The Eleventh Trade

by Alyssa Hollingsworth

  Keeping my phone under the table—I’m not fully sure yet whether it’s allowed, even at lunch break—I click into the note-taking app. It’s been two days since I found the rebab at the music shop, and I’ve been racking my brain for ideas to get seven hundred dollars. So far all I’ve been able to do is write this:

  How to make $700:

  • Gardening?

  • Job? (I think that might be illegal here?)

  • Concert? (If I had the rebab…)

  • Sell something?

  • Exchange coins for USD? (Afghanis: 2, Iranian rial: 1, euros [Turkey and Greece]: 5) Not worth much!

  • ??????

  The list was small to begin with, but every time I check again it seems to shrink. Baba always made sure we only owned as much as we could carry in my backpack, his rebab case, and a small suitcase. All of my belongings—toothbrush, a few shirts, some trousers, one pair of shoes—I need. There’s nothing to sell.

  Someone dumps a tray on my table, and I jump, nearly losing my phone. Dan plops down across from me.

  “This is the weird corner, you know,” he says, as if we’re in the middle of a conversation. He has to shout over the noise. “See the stain on the ceiling? People say a teacher’s body was stuffed up there after she was murdered.”

  I glance up. The stain is too light and tan to have been blood. Water damage, more likely. I don’t tell Dan, though. His food—a quesadilla and a fruit cup, according to today’s menu—makes my stomach rumble. Digging my palm into the space below my ribs, I swallow and glance away. My head swims with hunger.

  “You don’t say much,” Dan observes, starting to eat. “How’d it go at the music store? Did you get the thing back?”

  “No, ah…” I shift my gaze to the table. “The owner said he would sell it to me for seven hundred dollars. I have a month to get the money for him.”

  “Seven hundred dollars?” Dan whips out his phone and starts swiping. “It was only listed for five hundred!”

  My stomach sinks. So much for being a good barterer. I must have shown the owner I was desperate, that I would agree to anything. There’s no way I can talk down the price now.

  “Ugh, I can’t find the ad for some reason. But I swear it was five hundred dollars yesterday.”

  “He promised to take the ad off eBay,” I say. At least he did that much.

  “What a jerk.” Dan puts his phone away. “Are you going to come play soccer today?”

  I open my mouth to say no, but before I can, a group from our grade walks up to the table. The tall boy leads them. He throws his tray down next to me and sits. He and his friends are complaining loudly about something, but between the roaring room and their quick words, I can’t translate fast enough to understand.

  “So, what’re we doing here?” The tall one turns to Dan as he asks the question, so I can see his face enough to piece his words together. He glances at my key chain. “Hey, that’s cool.”

  “Guys, this is Sami.” Dan points to me. “Sami, this is Justin, Mike, and Peter. I’m trying to add Sami for offense at the rec center.”

  “Ah! Gonna replace me, then?” Peter, the tall one, asks. He laughs, but there’s something angry in it.

  “No.” Dan rolls his eyes. “There’s no cap on teams. But we do need someone to fill in until you can play again.”

  “Hm.” Peter starts eating. Around a mouthful, he practically yells in my ear, “Why aren’t you eating? You sick or something?”

  “No,” I try to answer. My voice is swallowed by the chatter. I clear my throat and try again, louder. “No. I’m Muslim. It’s Ramadan.”

  “Ramen-what?” Justin hollers across the table.

  “It’s a month of fasting.” It feels like I might as well be yelling into a sandstorm. They’re all staring at me blankly. I tug my backpack closer and scoot to make more space between me and Peter. My Manchester United key chain clangs on the metal bench. “We don’t eat or drink while the sun is up, and then we break the fast every evening.”

  “Yeah, okay.” Peter looks at my key chain. “Where did you get that?”

  I take the key chain and rub the metal between my thumb and forefinger, steadying myself. Between the noise and the food, I’m nearly dazed. “Oh, um, Athens.”

  “Where’s that?”

  For a moment, I’m not sure if he’s joking. But he stares at me expectantly. “Greece.”

  “Where’s that?”

  “Come on, Pete,” Dan explodes. “It’s in Europe. Duh.”

  Peter glares across the table. “I knew that. Just seeing if he did.”

  Dan snorts. I glance between them. When Peter and his group sat down at the table, I thought they were Dan’s friends. But the others are busy cramming food into their mouths, and the air across the table has gone tight. My pulse pounds in my head. I don’t want any part of this—I wish they hadn’t sat here.

  “England’s in Europe.” Peter turns to me like nothing’s happened. “Manchester United is in England. You willing to sell that key chain? I’ve got two dollars.”

  I’m shaking my head before he even stops talking, my fingers closed around the key chain. The cold metal warms against my palm. No, I’m about to say. Never.

  I’m sure Baba paid more than two dollars for it—everything is more expensive in Greece—and we never had a lot left after the bribes and travel and food. To give it to me, he wrapped it in a page of notebook paper, with some string tied around for a ribbon. While I opened the package, he bounced his knees with excitement, and when I tugged it free, he started to chant, “Hello! Hello! We are the Busby Boys!”

  He’d grabbed the rebab and plucked a few notes as we chanted together. Other men sharing our hostel room joined in. The victory cry rose and rose until it burst into pure celebration. I laughed until my ribs hurt, and Baba had to wipe tears from his eyes.

  That was one of the only days on our journey when I felt a little like I was home.

  “Then how about a trade?” Peter goes on. He digs in his backpack and pulls out a small blue iPod. “You want this?”

  “Jeez, Pete!” Dan gasps. “You could buy the key chain yourself for five dollars on eBay. That iPod’s worth way more!”

  “The key chain is from Europe, idiot. That makes it extra cool.” Peter waves the iPod at me. “What do you say?”

  Even with Peter’s excuse, it seems a strange trade. Why would the key chain be worth so much just because I got it in Europe? To me it’s worth a lot because of the look on Baba’s face when he gave it to me. I’d never trade that memory for anything.

  Seven hundred dollars echoes in my hollow head. Suddenly my brain feels as empty as my stomach. The key chain weighs heavily against my palm. Twenty-six days. My dry throat aches. Is the memory of Baba giving me the key chain worth more than the rebab? What else do I have to get it back? A few coins. A possibility of jobs.

  I don’t have a choice. If I can sell or trade the iPod, I’ll be that much closer to having the money.

  I unhook the key chain from my backpack. “Okay.”

  Peter swaps with me. The iPod isn’t as heavy as my key chain. Gunk blocks my voice, and it won’t go away, even when I clear my throat.

  Dan frowns at Peter.

  Peter and his friends ignore me, talking about scrubbing graffiti and then sports while they take huge bites of food. I don’t try to translate. I’m a hole in the noise—a silence so heavy I can hardly hear anything over it.

  Then they leave to put their trays away. I finally look down at the iPod in my hand and press the on button.

  Nothing happens.

  Panic pricks my neck, but I push it down. My cousin in Iran had an iPod. He used it to listen to English audiobooks. Sometimes, when the charge got low, he just had to press longer. I try again.

  Nothing. Not even the warning flash of a battery sign.

  Maybe it’s just so low it won’t even turn on until it’s charged. Except I don’t have a charger. I don’t have any way to know—

/>   I look up just as Peter and his two friends go past. Peter’s smiling. Not like a kid. Like one of the smugglers. Like the smuggler who yanked me onto a black boat, assuring Baba that it was the highest quality, the best option, while he pocketed all our money and the cheap plastic groaned under my feet. His smile hid the lie.

  Peter is past me now, but I saw it: the lie and the win.

  The iPod in my hand is broken.

  * * *

  TRADE LOG

  Days: 26

  THINGS TO TRADE:

  iPod (broken)

  COMPLETED TRADES:

  1. Manchester United key chain -> iPod

  * * *

  6

  After the last bell, I head to the school parking lot, my bones still aching with the silence. I’ve changed my list of ideas to a trade log, but all it shows is my mistake: iPod (broken). Kids jostle me in the hallway, but I just absorb the hits and nudges.

  When I step into the mid-afternoon sun, Dan squeezes between me and the door and grabs my backpack to pull me outside, free of the crush.

  “What’d Pete do?” he says.

  “Nothing,” I answer automatically. I’m ready to shrug it off and slip away. I don’t want any trouble. I don’t want to ask for any help. People like Peter just get worse if you try to stand up to them. And people rarely help without expecting something in return.

  Dan shakes his head. “No way he actually traded an iPod for that key chain, even if it is from Europe.”

  My phone buzzes. I fish it out of my pocket. “Sorry—just a minute.”

  It’s a text from Baba: Working late. Will bring home dinner, inshallah.

  He’s used a chicken-leg icon. I taught him how to find the emojis during a downpour in Athens, to distract him from worrying that the moisture in our cheap hostel room would warp the rebab’s wood.

  Baba and the rebab. I promised myself I’d get it back. Dan might know how to help—he did find the rebab again in the first place—and even if he does want something in return, so what? I’m at a dead end.

  I take a deep breath. “Peter’s iPod is broken,” I say, reaching for it. “At least, I think it is. It won’t turn on.”

  “What a loser. Here, give it.” Dan takes a rectangular portable charger and a white cord from his backpack. He plugs in the iPod. “This should work.”

  We both lean closer, watching for any sign of life.

  The iPod does nothing. How could I have been so stupid?

  “Sometimes, if it’s really, really, really low, it takes a half hour to work again,” Dan says. When he glances at me, he’s trying to hide a smile—and failing. “I guess you’ll just have to come to soccer practice. I’ll leave it hooked up in my backpack, and it’ll be charged by the end.”

  “Oh.” I fidget with my backpack straps. I mostly want to retreat to my apartment. But a part of me is actually sort of curious. I haven’t played soccer in so long. And I do need the iPod to charge.

  “Okay,” I say, but it comes out hesitant and weak. I clear my throat. With more certainty this time: “Okay.”

  * * *

  “Come on,” Dan calls, waving me into the rec center’s courtyard. “It’s going to be awesome!”

  My hand closed around the scar on my arm, I slip through the gate without lifting my gaze to the razor wire. Even under my sleeves, I can trace the long, puckered groove. The wire snagged my skin at the Iran border, and to keep silent, I bit my lip so hard it bled. When Baba touched my arm in the dark, he thought I had spilled water on myself. He didn’t even realize I had been cut until morning.

  Teenagers play American football on the tarmac, not paying us any notice. I peel my fingers off the scar and hurry to catch up with Dan.

  “Do you think Ms. Nolan has a mustache?” Dan asks suddenly, spinning around so he’s walking backward. He sticks a finger under his nose to demonstrate.

  “I—um— No?” To be honest, I haven’t looked our language arts teacher directly in the eyes since I came to the school.

  Dan sighs and lets his hand fall. “I think she does. I can’t stop thinking about it. If I fail the year-end tests, it’ll be because her mustache was so distracting.”

  Mention of the tests makes my empty stomach turn. The agency said I have some flexibility, since I only just transferred. But they also said I scored on target with the students my age, and I don’t want to be held back a year. I don’t want to stick out as the oldest in class.

  “Only twelve days left!” Dan grabs the front door and throws it open. “Then we’re free!”

  I barely catch its handle before it starts to swing shut. Free. There are a lot worse places to be trapped than in a school. But I didn’t know that a few years ago, when I used to complain to Mor about classes. So I’m not surprised Dan thinks that way now.

  A bell chirps when we walk into the rec center’s lobby. The light from the windows reflects off the white walls, making the space airy and bright. Somewhere people must be running, because I can hear sneakers squeaking on a polished floor. Upbeat music plays quietly in the background.

  “Hello!” calls the lady behind the desk, cutting off a conversation she was having with a tall man. Her skin is paler than the photoshopped advertisements in Kabul. “How are you today, Dan?”

  “Pretty well, Juniper. Hi, Coach.” Dan grabs a clipboard and scribbles something down.

  “Hey, Dan. You’re on time, which probably means I’m late.” The man straightens from leaning on the desk and pulls his gym bag out of the way. His voice dips with an accent in a way that makes me think of hot summers and brown fields. I might have heard that sort of voice before in the camps. East African, maybe? “It was nice talking to you, Juniper.”

  “Have a good practice,” she says, clicking the pen in her hand about ten times before she puts it down. Pushing her red hair behind her ear, she turns to me. “Hi there. Who are you?”

  “Sami,” I answer, approaching the desk.

  Dan passes me the clipboard. “He’s gonna join my team.”

  Coach lifts his bag’s strap onto his shoulder, but something heavy inside shifts, and a few magazines tumble onto the floor. The covers are all animated characters punching each other or jumping off planes.

  Miss Juniper stands. “What—”

  “Oh, da—” Coach starts to say, but cuts himself off. Kneeling to grab the magazines, he adds quickly, “It’s fine—I’ve got it.”

  Dan’s already scooping them up. He pauses to examine each of the covers, his grin getting wider and wider. I stand aside, still holding the clipboard.

  “I didn’t know you had Game Informer!” Dan exclaims, lifting a magazine with a boy in a green costume wielding a sword. “That’s, like, my favorite.”

  “Yeah, it’s cool.” Coach takes Dan’s gatherings. They start to slip when he grabs his bag, and he shifts them against his chest awkwardly. Laughing, his ears red under his dark skin, he says, “See you inside. Bye, Juniper.”

  “Bye!” Miss Juniper sits again, tugging on the chain of her necklace.

  I look back down at the clipboard. Dan’s written his name and the time we arrived, so I copy him and add mine. Under a column labeled Activities, Dan’s written SOCCER.

  “I wish I could get Game Informer,” Dan tells Miss Juniper. “My dad used to give me his old copies when he was done with them. So cool. Oh, just write soccer there, Sami.”

  “You know,” Miss Juniper says, “we do have tutors who could help you prep for your tests, and even some music programs…”

  “No,” Dan says, flat and blunt. “Just. Soccer.”

  She shakes her head but laughs. “Okay, okay. Your friend might want to try some other things, though, so I just thought I’d put it out there. Is he your new offense?”

  “Yeah, looks like Pete’s detention-bound for the rest of the school year.”

  I stop writing. Peter. Pete. The boy who traded me the broken iPod is the same boy who sold the bracelet and did the graffiti. So he’s stuck in detention whil
e I’m playing on his soccer team. No wonder he hates me. No wonder the trade backfired.

  When I pass the clipboard back to Miss Juniper, her necklace flashes in the sunlight. It’s gold with a charm at the end.

  No, not a charm. It’s a twenty-cent euro coin.

  I didn’t know people here made coins into jewelry. Miss Juniper has other things on her desk, too—her pencil holder is a cup with a map on it, her mouse pad shows the Eiffel Tower, and a travel book with pages marked by colorful tabs sits next to her keyboard.

  “Okay, you’re good to go!” Miss Juniper says. “Have fun! Sami, come see me after practice and I’ll have a few forms for you to give your parents.”

  “All right.” I don’t point out that I have no parents. My head’s still whirling at the sight of her necklace.

  “Thanks!” Dan takes off down the hallway, and I have to run to catch up with him.

  But I don’t mind. For a second, I forget about the failure of my first trade.

  Because Miss Juniper wants to travel, and I have currency.

  * * *

  TRADE LOG

  Days: 26

  THINGS TO TRADE:

  iPod (broken)

  Coins—Afghanis: 2, Iranian rial: 1, euros (Turkey and Greece): 5 (Miss Juniper?)

  COMPLETED TRADES:

  1. Manchester United key chain -> iPod

  * * *

  7

  Ahead of me, Dan shoulders into a swinging door. The squeaking sneakers and echoing shouts get louder, cavernous. I pause a step inside. The court is huge, with basketball hoops on either end. Orange cones separate the two halves. To my left is a group of younger kids goofing off while an adult calls names. To my right, Coach is leading a team in warm-up stretches. Dan throws his backpack against the wall—my iPod still hooked to the portable charger inside—and runs to join them.