now. She loves going out in the car. ‘We’re going on an adventure.’

  I see the Hartliss’s white Range Rover and we run towards it. The three Hartliss girls, who are much younger than me, are sitting in the back seat with their seatbelts on. They’ve all got blonde hair and I can barely tell them apart. They’re still in their nighties.

  Briefly, I hope I don’t have to squeeze up with them. Any girl is bad enough, but these girls are the worst. They’re just so … so girly. I’d prefer to sit behind the back seat with Tara.

  Mr and Mrs Hartliss come out lugging a wooden chest between them. It’s huge.

  ‘That cost over five thousand dirhams. I’m not leaving it behind. I’ve put our clothes in it,’ Mrs Hartliss tells me, even though I don’t care. Then I realise I’m expected to squash up next to it and I do care. Tara and I won’t be able to move.

  ‘But you can’t take the dog,’ Mrs Hartliss says. ‘Shelly’s allergic to animal dander. Remember? We had to give away our cat. Besides, there’s no room for an animal.’

  ‘We are not taking a dog over the border anyway,’ Mr Hartliss adds.

  ‘But you’ve got to take her,’ I say desperately. ‘I can’t leave her behind. She hasn’t even had her breakfast.’

  ‘Sorry, Adam,’ says Mr Hartliss not sounding sorry at all. ‘It’s just not possible.’

  ‘Then I’m not going either,’ I say.

  ‘I’ve had enough of this nonsense.’ Mr Hartliss sounds angry. ‘Get in the car now!’

  ‘But I can’t leave Tara. She’ll be killed,’ I scream at him. I’m angry now, and I’ve got a fierce temper. My mum says it comes with the red hair and Irish ancestors.

  ‘We haven’t got time to argue.’ Mr Hartliss sounds really mad at me now.

  I can see the convoy’s already started. Tara with her tail and ears down, takes off like she always does when people start arguing. She goes and crawls under a bush and lies with her nose between her paws. She’ll stay there until somebody tells her it’s alright.

  I bolt after her, but Mr Hartliss is fast. He grabs my arm and drags me back, then pushes me into the back of the truck. He slams the door and locks it so I can’t jump out.

  I see Jason trying to grin at me from the front seat of his family’s Nissan Patrol, which is right behind us, but it’s all a blur because of the hot, fat tears sliding out of my eyes. I don’t even care that everyone can see me crying.

  CHAPTER SIX_WALID

  AFTER DAWN IN THE DESERT, DAY ONE

  ‘To Hell you are going!’ Breath of Dog is tying my hands and my feet with Shirin’s hobbles. He ties them tight and then picks up his gun.

  With his gun he has made Shirin dead. Her leg was broken and she could never again be running in races. Then he slit her belly to get the calf, but that, too, was dead.

  ‘Ana asif. Ana asif. I am sorry,’ I whisper over and over, after the last shudders of Shirin, and after her spilled blood has soaked into the sand. I cannot stop shaking. In my belly there is a hardness like one dried-up knotted, coconut rope.

  ‘It is too late for sorriness now,’ says Old Goat, pinching my arm hard. ‘For this deed you will pay.’

  ‘Say your prayers,’ yells Breath of Dog, lifting his gun. ‘Because to Hell I am sending you.’

  Many times before, Old Goat has said that when I die I will go straight to Hell for all my badness. Is it my badness that has made all this happen? Instead of looking at the tall tower and thinking of Mama, I should have been saying my prayers. Now Allah has taken away my Shirin, and the Abudai tower. Truly this is punishment enough, but Breath of Dog is too angry. Is it the will of Allah that I should die also? I lean my head on the body of Shirin. I cannot be running fast away from this punishment.

  ‘No shooting,’ says Old Goat. ‘For with the shooting the police will come.’

 
‘But he untied the hobbles of this camel. A good racing camel! She was worth many dirhams.’ Breath of Dog is yelling so much I see the gold tooth in his head glinting, and in his eyes is the fury of blood.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ Old Goat is saying. ‘It is true that this boy needs punishing and this we will give him. But not by killing him, for we can sell him and make some money.’

  ‘Pshaw!’ hisses Breath of Dog. ‘Who would want this useless camel walid?’

  ‘We can sell him back to the dalals who will send him to make carpets in the factories,’ says Old Goat. ‘We can get maybe five hundred dirhams for him.’

  There is the light of greed in Breath of Dog’s eyes and then it dies.

  ‘But with this war starting, how can we find the dalals?’

  ‘Ah, true,’ says Old Goat. ‘Maybe we should just dump him in the mountains. He has proved to be a bad investment after all.’

  ‘It would be easier to shoot him,’ says Breath of Dog.

  ‘Yes, yes,’ says Old Goat. ‘But there is a risk. We want no problem with the police. No, it is better to take him to that Hell on Earth and leave him there.’

  As Breath of Dog grunts and nods, I see that it is not Allah’s will that I die today. Now, suddenly, I am so relieved. I do not want to die. Then, Breath of Dog picks me up and throws me into the back of the Toyota truck.

  ‘To Hell you are going.’

  This Hell on Earth is far away and along a jolting road, and all the time I am thinking. Babu told me that always we must submit our will to Allah, but I remember how angry he was in his sickness and how, sometimes, he cursed even the Will of Allah when he fought to have breath in his body. He told me that to feel anger is better than to let fear into the heart.

  I curse also.

  ‘This one likes fighting too much,’ says Old Goat, turning and prodding me with his camel stick. ‘Maybe we can sell him to be a soldier, now there is this war in Abudai.’

  Breath of Dog spits out the window and then turns and slaps my head. He hits me so hard my nose bleeds, and I cannot yell and breathe at the same time.

  Breath of Dog spits again. ‘I am thinking this war will be over quickly,’ he says. ‘For all the sheikhs in this country are too soft. They will be running fast away and never fighting.’

  ‘But it is not the sheikhs who will be fighting,’ says Old Goat. ‘For they will be quickly calling their American friends who will come with their big warplanes.’ He makes a clicking sound with his fingers. ‘The war will then be finished. Halas!’

  *

  Breath of Dog, finally, stops the truck. ‘Ah,’ he says. ‘This will do.’

  I feel the shaking inside my stomach. I do not want to be in this Hell on Earth. I try to curse, but my mouth is dry. Breath of Dog opens the truck door, picks me up and throws me over his shoulder.

  I know straight away that this is one bad place. It is hotter even than the desert, and there is no wind. But I do not see black devils or leaping flames devouring the souls of all the wicked people, as in the stories Old Goat is always telling me. There is only quietness in this Hell. And mountainous grey rocks.

  As Breath of Dog climbs the steep slope, small stones roll away down the hill. If only I had a sharp rock, I could cut these ropes that bind me.

  ‘Bas! The end!’ Breath of Dog suddenly flings me into a shadowy cave in the side of the mountain. This Hell on Earth is hard, for when my head hits the ground there is only blackness.

  CHAPTER SEVEN_ADAM

  EARLY MORNING IN THE MOUNTAINS, DAY ONE

  We made it over the border. Even me, with no passport. There was a bit of a hassle, of course, but everyone was nervous and I guess the Customs people didn’t want to be stuck with a nearly-thirteen-year-old boy with no passport, so in the end they just waved us through. They had other things to worry about.

  I wish they had stopped me. I want to get back to Abudai to rescue Tara. She’ll die without anybody to feed her. Plus the Arabs hate dogs. I try not to think about the fact that the compound might get bombed.

  I spent the hour it took driving to the border crying and kicking the door of the car. Mr Hartliss was mad as hell, but I didn’t care. He kept threatening to put me out, but I knew he wouldn’t because at last we found out what’s going on; there have been announcements on the radio.

  Most of what they said was in Arabic, but every now and then they’d make an announcement in English. I’d figured most of it out already. Like, I already knew it had to be the SOM (Sultanate of Mafi) forces. They say they’ve taken over Abudai at the request of their Arab brothers who believe that the city has become too open to corrupt Western influences.

  Now, our little convoy of corrupt forces has stopped at a petrol station just over the border. Apart from the fact that everyone’s really nervy and wants to get going as quickly as possible, it’s weird how normal everything still is.

  I hop out of the car and can feel how hot it is already as I look around at the steep, bare rocky slopes of the Fahaj Mountains. My dad says they look like a moonscape. Usually, when we come for a drive to the mountains, I like watching the peaks appear over the horizon. Their jagged shapes rise up at the edge of the orange desert. They look like the Mountains of Doom from this video game I have. They’re like the Mountains of Doom, too, because nothing much grows on them except small thorny bushes, which only goats and camels can eat.

  And they suit my mood now because I feel as if I am doomed. How can everything have gone so wrong, so quickly?

  ‘Why’s he crying all the time?’ I hear one of the girls ask her mother.

  ‘Cos he had to leave his dog at home,’ says the eldest super-pain-in-the-neck one.

  ‘I hope you’re going to act your age now, Adam,’ says Mrs Hartliss. ‘We’re all a little scared, you know. And it doesn’t help you throwing a tantrum because you can’t have what you want. Look at my girls. They’re being brave.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I mutter, thinking that I want to kill them all and save the SOM troops the trouble.

  ‘Maybe you’d like to travel the rest of the way to Suman with one of your other friends,’ Mrs Hartliss suggests.

  Yeah, I know they just want to get rid of me. Well, I don’t want to spend another four or five hours with them, either. Then it suddenly hits me. Another brilliant plan.

  ‘Can I go in my friend Jason’s car from here?’ I ask Mr Hartliss, who’s just finished checking the tyres and oil and stuff.

  ‘Good idea,’ he says, sounding relieved as he follows Mrs Hartliss into the shop to buy some more water.

  It’s too easy, I think, as I grab my bag by the shoulder strap and head towards the toilets around the side of the shop. Hopefully no one will notice I’m not in any of the cars.

  The whole service station is built to look like a fake mountain fortress and the toilets are small round forts. They look just like the sandcastle towers kids make on the beach. Although it’s only about 6.30 am, it’s already hot and I’m pleased to reach the shade of these fake forts, although I’m not thrilled with the pong.

  I go into a cubicle and wade through the puddle on the floor. There’s no real toilet – just a hole in the tiled floor. That’s how they do it here – squatting.

  I hear the cars starting up. The sound is loud, even here in the toilets. I get this sick feeling in my stomach. Like maybe this isn’t such a brilliant plan. My heart starts to beat more quickly and I feel sweat dribbling down under my armpits. I want to rush out and tell them to wait for me, but I stop myself. I have to go back and rescue Tara. I can’t just leave her there. She’ll die.

  I hear the cars rumble away.

  Then there’s silence.

  I wait for a bit. They didn’t really leave without me. They wouldn’t. Somebody will come in and drag me out in a minute and blast me.

  It gets hotter. All I can hear is the wind whistling as it blows through the small arched windows near the ceiling.

  Maybe they’re waiting for me to come out. Then they’ll give me a goo
d telling off. I unlock the door and peer around. They’ve gone. It’s like the cars and everyone in them have vanished in the swirl of dust I can see rising between the bowsers. There’s only a stain spreading on the asphalt where the airconditioner of someone’s car has leaked to show the convoy was here at all. They’ve really gone.

  Holy Hell! They’ve gone and left me behind.

  For a minute I feel like crying, I’m so scared. Then, as I step back into the toilet and lock the door again, I can feel myself shaking and I begin to get mad.

  The bastards! The bloody bastards! I’m so angry at Mr Hartliss for being horrible and bossy and making me leave Tara behind. I had no choice except to run away. And while I’m at it, I’m mad at Mrs Hartliss for only caring about those three idiot girls of hers and that stupid wooden chest, and at Jason and Mrs Vane and everybody else for not noticing I wasn’t in any of the cars. How could they just leave me here? Why didn’t they do a head count? I was only in the toilet. They should have guessed I might try something. They know I got myself left behind last night. And what if I hadn’t planned it? I could have just had a stomach ache. They didn’t even notice someone was missing. Shows how much they care. I can feel the tears sliding down my cheeks again and I can taste the saltiness in my mouth. They can all go and get … get … stuffed.

  Tara’s the only one who cares about me and I’m going to go back and rescue her.

  In the silence, I hear the squeak of sneakers on concrete. The door handle rattles. Suddenly, I feel really scared. Who is it? What do they want? I try to tell my brain it’s just one of the attendants wanting to go to the toilet. I stay as quiet as I can, but I’m starting to panic. Why the hell did I get myself into this? I don’t even breathe.

  The handle rattles again and I hear a soft muttering, but I can’t tell if it’s Arabic or Urdu – the language the Pakistani’s speak here. Then I hear cars pull up, honking their horns. I hear the feet move away and I breathe out. I almost shout out loud I’m so pleased. It must be the Hartlisses or somebody, coming back to pick me up. Quickly I unlock the door and step out.