A Beginner's Guide to Acting English

by Shappi Khorsandi

  English families of four or five, or more if they'd brought the grandparents, tried not to stare at us as they sat unwrapping triangular ham sandwiches and pouring out orange squash at nearby picnic tables.

  Baba, after a few games of Dodgeball, always started a chess tournament then, after winning, he slept peacefully on a rug for the rest of the afternoon.

  'Well, all that sounds lovely!' Miss Price said at the end of my speech. 'Doesn't it, children?'

  My project on Norooz was really good. Everyone thought the Iranian New Year sounded brilliant; no one else in our class was allowed to build fires and jump over them.

  There was no tree though. We had no tree.

  'We are not English, we do not bring trees into the house at Christmas or any other time. That is that.'

  Baba used his special 'that is that' voice which meant that that really was that and there was nothing I could do.

  Madar Jaan decorated our yucca plant for me. She made little silver balls with tin foil and hung them off the leaves. She had twisted a few of Baba's pipe cleaners around the stems to make white bows and, as she had no fairy lights, she had stuck an old birthday candle in the soil and lit it just as I walked in the door. Madar Jaan sat by the yucca plant, covered in tin foil and white pipe cleaners, beaming at her own creation.

  'You said you wanted a Christmas tree? Well, here is your tree! No one has a tree better than this one.'

  It was the most beautiful tree I had ever seen. It wasn't what the Thompsons or the Hamptons had, but it was what Madar Jaan was able to make me and so it was perfect. I rushed over with my hugs and thank-yous to my grandmothers who quickly pushed me away to blow out the candle, which was beginning to burn a hole in the biggest leaf of the plant.

  ASSEMBLY

  Usually, if you had to go and see the headmistress, Mrs Davenport, it meant you were in trouble. I was never in trouble, so I was very surprised when a monitor came to our classroom and said I had to go and see the headmistress in her office. What had I done? They can't have known that I'd stolen Katie Ayling's strawberry-shaped rubber because no one had seen me do it and I had kept it in my pocket and thrown it in the bushes without even Maman noticing as we walked home from school. What could Mrs Davenport want with me? Miss Price held my hand and took me there herself.

  'Don't look so worried,' Miss Price said. 'All this trouble you are having at home, we thought you could do with a little treat.'

  What trouble at home? Did she know about Maman and Baba fighting? About Peyvand and I fighting? She meant Iran, I finally realised. My 'home' was Iran.

  Mrs Davenport's office was down the corridor by our school hall. The secretary smiled at us and said we could go straight in. There was a huge desk in the office and lots of pictures. There was a picture of Mrs Davenport in a square black hat and lots of certificates on the wall.

  Mrs Davenport stood up as we came in. 'Ah! Shaparak! Lovely! Come in and sit down.' Miss Price patted the chair by the desk and stood next to me.

  'As you know, Spring Hallow School are joining us for assembly next week.'

  Spring Hallow was a special school near ours. They came to our fêtes and we raised money for them at jumble sales. A lot of the children there sat in wheelchairs. We'd been learning to sing 'All Things Bright and Beautiful' for them. The children who were good at music had been chosen to play percussion as we sang. I hadn't been chosen for the percussion. The glockenspiel got me in a fluster.

  'We are so very impressed about how good your English has become that we would like you to make a little speech welcoming them. Would you like to do that?'

  Joanna Haley and Helen Johnson, the cleverest girls in the class and the best at reading, were not asked. I was asked to do this very important thing. I tried to say, 'Yes, I'd like to do it' but it came out as a squeal. Mrs Davenport patted my hand and said she was very proud of me and I left the office and went back to the classroom. What I really wanted to do was run around the playground screaming with joy but playtime wasn't for ages and besides, Miss Price said I wasn't to show off about it.

  I showed Maman and Baba the special letter Mrs Davenport had written for them, telling them of my enormous responsibility. 'Can we come and watch?' Maman asked.

  'Nooo!' I said in horror. 'It's assembly, parents don't come to assembly.'

  Baba raised an eyebrow at me. 'They won't mind if your mother comes to hear your speech.'

  Maman and Baba just didn't know about things like assembly and that you could only do things if they were allowed.

  'It's not allowed! No parents come to assemblies!' If they came they would spoil it because I would get told off for letting them come.

  Eventually, after I had made my point very clear by stamping my foot very hard several times, they said, 'Okay, okay! We won't come! Just read your speech at home so at least we get to see you here.'

  Baba, Maman, Peyvand and Mitra sat down on our sofa. I wish I'd worn my school uniform, I didn't think it would have the same impact in my teddy-bear pyjamas. Changing was not a possibility; if I left the room now, everyone would lose focus and go off to do other things.

  'Stand up straight,' Maman ordered.

  'Leave her alone, let her just do it,' Baba snapped. 'Shaparak, make sure you look at the audience, don't do the speech to your feet.'

  With a straight back and head held high, I began: 'Montpelier First School would like welcome the children of Spr—'

  The phone rang.

  'Oops!' Baba leapt to answer it.

  'Babaaaa!' I whined, stamping my foot again.

  'Salaam! Agha Reza!'

  Baba would be on the phone for ages. This was so important and he was ruining it!

  Mitra and my mother were urging me to carry on.

  'Ignore the phone, azizam, we are listening.'

  How could I perform while Baba was getting into another one of his long and complicated phone conversations?

  Maman saw the rumblings of a tantrum. I was having more of those. From nothing I would suddenly be on the floor screaming my lungs out and nothing anyone said could make me stop. I could scream and cry for hours; sometimes I forgot what it was that had set me off in the first place. Maman was gesticulating to Baba to get off the phone. For the first time ever, Baba ended his conversation for my sake, just to listen to my speech! This was as good as being asked to make the speech in the first place.

  Everyone sat back down on the sofa. Peyvand, in the interval, had picked up my recorder and was playing 'London's Burning'. Mitra snatched it off him. I shot him a warning look before I began in a loud, clear voice: 'Montpelier First School would like to welcome the children of Spring Hallow School to our assembly. We have been looking forward to you joining us and hope that you will enjoy the song we will sing for you and the music we will play for you.'

  I curtsied to show I had finished. Wild applause from the audience. 'Bravo! BRAVO!' Baba shouted before jumping up to answer the phone again. I didn't mind this time, I was already a hit.

  I read out my speech over and over. The milkman got a rendition when he delivered our milk and orange juice. Betty and Mr Canning said I read it perfectly and if I was on the radio you'd never know I was foreign. I read it to Susie's mum when she picked Susie up from our house one evening and she said I was 'jolly good' and spoke 'the Queen's English'. Maman rang up Maman Shamsi to tell her about me sounding like the Queen and made me do the speech over the phone to Maman Shamsi, even though she didn't understand it.

  I knew the speech by heart by the time the day of the special assembly came round.

  As we filed into assembly we were warned to be on our best behaviour and show the visitors how good we were.

  The red velvet curtains of the stage had been closed to make the hall look nicer, more tidy.

  I didn't sit down with the rest of my class. I felt ten feet tall as I sat on a chair by the side with the teachers, where everyone could see me. I wore my Montpelier school purple gingham summer dress with a purple cardigan. M
aman had polished my shoes and I had walked to school extra carefully so I didn't scuff them.

  There were about ten children from Spring Hallow. Four of them were in wheelchairs and sat across the hall with their teachers. The others sat on the floor at the front with the first-year children. One boy kept making grunting sounds and Lee Windsor got such a bad fit of giggles that Miss Price pulled him up by the arm and dragged him outside to sit in the corridor. I was disappointed I wouldn't be able to show off to Lee. I was hoping that once he saw how well I read and how nice and clear my voice was, he would like me and talk to me the way he did with Tina Hills and some of the girls in her gang. So far, the only way I'd been able to get his attention was by kicking him in the dinner queue.

  When everyone was settled, Mrs Davenport got up and said a few words then introduced the headmaster of Spring Hallow School. Their headmaster was very very short, too short for a headmaster.

  The Spring Hallow headmaster was wearing a jumper over his trousers, he was almost completely bald and I bet he couldn't fly a plane. I couldn't hear a word he was saying. I wished he would stop talking so I could go up. He talked for ages. I wanted to push him. Eventually everyone was clapping and the scruffy headmaster sat down. This was my bit now. I sat up. A big shout of excitement almost burst out of me. I forced myself to sit still.

  'The fourth year have prepared a song to sing to our guests, but before we do, we have a special welcome from a special member of our school. When this little girl first came to Montpelier she didn't speak a word of English. Now, with help from Mrs Gadd and all you other children, she can speak it just as well as any of you.' The Spring Hallow boy gave out another grunt. Mrs Davenport ignored him and carried on. 'So now I will hand you over to Shaparak.'

  Hearing my name out loud in our big school hall was the most exciting and frightening thing in the world. I was desperate to get onstage but my legs were shaking so much that for a second I wondered if I might be able to leave them there and just take the rest of me onstage to make the speech. Of course I couldn't. My quivering knees had to come with me. Four forms of children were all looking at me. So were the teachers and some of the children from Spring Hallow.

  'Montpelier school—' a big, loud grunt from the Spring Hallow boy rang out. I carried on, but my cheeks felt hot, 'would like to welcome Spring Hallow—'

  The grunting boy shouted out, 'Spring Hallow! That's my school, THAT'S MY SCHOOL!'

  I looked at the teachers; I didn't know what to do. Do I carry on? Or do I let the boy carry on? The boy was quiet for a second then let out a long low sound and giggled. 'That's my school!'

  Mrs Davenport and Mrs Gadd gestured to me to carry on, smiling encouragingly.

  'To our assembly—'

  'SPRING HALLOW!' cried the boy again.

  I looked at him; he was sitting on the front row, crosslegged on the floor. He was very big, older than me and Peyv and fat. He was swinging his head from side to side. I lowered my script and walked over to him.

  'Yes, you are from Spring Hallow, you are welcome in our school, now you must stay quiet please so I can do my speech.'

  I looked over at Mrs Davenport and she gave me a thumbs-up. The boy was quiet for the rest of my speech. When I had finished, Mrs Davenport stood up and said to the whole assembly, 'Who would have thought that little girl who was so quiet and couldn't speak a word of English could give such a beautiful speech? I think Shaparak is now well and truly one of us!'

  BEING ENGLISH

  'Shap! It's cold! Can you put the bakhari up?'

  Peyvand and I always spoke to each other in English at home now. Except for words which we only ever really used at home like bakhari, the heating, and dampayee, slippers. Our friends giggled when they heard us speak Farsi this way. 'Peyvand! Tell Maman I can't find any piyaaz in the ambori.'

  'Tell her yourself, I'm not your kolfat.'

  There were lots of words we didn't even know the English for because they were the sort of words you only needed at home like kafgir, what we used to dish up rice. Maman and Baba shouted at Peyvand and I to speak to each other in Farsi. But it felt weird to talk to anyone other than Iranian grown-ups in Farsi. It felt weird talking to Peyvand in Farsi. It was too fake when the things we talked about were so English. Farsi was for stuffy grown-ups. Too stiff and formal.

  Shahla White was tall and elegant and looked like Shirley Bassey. She started an Iranian school that ran on Saturdays, and one Saturday morning, Baba took Peyvand and I to the school in Edgware Road and enrolled us at Rostam School.

  The school was small, about fifty kids who were all like me and Peyvand: Iroonis who were forgetting their Farsi.

  At our Iranian school, we sang the Iranian National Anthem in assembly and I struggled to learn the difference between the three different 'S's in Farsi.

  'Why do we have to learn it? Baba, why?'

  'People in Iran will laugh at you if you forget your Farsi.'

  'People in Iran can't hear us,' Peyvand said and I giggled and Maman rolled her eyes and tutted.

  'But we will go home soon and you two will be the town dunces and everyone will laugh at you because you can only speak English.'

  That shut us both up. Going back to Iran was a thought that filled us up with excitement and dread. Excitement because it was home and we would see everyone and dread because there was a war on there and they had to tread over dead bodies on the way to school. On top of that, you got hung if you were seen in a swimming costume. Much as I loved and missed Maman Shamsi, Iran sounded too scary to live in. Baba gave us five pounds every Saturday so we could go with the other kids to McDonald's at lunchtime. That made learning Farsi much more fun.

  It wasn't just Maman and Baba's accents that made them different to our friends' parents. Maman kissed Rebecca and Susie when they came to play at Madeley Road. 'Don't kiss them, Maman!' I hissed at her. 'English people don't kiss!'

  When I went to tea at Rebecca's, they had English food. Her mother asked if we wanted cheese sandwiches. 'Yes, please!' Rebecca answered for both of us.

  It was fine by me; I loved cheese. But when Mrs Thompson brought in our plate of neatly cut triangles of white bread, what lay in the middle was not what I knew as cheese. It was yellow. Cheese was white at my house, white and crumbly, and we had it with strips of pitta bread or whatever Persian bread Baba could get his hands on. These blocks of yellow cheese were horrible. They were thick and rubbery and sat between two slices of bread so white and spongy it was more like foam. I learned to swallow without tasting.

  'Thank you for a smashing tea!' I always said to Mrs Thompson, who thought I was very polite. I learned to say things like 'smashing tea' from my Enid Blyton books. I never went anywhere now without one or more of my Secret Sevens. I read them all the time and so never got bored at mehmoonis when we were the only children or when Peyvand didn't want to play with me.

  I went to Hannah Bardrick's house for tea now too.

  'How many fish fingers is everyone having?' Hannah's mum asked us at teatime.

  I had no idea how many I was having. Fishes' fingers must be pretty small and I was very hungry so I said, 'Ten, please!'

  Hannah's mum gave me a look and in a few minutes she served us two fish fingers each with creamy mashed potatoes and peas and as much ketchup as we liked – not like Rebecca's mum who gave us all a squeeze each and put the bottle back in the cupboard.

  The fish fingers were the most delicious thing I had ever eaten. They were not like the fish in sabzi polo mahi or anything else Maman made. You couldn't even tell they were fish unless somebody told you. They were rectangular and covered with crispy breadcrumbs and made a very satisfying crunch when you cut them with your knife.

  Maman had to learn how to make fish fingers; I couldn't live without them.

  'Maman, can you learn to make fish fingers?' I watched as Maman lightly battered the grey mullet we were having that evening for dinner with sabzi rice.

  'This is fish, what are you talking about
?'

  'No, Maman, fish fingers are small, not like that,' I told her, pointing to our dinner.

  'Well, cut this up into small pieces.'

  Maman had no idea that fish fingers were yellow and nothing like the fish we had at home.

  I'd have to find out how they were made and tell Maman.

  There were more than just fish fingers at Hannah Bardrick's house. Susie, Rebecca and I were all invited to go round one day. Hannah's house had a big garden with a paddling pool and I borrowed her sister's swimming costume and Rebecca and I splashed Susie until she got cross and marched inside to tell on us. Rebecca and I giggled. Susie came back a few minutes later with ice lollies that Hannah's mum had made herself with orange juice.

  We had none of this at home. I wanted Hannah's mum to adopt me so I could live in their big house and suck on orange lollipops in the paddling pool all summer long. I wonder if she would let Peyvand come too. He'd love it here but would probably be too noisy.

  Even though she didn't know what fish fingers were, Maman was still better than Baba at being English. At least she tried. For Baba, living in a country that wasn't Iran didn't make him think he had to act any differently. He spoke to everyone as though he already knew them, he haggled in normal shops and haggled too much at our school car boot sales and he took very little notice of signs that said 'no parking' or 'out of bounds' and things like, always waving his hands up and tossing his head saying, 'Don't worry, no one will mind.'

  Maman, on the other hand, smiled a lot before she spoke, and she spoke quietly. She was still like Baba in some ways, of course. In Safeways, she went to the 'nine items or fewer' checkout even if she had at least fifteen items. Old ladies were always tutting at Maman and muttering, 'Bloody foreigner.'

  Maman wore a headscarf sometimes if her hair wouldn't sit right that day. She didn't realise that it was okay if English mums wore headscarves, but on Iranian mums, they just looked really religious and everyone would stare and think she was a fanatic and I would die of embarrassment and pray that no one from school saw us. Rebecca and Susie's dad said she was very 'charming' and Maman said, 'I just smile when I don't know what they are saying.'