by Chris Ashley
Mum smiled a sad smile. “Yes, we are going home,” she said in English. And that was strange because when it was just them she normally spoke in Urdu.
Chapter Six
It was Saturday and Wasim was in his kameez instead of his uniform. He’d been to the mosque with the policeman outside. He’d done his jobs at home, he’d watched Saturday telly but now it was back to school. It was the Fun Day and Wasim was in charge of the Roll the Penny game with Sally from Year Six.
Everybody had to do something. The Fun Day had suddenly become much more important. Now somebody famous was going to cut the ribbon to open it and so they were expecting big crowds.
Wasim wasn’t in the football so he was going to be watching pennies roll down a plank with holes in it instead. He waited by the door.
As usual since ‘the situation’, they were going in the car. Shamaila was really excited because she thought that they were going to a real fair, with big wheels and rides.
Atif was going because he was in a team – one with players from his school only.
Wasim looked sadly at his shin pads by the front door and climbed in to the car. He had been looking forward to today for weeks, and now it was this . . . a plank and some pennies.
It had been chaos outside school all week. Everybody wanted to pick their children up since the High School fight outside the fence on Wednesday, and now there was a new name for ‘the situation’. Now it was called ‘Community Tension’. That was just a flashy way of saying them and us, Atif had explained to him through his fat lip.
But the tension at the moment was how to park cars and get into the school instead of out of it. It was madness. Cars were parked up pavements on both sides of the road. There was already a line stretching right down to the end of the school road, and once you got anywhere near the gates there were people pushing and shoving and holding tickets up in the air.
It was like when Dad had taken them to see Wanderers against Spurs in the FA Cup. There was a police van there, too, and policemen walking about pretending to be in a Fun Day sort of mood, while Welephant, the fire brigade’s mascot, walked along the line shaking hands with people.
Dad was going to drop them off and then walk back, since there was nowhere to park, so they got out just in front of a brand new sign wired to the fence.
“Wow! Who have they got opening it?”
“Dunno,” said Wasim
“Well, I’m not going to miss it, so hurry up.” And Dad shooed them out.
Mum, Shamaila and Atif joined the queue and Wasim was allowed through to go to set up the Roll the Penny stall.
He walked slowly across the netball court, which was where the football was going to be played, and kicked a pebble into the real five-a-side goal net that the school had borrowed for the day.
Sally, a great big girl from Year Six, was already there and was obviously going to be in charge. Wasim wasn’t bothered. Who cared about pennies dropping down holes in a plank? He doubted if whoever this world famous person was would be playing Roll the Penny.
“I bet its someone from Corrie,” grunted Sally as she lifted up the heavy plank all by herself and rested it against the table taken from the dinner hall. She gave Wasim the job of rolling pennies down to see if the slope was right.
Wasim just breathed out and got on with it, while the football teams arrived and started pounding balls against the wire mesh, juggling, heading and trying to look like professionals.
Atif’s team shuffled in and stood in a corner passing the ball to each other. Wasim could see his brother keeping his head down when Dave and Andy went past with their team.
Atif lifted his head, though, when Lee Raynor went past. Wasim could see him whistling at Atif’s team. The crowded playground was getting noisier but Wasim could just about hear the tune. Where had he heard it before?
He rolled another penny down the slope while he thought. Wednesday. That was it. . .
Oh, aye, let’s go dashing. . .
Atif’s team – all of them from the mosque – knew it too and they stopped doing up laces and rummaging in sports bags to stand up straight and eyeball Lee Raynor. Raynor smiled a cocky smile and jaunted his way, still whistling, to his team, all of them white.
Them and us, thought Wasim.
When Lee’s brother, Gary, and the rest of Rock Star Rovers arrived, Wasim stopped watching. He was glad when Sally started bossing him about again and gave him something to do.
The playground was filling up very quickly. There came a whistling hoot that had everybody holding their ears. It was the loudspeaker hanging from the fence, and there were lots of ssshhhes before it all went silent.
“Ladies anderrrr gentlemen. . .”
There was a surge towards the fence and the sight of a long, white stretch limousine that seemed to be the length of the school road.
It was the star coming to open the fair . . . in a stretch limo! Wasim forgot himself and joined the running children and fast-walking adults trying to get as near to the gate as they could.
Wasim wasn’t bothered about the Fun Day now that he wasn’t in a team, but even he wanted to know who this famous person was. He tried to think of all the famous people he knew. It must be the queen to have a limo that long.
“I told you, Waz! It’s the queen. . . Has to be in a stretch limo like that.” Charles was proud of himself, until a glare from Lee Raynor – now with football shorts under his black hoodie top – cut him down. Charles shot Wasim an I’m sorry look and stood back on tiptoe trying to gaze into the tinted windows of the million-mile car.
Wasim’s chest felt heavy again. Obviously Rock Star Whites weren’t even supposed to talk to people like Wasim, let alone pick them for the same team. It was a nothing sort of feeling – like saying goodbye to Grandma at the airport when she went back to Pakistan and knowing he wouldn’t see her for ages. Sad. Just sad.
The limo came to a halt and some people started cheering and clapping. The whistling in the speakers came again and then there was a crackle and a click – a CD going on – and everyone waited for the music.
“God Save the Queen, I bet,” said Wasim to Sally, who was the only person he knew in his bit of the crush. She just wrinkled her eyebrows and looked at him.
Another crackle and the music crashed through the old school speakers.
BAM! BAM, BAM, BAM. . . BAM, BAM, BAM. . . BAMMMM!
“Rocky!”
It was Atif, who had pushed through next to him and was boxing. And everyone else seemed to know the tune, too, because they were all punching into the air in time to each BAM. Charles was air-punching but he looked puzzled and Sally shouted, “Not quite God Save the Queen. I don’t think she’s into boxing.”
“So?” Wasim said. “She might be. . .” he added, and then looked around, hoping nobody had heard him.
BAM! BAM, BAM, BAM. . .
There was another crackle and the music went off. Then came the strange, deep voice again, speaking – like they did on WW wrestling or boxing on the TV – in an American accent with the end of each word stretched out as long as the limo that everybody was crowding to stare into.
“Ladeeeezzzz anderrr gentlemen, boyzzz anderrrr girlzzzz.”
It all went quiet and there was a big sucking in of breath as, just like a space ship, the back door of the limo suddenly hissed and moved a few centimetres all on its own. It was opening!
The Rocky music took over again.
BAM! BAM! BAMMMMMMM!
“Pleazzzzzzzze be upstanding. . .”
Well, they all were upstanding already but they stood even higher on their tiptoes, and Wasim found himself hugging Atif and Sally in his excitement. The door hissed wider and they all strained to see into the blackness as out stepped. . .
Uncle Zan!
Wasim and Atif just stared at each other. Uncle Zan was in his best jacket and kameez, with the photographer from the paper clicking at him, and a huge disappointed suck of breath from the playground
But Uncle Zan was smilin
g and shaking his head, and skipping out of the way.
BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM! BAM, BAM, BAM!
“Ladeezzzz and gentlemen. Be upstanding forrr . . . theeeeee Olympic gold medal winner, THE three times Golden Glove winner and . . . now . . . THEEE undisputederr Middle Weight Boxing Champion of the worlderrrr. . . Our town’s very own. . .”
BAM, BAM, BAMMM!
“. . . Sayiddddddd Aaaaaaakram!”
And out he came!
BAM! BAM! BAM!
Bouncing on his golden trainers, punching into the air in a blur that was too fast to see, kissing his golden gloves and jogging on the spot in pure white dressing gown with golden writing that read Sayid.
Sayid Akram . . . the Champ!
The screams, whistles and cheers drowned out Rocky on the loudspeaker. It really was Sayid Akram, the World Champ, and the most famous person that had ever been born in the town.
He’d learned his trade at the boxing club near here, and he’d come back from the Olympics with his gold medal to this town, and he’d returned from America, the World Champion and loved by everyone, to this town.
He was a local boy. He’d gone to school around here. He went to a mosque around here. Sayid Akram. Everybody’s son, everybody’s brother, everybody’s friend. Everybody loved Sayid and. . .
Wasim turned and shared a glance with his real brother. And he was a Muslim. He was from round here and he was a Muslim . . . just like Wasim and Atif.
For the first time since he’d come home battered and bruised, there was a gleam in Atif’s eyes. And Wasim thought that there was probably the same gleam in his own. It was pride. Sayid Akram belonged to everybody, but most of all, Wasim felt, he belonged to him.
Wasim hugged his brother again and his shining eyes went over his shoulder to where everybody was still fist-pumping to the Bam Bam Bams of Rocky.
And then his eyes caught two more. Lee Raynor’s. But not for long. Because Lee Raynor’s eyes, that had blazed and hated outside the mosque and by the fence, dropped down and looked closely at the concrete of the playground. And Wasim knew why.
Sayid Akram. The Champ!
Chapter Seven
Next to The Golden Key on the blue shelves at school was a book called The Pied Piper of Hamelin. Wasim hadn’t read it yet, but he had seen the coloured picture on the front. It was of hundreds of kids following a man who was blowing on a recorder or something.
That was what it was like as Sayid, the Champ, made his way around the stalls of the fair, pretending to have a go at each thing.
The big man who walked around in front of Sayid wouldn’t let anyone shake his hand. It was in case they broke it, Sally said.
Wasim had stayed up to watch Sayid win his World Championship belt a few months ago and he’d seen what that hand could do, so he was surprised that he would worry about kids from their school breaking it, but nobody argued.
They just followed him, screaming his name and trying to get photos on their mobile phones of each other pretending to punch the Champ. Even Wasim’s dad got one!
Then the procession turned from the Hook a Duck paddling pool and headed to Roll the Penny. Wasim couldn’t swallow. He tried to look cool as he found himself standing to attention at the table where his pile of pennies were waiting to be rolled.
“This is my nephew, Wasim.” Wasim fought for breath. The Champ’s minder had stood to one side when Uncle Zan spoke and now Sayid Akram – Sayid from the Olympics, Sayid from the papers, Sayid from the Corn Puffs advert – came up to him.
“How you doing, man?” asked the Champion of the World.
It had been a special treat for Wasim and Atif when Sayid had fought his boxing match to become World Champ. It wasn’t on normal telly but Dad had driven Wasim and Atif to one of his friend’s houses to watch it on Pay-per-view at two o’ clock in the morning!
That night in Las Vegas, America, Sayid had danced around the ring to crashing music just like he did today, and a voice had boomed his name with a Ladeezz and err gentlemennn, just like today. Sayid had been brilliant, dancing all over the ring, and punching in a blur of red gloves and then skipping away before he could be touched by the bigger boxer he was fighting.
Afterwards, he’d been interviewed holding a massive belt – out of breath and sweating, but grinning underneath swollen cheeks and a puffy eye.
Now Wasim was right next to that person. He had never been near to anyone from the TV before and it was strange. Sayid looked small in the ring next to some of the other boxers, but here he looked massive. The skin that had been sweating and bruised after the big fight was smooth and glowing with fitness, and as Sayid leaned over to pick up a penny, Wasim could actually sense specialness.
Even though he was only going to roll a penny, you could somehow tell that this wasn’t an ordinary person, this was someone who was actually the best in the whole world at what he did. Every movement was relaxed and unhurried, but underneath the white tracksuit top and a massive gold chain, hard shoulder muscles rippled up to a neck like a tree trunk.
And he wanted to know how Wasim was doing!
Sayid gave Wasim a pretend punch on the arm and then rolled the penny. He got a massive cheer, did a World Champ’s shake of his fists and dance, and before Wasim could even say how he was really doing, the great crowd moved off.
Wasim carried on feeling pleased until he saw that the Champ was heading to the Super Sixes, the football. And Wasim wasn’t in it. He looked over to the Raynors and Charles, the new Rock Star Rovers, Rock Star Whites, and rubbed his arm where the Champ had hit him. But it wasn’t his arm that was hurting.
The Woodley Wanderers would have been pleased with a crowd that big. There they all were, gathered around the netball court – which was now a mini football pitch – watching two teams ready to play the first match of the Soccer Sixes tournament. Rock Star Whites v AC Wizards – Atif’s team.
But what a tournament! Because, in the middle, instead of Mr Abbott with his suit trousers tucked into his socks and a playtime whistle, there was a proper referee and next to him – the World Champ.
“Ladeezzz anderrr gentlemenner. . . Anderr now . . . the main event. . . To kick off our Soccer Sixes competitionnerr . . . in the green corner. . .”
Off came Sayid’s brilliant white and gold trackie top and underneath was an emerald green football shirt. The exact colour of the Pakistan flag.
“In the green corner . . . the undefeated World Champion and now centre-forward, Mr Sayiiiiiiiid Akkkkkkkram!”
The noise was now deafening and, even though he had promised himself that he wouldn’t even watch, Wasim found himself dragged over to the pitch by the commotion.
Sayid did his dance again round the pitch. He high-fived the players who were all ready to go and couldn’t believe they were on the pitch with Sayid Akram, with hundreds of people squashed round.
Wasim squeezed his way through and he could see that his brother was having the same trouble he sometimes had. He couldn’t keep the smile from spreading all over his bruised face. Sayid was going to kick off for them against Rock Star Whites. Against Lee Raynor’s team.
Sayid touched his toes, jumped on the spot and then the crowd roared as he got down and did ten press ups on one arm, clapping his hands in the middle of each one, and then did ten on the other arm. Then he used his arms to flip himself up in the air, ready to start.
Wasim looked over at Rock Star Whites and he was pleased – they weren’t smiling. Least of all Lee Raynor. He was looking very worried and had moved back from the kick-off spot. He was now back as far from Atif’s team and Sayid Akram as the netball court would allow. He was whispering to the goalkeeper – another familiar face, Jason Coolley. Wasim thought back to the terror outside his mosque last week, the smell of the firework and the hating face shouting at his family when they got out.
“It’s not fair!” was all the owner of the face managed this time. “Him playing for them. He’ll. . . It’s not fair.”
But nobody
was listening. And Jason Coolley and Lee Raynor looked very thin and very white and very scared as Sayid bounced the ball ready to start.
The ref blasted his whistle and Sayid made a big joke of getting a brand new leather ball out of his bag and hiding it behind his back until the ref wagged a jokey finger at him and made him put it down. Everybody laughed.
Then Sayid tapped the ref on the arm and signalled him to wait. He picked up the bag and slowly looked up at Rock Star Whites. Then the Champ fixed them with the Akram stare and made a step towards them.
For the first time that afternoon it went silent. Completely silent. He wouldn’t . . . would he?
And then the World Champ shook hands with the team at his end – the team of Muslims – and he marched towards Rock Star Whites.
Chapter Eight
At their school, if a grown-up said, “Stop and listen!” everyone had to fold their arms and stop talking. That was just what it was like when Sayid Akram shook hands with the AC Wizards and marched at Rock Star Whites. Two hundred people, probably more than that, and they’d all gone as quiet as when somebody got told off in assembly.
It was a walk that they’d all seen before. Not the walk to get his Sports Personality of the Year award, or the walk to get his gold medal at the Olympics.
No. This was the walk he did towards the boxing ring. The walk into battle before those minutes when he had to go out there and earn the stretch limos and the gold chains and all this cheering. When he had to go and get punched by the best in the world. Not the best in a class, or the toughest in the school, but the best fighters in the world.
The walk when Sayid, everybody’s son and everybody’s brother, had to go out and be the best in the world against men who, just like him, had spent their whole lives becoming fighting machines.
This walk wasn’t about legs that could dodge and skip and bounce, or arms like metal springs that moved so fast you had to wait for the slow motion replay to see them.