by Prue Mason
‘Stop being such a girl,’ I say, as I bend down and cut the ropes around his hands and feet, but he’s shaking so much it’s not easy. Finally, I free him, but I don’t look into his eyes because I don’t want to see that look, like I can help him. I can’t. We’re going to die and that’s that.
The kid’s legs must be numb from being tied up. Numb like me. I just sit here and watch him trying to get up, trying to crawl. I don’t know where he thinks he can go. There’s nowhere to go. Doesn’t he realise that?
I feel like crying, but I can’t even do that. I’m as dried up inside as this whole scorched country. I lie back on the hot ground, close my eyes and pull my cap over my face to get some relief from the sun. My head throbs. I can feel all the bites and cuts and scrapes on my arms and legs, but I don’t care any more. About anything.
Then, because my brain won’t stop turning things over, I think of something. Even condemned men get a last meal. I remember the After-Dinner Mints.
I sit up, zip open my bag and find the box. Of course, they’ve melted, but they’re best like that because then you can lick the paper.
I poke my tongue into the wrapping and even before I taste the bitter sweetness and cool peppermint flavour, the richness of it hits my nose and nearly sends me reeling.
The boy, who’s sitting not far away now, rubbing his legs to get them working again, watches me as I lick the mess of brown and green. He looks at me with those big eyes and it’s like Tara begging.
‘Here,’ I hold one out to him. ‘You may as well have one, too. We’re both goners.’
What is this? It cannot be poison for he is eating. But Old Goat says that foreign devils are always taking so why is this one giving? And why is he setting me free?
He stares at me with this strange look on his face.
‘You don’t have to take it,’ I say. ‘I was only being polite.’
He snatches the mint out of my hand. I see him sniff it, then his eyes light up and he pokes his tongue into the paper. Then he stuffs the whole thing in his gob – paper and all. You’d think he’d never eaten chocolate before.
I take time to lick the paper absolutely clean. I’m concentrating so hard on what I’m doing, I don’t notice the sky until I realise it’s gone dark and it’s suddenly got windy. Small bundles of rolling grass race each other across the valley.
I look up, and I’m totally amazed to see shining storm clouds building above the valley. They weren’t there ten minutes ago. It’s like someone came in when I was concentrating on eating my mint and blew them all up just like big balloons. They’ve blocked out the sun and it even feels cool now.
For a minute, I stare at them like I’ve never seen storm clouds before. They’re so purple and they shine with a yellow tinge, and they’re so fat they bulge downwards like someone’s belly. Then, like I’m dragging up a memory from a long time ago, I remember: summer storms. Sometimes, sitting up in my room, I’ve seen the storm clouds piling up over the mountains. Dad told me the name of the clouds, too – cumulonimbus. He said you always know them because they’re bumpy and knobbly and look like a huge cauliflower head. I remember my dad saying that if a pilot was silly enough to fly an aeroplane through clouds like that, the forces inside a thunderstorm could rip the aeroplane’s wings right off.
I hear a crack and there’s a flash. Next thing a freezing, wet splodge lands on my head and then I’m drenched.
The kid kneels down and prays as it rains. I’m too busy with my face upwards and my mouth open, yelling and drinking.
The rain only lasts a few minutes before the storm passes, but it’s like being put through a car wash. One minute a deluge, then the next back into the sunshine. Everything’s steaming like it’s cooking, and water is running off the rocks and just vanishing into the parched earth. I know what it’s like to be that thirsty.
I’m soaking wet. The kid is soaking wet. We’re both grinning like mad. He looks like a toothless monkey when he grins like that. I feel light-headed and a bit giddy, like I do after I’ve snuck one of my dad’s beers. But the only thing I’ve been drinking is the rain. Cool, delicious, soaking rain. It’s dripping off my nose and chin like tears, but I’m not crying. Or am I? It’s not raining now and yet warm, salty drops are still dripping down my face into my mouth.
Why is this one crying too much? Never am I crying like a bint. Not even when I am lost here in this Hell on Earth with this crazy Infidel boy.
CHAPTER TEN
LATE AFTERNOON, DAY ONE
At last, there is some coolness, for the sun is sinking behind the mountains. Soon it will be time for praying to Allah. Five times every day I must be praying and thanking Allah for my blessings. But what blessings are beatings from Breath of Dog, and cursings from Old Goat?
Now, maybe, I can be thanking Allah for the blessing of meeting Ad-am because, for sure, this one is quite foolish. I am thinking he is like Shafi the Fool, who also grins too much, since a camel kicked him in the head.
I am sure this must be so, for anything Shafi is having he is giving. Like Ad-am, for in this bag of his he has many clothes and he is giving many things to me. I am especially liking this green head covering, which has pictures of small animals and has two good holes for my ears.
I look at Ad-am and he is grinning too much. Allah! We have nothing to be happy for! I am thinking, maybe, he has not done any bad deed, but has been left out in the mountains because he is crazy.
The valley is in shadow now. I can’t see the sun any more. Not that it’s set yet – it’s just gone down behind the mountains. It’s a relief to think that the most terrible, horrible, frightening day of my whole life is nearly over.
But there’ll be another day tomorrow. It’ll be just as hot. I’ll be just as lost. Am I going to survive that? And what about this kid? The only thing I’ve really got out of him is that he’s called Walid. That just means ‘boy’ in Arabic. It’s not a real name, at all.
I wonder why he was dumped out here? Maybe he murdered somebody – just like he tried to kill me. As usual, I keep thinking up more and more dramatic situations. I mean, he doesn’t look that bad. In fact, he probably only tried to kill me because he was scared. When I look at him now he makes me grin.
He frowns. Maybe he’s worked out that I’m laughing at him.
After the rain we were both soaked and I thought I’d get changed. I’ve brought too much stuff anyway, so I gave him a spare pair of shorts and a T-shirt and a pair of jocks. He needed new clothes anyway, because his dishdash is filthy and it’s torn to bits.
He looked at my stuff like he’d never worn anything like that before. Because he’s so skinny, everything is miles too big. But he did finally manage to work out what to do with the shorts and T-shirt and put them on the right way. Then he insisted on putting the wet dishdash back on over everything. But the thing that’s cracking me up every time I look at him, is that he’s put the jocks on his head and pulled them down over his ears. What an idiot!
Before I shove my wet shorts in the backpack, I take everything out of the pockets. I pull out the wad of notes and count them. Two hundred dirhams. They may as well be bits of paper for all the use they are right now.
‘Do you know what I could do with two hundred dirhams?’ I ask the kid. I know he can’t understand a word I’m saying, but I have to talk to somebody or I’ll go nuts.
‘I could buy ten pizzas or twenty Cokes or a hundred bottles of water.’
I stop myself dreaming. There are no shops in the mountains. All I can hope for is that some Bedu will think it’s enough money to risk driving to Abudai for.
Ah, Allah! Never have I seen so much money. With such richness, Mama and I could go home to our country and live like sheikhs.
Suddenly I get a bad feeling. I see the sly way the kid is looking at me. You can see the envy in his eyes. I shouldn’t have flashed the money around. It’s not like it’s a fortune, but he’s looking at it like he’s never seen this much before. Maybe he can’t coun
t and he thinks it’s more than it is.
Oh God, what did I have to be so stupid for? Now that he knows I’ve got money he’s likely to bash my head in when I’m asleep and rob me. Maybe that’s why he was dumped. Maybe he was caught robbing somebody. What am I going to do? I can’t stay awake twenty-four hours a day.
Hey! I’ll just give it all to him. That’ll solve the problem. I don’t really need the money – I can always give away my mobile in exchange for a ride. Or I can just give them money once I get home because I know Mum keeps a stash in her jewellery box. Or Walid can give them the cash – he wants to get to Abudai as well. My brain is definitely back in gear now.
‘Here, take it.’ I hold out the money.
Walid’s eyes nearly pop out of his head as I wave the notes in front of his nose. For a second or two, he just stares, and then he snatches at them and goggles at the money like it’s going to go off in his hands.
‘Don’t spend it all at once.’
Allah, this Ad-am is a greater fool even than I first thought. Now I must go quickly to Abudai and find Mama. Walhumdillah! Praise Allah for His goodness.
He thanks God but doesn’t bother thanking me. Typical! At least he might leave me alone now.
I am having one bad thought. There is no doubt Ad-am will follow me all the way to Abudai, for he is much too foolish to know the way. Allah! Maybe it is even a cunning trick to find his way back to the city. And when we reach there, he may go straight to the policeman and say I am stealing his money. Then I will end up in prison. But I can run fast away. As soon as we reach the city, I will quickly give this one the slip. For now, I will hide these many dirhams under this hat of mine.
‘Come, Ad-am. I will show you the way to Abudai.’
I’ve just had a bad thought. Even giving away the money won’t get rid of Walid. He knows I’m going to Abudai, and I guess he’ll stick with me the whole way. I’ll still have to watch my back.
‘I don’t trust you one bit,’ I say. ‘And the sooner we get to Abudai the happier I’ll be.’
CHAPTER ELEVEN
EARLY EVENING, DAY ONE
‘To come to Abudai we must walk in the direction of Mecca, towards the setting sun,’ I say to Ad-am. ‘Have you seen how the tall tower turns golden when the sun sinks towards the sea?’
I guess he’s asking me what to do now. Why do I have to be the one with all the answers? I turn to get away from that dumb-animal look, and just about go nose to nose with a real animal nibbling on one of the thorny trees nearby. It snickers and trots towards us. It’s a goat. A black-and-brown goat. And it looks as friendly as anything.
‘Hey, what do you want, girl?’ I ask, as I put my hand out. It stops and suddenly looks shy.
‘Don’t go away.’ I just want to pat her. I miss Tara, and my mum says I’m good with animals. Sometimes I think, instead of being a pilot, I might study to be a vet like my uncle, then I could own a dairy farm like Barby’s as well.
‘Come on, girl.’ I coax the goat towards me. Of course, she probably hopes I’ve got some food in my hand. Goats are greedy. When we go camping, sometimes a whole herd of them will come right up to the tents because they think they can get food from us, but Tara always barks and frightens them away. She doesn’t like goats.
The goat sniffs my hand and then, slowly, I put my other hand out to rub behind its ears like I do to Tara.
Just then I realise Walid’s sneaking up with the rope he was tied up with. He looks like he’s up to no good.
‘What the hell are you doing?’ I yell at him, and startle the goat. It tosses its head and goes into reverse.
‘Allah! You fool!’
Walid screeches one of his dumb prayers as he leaps at the goat likes he’s in a rodeo and drags it down, holding it by the neck. Then he looks up at me and grins like he’s done something fantastic. The goat is bleating its head off.
‘Why …’ I start, as I see the poor thing lying there bleating and kicking the ground. Then I realise something. I was calling it ‘girl’. I was right. It’s a she goat. We can milk it. I even know how to do it, because Barby taught me how to milk cows. A goat can’t be that different. But what can I use to put the milk into? I think about the empty bottles in my bag. I can cut the top off them. It’s, like, Improvising. When I went to Scouts they used to say that although you should always be prepared there will be times when you’re stuck out in the middle of nowhere and you will have to Improvise. I used to think it meant improve yourself, but now I know it means to make something up out of other things.
‘Hang on to her, Walid,’ I say, as I tip the bag upside down to get the empty bottles at the bottom. I take my knife out of my pocket and pull out the biggest blade.
This is good. Ad-am understands. He has his knife.
But why does he cut the top off this bottle?
‘I will hold the goat while you slit the throat, and then after letting all the blood run out we can make a fire and roast and eat this flesh.
‘La! No! What is this you are doing?’
I’m squeezing and sliding my fingers, using just the right pressure, so the milk squirts out properly. I manage to get half a bottle.
‘Here.’ I hold it out to Walid. I figure he deserves the first sip, seeing he was the one who caught the goat.
He spits. He’s a good spitter. Better even than Jason who’s the best in the Sea Ks.
‘Milk is food for babies.’
If only I had that blade of Ad-am’s, I would soon kill this goat and we would have good food for our journey.
‘Okay, if you don’t want it, I’ll drink it.’ The milk is warm and slightly sour and salty, but incredibly refreshing.
I feel good that I could milk the goat like I was an expert, and it makes me remember a corny joke: What is an expert? A drip under pressure. I laugh. I must be feeling better about everything. We can keep the goat with us so we’ll always have something to drink.
‘I’ll call you, Marge,’ I say, as I scratch her forehead. It’s after Marge Simpson from ‘The Simpsons’. That’s my favourite show.
Marge is quite cute really (I mean the goat). She’s got big brown eyes and long eyelashes. She snickers just like Marge laughs.
‘We’ll tie her up to the tree,’ I say to Walid.
‘You must hobble her feet to stop her roaming,’ I am saying, but Ad-am does not understand.
Walid still seems miffed about something as he points to her hooves. Does he think she’s going to kick me or something?
‘She didn’t even try to kick while I was milking her so I’m sure she won’t now,’ I say to him, but he doesn’t understand me. He shrugs and walks away.
I stay and stroke Marge for a while as I watch her munch happily on some low-hanging leaves.
This one is such a fool to play with the goat. Like a soft girl he is. I feel like giving him a good kicking. Instead, I kick at the ground and I am sorry, for my foot is hitting a heavy tin that has rolled from Ad-am’s bag. I sit and hold my foot, which is sore, and I feel even more angry with this foolish boy – he is bigger than me, but he knows no more than a baby.
But what is this tin? I look at it closely, and I am seeing a picture of a dog. Allah! It is true as Old Goat says. The Infidels are unclean. They eat not only the meat of pigs, but also of dogs.
‘Unclean!’
I look up when I hear Walid screech. He’s holding a tin of dog food. He’s probably trying to steal something out of my bag.
‘I’ll take that, thank you,’ I say and snatch it off him. The thought that we’re going to have to eat Tara’s food is enough to make me want to throw up, but I’ve got to be practical. There’s not likely to be much else along the way. I ate all the cheese slices yesterday. And I remember that book I read, about those kids who were in a plane crash in the Andes. They had to eat dead bodies. Chum doesn’t sound too bad really.
I put the tin of dog food back in the bag.
‘We need to get started soon,’ I say, as I sling the backpa
ck over my shoulder. It scrapes against my tight, sunburned skin and makes me wince. I’ll be lucky not to come out in blisters. I don’t care what Walid wants to do, but I’m not crazy enough to risk walking in that heat again especially now I haven’t got any sunscreen left. We’ll travel by night and sleep during the day.
I’ve got it all worked out. It’s like one of those maths exercises. If you took sixty minutes to reach B from A, travelling at 120 kilometres per hour, how many kilometres do you need to travel on foot in a day to get from B back to A? I don’t know how fast walking speed is, but if we travel about 40 kilometres each night, we could get back in about three nights walking.
Of course, we’ve got to get across the desert, but except for the bit with all the orange sand dunes it’s mostly rocks and scrubby trees. I reckon we can do it. I’ve rollerbladed 20 kilometres in a fun run and that wasn’t hard. It only took a couple of hours. All we have to do is double that and we can definitely do it in three days. We’ll have one tin of dog food per day and, of course, the goat’s milk to drink.
I’m starting to feel like a real explorer.
‘We must be moving on, for the journey to Abudai is far,’ I say to Ad-am.
‘Now the sun’s gone, we can go, too,’ I tell Walid. The sky’s sort of a silvery-grey, but it’ll be dark soon. When night comes, it comes quickly in this part of the world. My mum’s always complaining that we don’t get any long twilights like at home. Here, after the sun goes down, within about five or ten minutes, it’s completely dark.
And it’s so quiet out here it’s spooky. Except for a cricket starting up, there’s no other noise. In town, you can always hear the airconditioning systems kick in or the hum of cars in the background, especially where we live by the main highway. And in our compound you can hear what’s going on next door through the walls.
You’re never alone there. And even though Mum doesn’t really like compound life, she’s happy that even when Dad’s away flying, there’s always someone around if you need help or company.