by Prue Mason
‘Shut the back doors!’ I scream at Walid over the music, as I tug the driver’s seat as far forward as I can. My foot still hardly reaches the accelerator pedal.
Walid scrambles over the seat and pulls the back doors shut. I hang on to the steering wheel and peer over the red, velvet-covered dashboard. I’m pleased to see that the car’s an automatic because, although Barby lets me drive on the farm and I think I’m pretty good at it, automatics are easier. I shove the control column into reverse and put my foot down as hard as I can.
We career backwards, bumping over rocks. I’m not too good in reverse. It’s hard to see out the back window anyway because there’s all this gold-fringed stuff hanging all around it, so I’m pleased when we finally get to a place where we can turn. I haul the car around and head off, bumping away over the tracks made by the two cars coming up the valley.
‘Allah, the All Seeing, please forgive Ad-am for this stealing and please keep us in your safety.’
‘Woah!’ I yell, as we hit a hole I hadn’t seen and we both fly into the air. That stops Walid’s prayers for a moment. When I land back on the seat I shut the magpie music up by pushing in the eject button on the cassette player. Now, there’s only the hissing of static on the radio because that’s all you can get out here in the mountains. It’s better than the music, though.
I glance in the rear-view mirror. The big furry dice hanging from it are swinging like crazy. I can see the men jumping up from their mats. I press my foot down hard on the accelerator again as they come running after us. Old Orange Beard starts hobbling along waving his camel stick. There’s a cracking sound and I know Baggy Pants has got his gun out. He misses. Again.
‘Keep your head down!’ I yell at Walid.
My head’s already so low I can hardly see over all the clutter these guys have got on their dashboard.
‘Walhumdillah! Wallah, Ad-am!’
I guess Walid’s praying again. We probably need all the prayers we can get, and I certainly don’t have time to talk to anybody Up There at the moment as I’m too busy hauling this way and that on the steering wheel. I’m not even trying to zigzag to stop Baggy Pants getting a good shot. I’m just having to do it to get around the bushes and big rocks.
We are speeding too fast, like a camel when it is racing. I would like to know how to drive this car like Ad-am, but it looks much harder than riding a camel.
I look down at the speedo and see that we’re doing about 40 ks an hour. I want to go faster, but it’s too dangerous. The last thing we need now is a crash. So I hang on and try to avoid the rocks and the bushes and the holes. This car hasn’t got a lot of clearance. We could easily rip off the oil sump or puncture the petrol tank. At least I don’t have to worry about the exhaust.
Allah be praised! There is a big bend in the valley and the road along the wadi is looking much more smooth.
Before we take the bend and follow the old riverbed where the rocks are not so big and there aren’t so many bushes, I quickly glance in my rear-view mirror again. Some of the men are still chasing us, but they’re eating our dust.
I’m almost starting to enjoy myself as we career along the wadi. It’s wider and smoother here. I like driving and Dad has even told me that’s part of the reason why I’d be a good pilot like him. The best thing now, though, is the airconditioning. The car might be old, but the a.c. is a good one. It’s blasting out freezing air into our hot, sweaty faces. It’s like heaven on a stick – my mum is always saying that.
But the whole car smells like an ashtray.
That’s when I remember my mobile.
Brilliant! I can charge it up using the lighter in the car.
‘Bag!’ I say to Walid, as I glance down at the backpack at his feet.
As I do, I see a movement – something black with lots of legs, crawling out of one of the side pockets. Just a spider. Must have got in there when it was in the back of that old truck. It was full of hay and other stuff.
The spider scuttles under the seat. I’m not scared of stupid spiders. Not even big ones. I grin a bit, though, when I think what my sister would do if she were here. She’d probably be screaming her head off by now.
No time to worry about spiders. I don’t know the word for ‘mobile’ in Arabic, and I couldn’t explain about charging it anyway, so it’s easier to just look for it myself. I drive for a while, until I figure we’ve been travelling for at least half an hour. We’re definitely far enough away from the men to pull over, so I put my foot on the brake and ram the gear into Park. After we skid to a halt, I grab the backpack and rummage through it. It smells a bit off with all the damp gear in there.
‘Where the hell is my mobile?’ I up-end the bag. The car starts to look like my bedroom. Jocks and socks and T-shirts and shorts are everywhere. A tin of dog food rolls out into Walid’s lap. He picks it up, looks at it, then drops it quickly, like it’s dirty.
I don’t know what his problem is. I mean, I know the Arabs hate dogs, but he’s always talking about them. Maybe he was cursing. The worst thing a Muslim can say to someone is that they’re the son of a dog.
‘Kalb zain – dogs good,’ I say. ‘Wait until you meet Tara, then you’ll know how zain dogs are.’ It won’t be long until we’re back home, at this rate. But I’d like to charge up the mobile so I can make a few calls and let everyone know I’m okay.
I find the box of After-Dinner Mints. It’s a bit squashed. Walid’s eyes light up. ‘We deserve it,’ I say, as I hand him one and stuff one into my own mouth.
‘But where’s my mobile?’ I look through all the pockets on the outside. It isn’t there. Neither is the charger. It couldn’t have fallen out.
‘Holy Hell,’ I say, as I finally figure out what must have happened. ‘Old Orange Beard must have pinched it when he and Baggy Pants found my backpack. And he’s probably charged it up in the Toyota.’
I think back to when Orange Beard was talking on the phone. From what he was saying, it was obvious he was talking to somebody who was speaking English.
‘It had to be Barby. Or my mum or dad,’ I tell Walid. ‘That’s what they’d do. They’d call me as soon as they found out I wasn’t with the Hartlisses or when they got my messages.’
I think about all the desperate messages I left on their voice mails, when I was lost. They must be pretty worried.
‘Ad-am we must go fast away again or maybe the men will come to catch us.’
I think Walid is trying to tell me to pull myself together. He’s right.
‘What the hell. There’s nothing I can do about it now and I’m certainly not going to wait here for that lot behind to catch up. What would I do? Ask for my phone back? Anyway,’ I say, as I put the control column back into Drive and we lurch forwards, ‘I suppose we’re heaps better off having a car than a phone.’
I look across at Walid and grin at him. ‘Don’t look so worried. We’ll be okay. All we have to do is find a road and some signposts.’ I keep talking, trying not to chuck a tantrum like I normally do. It feels good being this calm. Maybe losing my temper isn’t such a good thing. I can never think of anything except what’s upsetting me and I usually end up in even more trouble.
‘I’m still not sure where we are, but we can’t be far from a proper road.’ I quickly glance at my watch. It’s nearly 5.30 pm. ‘As long as we can find a road and a signpost before it gets dark we might be home in less than two hours.’ The thought of home like it always was – with Mum and Dad and Tara and even Sarah – makes me want to be there. Safe.
‘Everything will be back to normal for sure.’ If I tell myself that enough, maybe it will be true. Anyway, where else can I go? Suman’s too far away and I don’t know anybody there.
It’s then I check the petrol gauge. It’s less than a quarter full. ‘Damn!’
I can feel the panic start, but try to squash the bad thoughts and come up with another solution straight away. We’ve got plenty of money. With the two hundred dirhams I gave Walid, we can fill the car up
and even get something to eat. Lots of Arabic kids my age drive cars, so the attendants probably won’t even care. Look how much they cared when they saw me on my own yesterday.
We drive on down the wadi. But, after awhile, I realise the sides of the valley are less steep than they were. Then we finally come around another bend. Suddenly it looks like we’ve driven to another planet because the scene in front of us is totally different.
There’s a wide, flat gravelled area that must have been a huge river thousands of years ago, but it’s completely dried up now. On the other side of this huge wadi, away to the horizon, are seas of orange sand dunes.
All the way along the wadi are Bedu camps. I can see the rusty tin sheds and the crooked fence posts, the coloured doors, the old rotting blankets used to make walls and roofs for the sheds and yards.
The camps look untidy against the smooth, brightly coloured dunes. There are pieces of rubbish scattered around, and blue plastic bags hanging in the few scraggly trees. I can’t see any sign of people. They’re usually deserted because, although the Bedu keep their goats and camels at their camps, nobody lives there. My mum says almost all the Bedu live in towns now.
I pull up. I’ve got no idea where to go from here. And I have to go to the toilet as well by now. That’ll give me an excuse to stop and to think straight at least.
‘We’re lost,’ I say to Walid. ‘I don’t know which way it is to Abudai from here.’
‘We must be travelling over this desert in the direction of the setting sun to be finding Abudai.’
I wish my Arabic was better so I could understand exactly what Walid was saying, but I guess he said something about the desert.
‘Yeah,’ I say, ‘I wouldn’t want to be trying to get across that.’
The one thing I do know is that we’re on the edge of what’s called the Empty Quarter. And that means empty. There’s nothing there except sand and more sand. I suppose there are one or two oases in there somewhere, but you’d have to be lucky to find one.
Despite our predicament, I still feel reasonably cheerful as I hop out of the car. After the airconditioned comfort of the car, the heat blasts me. At least it’s cooling down a bit now, with it being late afternoon. Walid gets out as well and squats – he watches me like I’m a loony as I pee standing up. He points to the sun. It’s glowing a light yellow and sitting right on top of the haze above the desert.
‘We are needing to be heading towards Mecca,’ I say again to Ad-am, and this time I am pointing so he is knowing.
‘Yeah, yeah,’ I say, ‘I know the sun is going to be setting soon and then it’ll be time for your prayers. Again.’
I like watching the sun set. I’m always on the look out for the green flash, which is meant to happen just after the sun sets. In Abudai, it’s sort of nice watching the sun, red as flames, sit on the sea for a minute or so, then slowly sink down into it like it’s putting its fire out for the night. And, in the summer, after the burning heat of the day, it’s always good to see the last of it for about eight hours.
‘Maybe you can ask Allah which way to go,’ I say, and then I realise that in a funny way He might already have shown us the right direction. Walid’s still looking at me and pointing like he’s really trying to tell me something and now, finally, I realise what it is.
Muslims pray facing the setting sun. The sun sets in the west, and in Abudai the sun sets over the sea. So that means by travelling in the direction the sun goes down we’ll be headed straight for the coast. Once we hit the coastline it’ll be easy to find Abudai. And then all I have to do is go back to our house and wait for Mum and Dad to get back. If Dad’s not back already.
‘Brilliant!’ I say to Walid, ‘but we can’t go over the desert. Even in a four-wheel drive we’d get bogged, because the sand is so fine. We’d have no hope in this thing. So what do you think we should do now?’ I really want his advice. I wish he could speak English because he seems to be a lot smarter than me about these things.
‘We’ve got to work this out quickly,’ I say. I look around to get my bearings. I need to know which direction is north and which is south. I remember that some nights on the beach after sunset my mum likes to point out the Big Dipper, which I know is in the north.
I turn towards the setting sun and I close my eyes. I try to imagine being down on the beach. Now, which direction does she always point in? I remember that it’s hard to see because of the lights of Abudai.
‘Can you help me here, Walid?’ I point to the west. ‘This is …’ I search through my head for the Arabic for west.
‘El-gharb,’ Walid says suddenly and grins.
‘Yeah, yeah – el-gharb, west. That’s great. Now if I’m facing west as if I’m looking at the sea, then the shamaal – north – would be to the right of me.’ I hold out my arms and point north.
‘Aywah.’ Walid says. That means ‘yes’.
‘So that means my left arm is pointing down the wadi and that must be janoob – south. The mountains behind are in the east – esh sharq.’ I feel more pleased with myself than I would if I’d got an A in English.
It’s like we’ve worked this out together. We turn and do a hi-five. We’re a pretty smart team.
Then I look up at the sky because I remember even that’s got a direction. It’s called the zenith. That’s the highest point. And directly below me, the lowest point you can go is the nadir. It’s then I get this really weird feeling as we’re standing here, in the middle of nowhere, in this huge dried-up wadi. I feel as if Walid and I are standing right on the spot where north meets south and east meets west. There must be such a spot. Right?
‘Yallah! Hurry! We must go – soon it will be dark.’
Walid brings me back to my senses.
‘Yeah, we’d better go.’
We jump back into the car and set off towards the north. Somewhere there’s got to be a road off here to Abudai.
The wadi stretches to the horizon and it’s wide and straight enough to be a racing track. With the great excuse of having to hurry to find a road before the sun sets, I get this sudden urge to floor it. So I do, and we hurtle along faster and faster. The needle reaches 70 then 75 and then flickers to 80. The gravel rattles underneath the floor of the car and clouds of dust rise behind us. This is amazing fun. I quickly glance over at Walid to grin at him.
Then Walid yelps and grabs at his neck.
And I see the spider.
I let out a shriek that my sister the drama queen would be proud of. It’s black and hairy with huge pincers, and it’s scuttling down Walid’s shoulder. Now I recognise it. I’ve never seen a real one before, but I’ve seen pictures of them.
It’s a camel spider. But it’s not the spider that scares me. It’s the bright-red blood trickling through Walid’s fingers.
I stamp my foot on the brake and we begin to skid.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
EARLY EVENING, DAY TWO
I clamber out of the wreckage. I’m shaking like mad and choking on the orange dust in the air. I still can’t believe how quickly the car rolled. It’s landed back on its tyres, but the windscreen is shattered and the top is pushed in. Right now, I’m glad I’m a shorty. If I’d been much taller, I would have been crushed for sure.
Then I see Walid. He’s all crumpled up on the back seat. He didn’t have his seatbelt on and he must have been thrown around when we rolled. I drag him out. He looks even skinnier and smaller than usual. His head seems too big for his body and his eyes are closed.
‘Are you okay, man?’ He doesn’t move. ‘Oh God, don’t let him be dead!’ I pray, and shake him. He moans.
‘Thank God, thank God.’ He’s alive, but he still doesn’t look good.
I know it’s not from the bite of the camel spider. They’re not poisonous, but they have big fangs and if they’re frightened they do bite. I can see the marks where it’s punctured his skin. But where is it now? Suddenly there’s a movement to my left and it scuttles out from underneath Walid and heads off
across the rocks.
‘That’s for giving me such a fright and for making me crash and … and for hurting Walid.’ I stamp on it. Hard. It helps stop me shaking.
I turn back to Walid. I’ve got to do something. He’s got a big bump on his head and he’s still out to it. I find a sock in the car and use some of our precious water to mop his face. There’s no point trying to clean it.
The next thing is to get the hell out of here. If those men catch us now, we’ll be history.
My skin prickles when I remember what Dad said about an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth. We’ve just wrecked their car. What does that count for?
I can’t believe how cool-headed I’m being, despite the situation. Not panicking at all anymore. They say it happens sometimes when you’re in a real emergency – like after an accident – somehow the stress helps you think more clearly.
As much as I don’t want to move Walid again, I know I’ve got to take the chance and hope that he hasn’t broken any bones and isn’t bleeding inside. I squat down and haul him up on my back. Luckily, with all the surfing I do, I’m pretty strong, and he’s unbelievably light. But I can’t carry the backpack at the same time. Anyway, everything in it is scattered all over the place.
‘I’ll just have to get you into a hiding place first and then come back for anything important.’
I look around. The only place to hide out now is in one of the Bedu camps. But once they find the wrecked car they’ll be sure to search them. We’ve got no choice, though. At least there are lots of camps, and if we head for the one furthest away that should be the last place they’ll look.
I start to trudge back down the wadi, with Walid bumping on my back. A little voice in the back of my head is yelling at me, calling me an idiot. ‘Think where you’d be if you hadn’t been so dumb!’ But I’m not listening because, if I do, then all the panic inside will rise up and blow the top of my head off.