Ruby Tanya

by Robert Swindells

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  One: Ruby Tanya

  Two: Asra

  Three: Ruby Tanya

  Four: Ruby Tanya

  Five: Asra

  Six: Ruby Tanya

  Seven: Ruby Tanya

  Eight: Asra

  Nine: Ruby Tanya

  Ten: Ruby Tanya

  Eleven: Ruby Tanya

  Twelve: Ruby Tanya

  Thirteen: Asra

  Fourteen: Ruby Tanya

  Fifteen: Ruby Tanya

  Sixteen: Ruby Tanya

  Seventeen: Asra

  Eighteen: Ruby Tanya

  Nineteen: Ruby Tanya

  Twenty: Asra

  Twenty-One: Ruby Tanya

  Twenty-Two: Asra

  Twenty-Three: Ruby Tanya

  Twenty-Four: Ruby Tanya

  Twenty-Five: Ruby Tanya

  Twenty-Six: Ruby Tanya

  Twenty-Seven: Asra

  Twenty-Eight: Ruby Tanya

  Twenty-Nine: Ruby Tanya

  Thirty: Asra

  Thirty-One: Ruby Tanya

  Thirty-Two: Ruby Tanya

  Thirty-Three: Ruby Tanya

  Thirty-Four: Asra

  Thirty-Five: Ruby Tanya

  Thirty-Six: Asra

  Thirty-Seven: Ruby Tanya

  Thirty-Eight: Ruby Tanya

  Thirty-Nine: Asra

  Forty: Ruby Tanya

  Forty-One: Ruby Tanya

  Forty-Two: Asra

  Forty-Three: Ruby Tanya

  Forty-Four: Asra

  Forty-Five: Ruby Tanya

  Forty-Six: Ruby Tanya

  Forty-Seven: Ruby Tanya

  Forty-Eight: Ruby Tanya

  Forty-Nine: Asra

  Fifty: Ruby Tanya

  Fifty-One: Asra

  Fifty-Two: Ruby Tanya

  Fifty-Three: Asra

  Fifty-Four: Ruby Tanya

  Fifty-Five: Ruby Tanya

  Fifty-Six: Ruby Tanya

  Fifty-Seven: Ruby Tanya

  Fifty-Eight: Ruby Tanya

  Fifty-Nine: Asra

  Sixty: Ruby Tanya

  Sixty-One: Ruby Tanya

  Sixty-Two: Ruby Tanya

  Sixty-Three: Asra

  Sixty-Four: Ruby Tanya

  Sixty-Five: Asra

  Sixty-Six: Asra

  Sixty-Seven: Ruby Tanya

  Sixty-Eight: Ruby Tanya

  Sixty-Nine: Ruby Tanya

  Seventy: Asra

  Seventy-One: Asra

  Seventy-Two: Ruby Tanya

  Seventy-Three: Asra

  Seventy-Four: Ruby Tanya

  Seventy-Five: Ruby Tanya

  Seventy-Six: Asra

  Seventy-Seven: Ruby Tanya

  Seventy-Eight: Ruby Tanya

  Seventy-Nine: Ruby Tanya

  Eighty: Ruby Tanya

  Eighty-One: Asra

  Eighty-Two: Ruby Tanya

  Eighty-Three: Ruby Tanya

  Eighty-Four: Ruby Tanya

  Eighty-Five: Ruby Tanya

  Eighty-Six: Ruby Tanya

  Eighty-Seven: Ruby Tanya

  Eighty-Eight: Ruby Tanya

  Eighty-Nine: Ruby Tanya

  Ninety: Ruby Tanya

  Ninety-One: Asra

  Ninety-Two: Ruby Tanya

  Ninety-Three: Asra

  Ninety-Four: Ruby Tanya

  Ninety-Five: Asra

  Ninety-Six: Asra and Ruby Tanya

  About the Author

  Also by Robert Swindells

  Copyright

  About the Book

  When the bomb goes off at their school, killing the student teacher, it looks as if the friendship between Ruby Tanya and Asra could be over. Asra and her fellow asylum-seekers are blamed – and Ruby Tanya’s father is the one leading the campaign against them.

  But Asra’s family are also facing another threat – the government has ordered that they must be sent back to a country where their lives are in danger. Ruby Tanya and Asra have a plan to stop all the madness, but end up stumbling on something even more terrifying…

  A thought-provoking and important novel for our time from a multi-award-winning author.

  To little victims everywhere

  and

  for Derek and Theresa Mortimer:

  the years don’t matter,

  and neither do the miles

  - One

  Ruby Tanya

  THE BOMB WENT off when we were all outside waiting for the prince, so that was lucky. He wasn’t coming to see us: he had to drive through Tipton Lacey to get to the camp and the road goes right past the school, that’s all. He was due at the camp at half past two, so he’d pass us a few minutes before. At quarter past, the teachers gave us a little flag each and lined us up along the fence, which is only three metres from the road. I felt such a plonker I wished it was three miles.

  My dad loves the royals. He says they’re part of what makes England the best country in the world. Mum quite likes them too, even though her mum’s a hippy who says royalty’s a rip-off. We went to Buckingham Palace loads of times when I was younger. Outside it, I mean. We never actually went in. We went to Sandringham too, and Windsor, and Balmoral. Dad once thumped somebody in a pub for calling the Queen a parasite. Two policemen came to the house. Mum thought they’d come to take him to prison, but they just talked to him for a few minutes. I had to go up to my room so I don’t know what they said, but I was a bit disappointed when I saw them leave without him.

  He’s not so chuffed about today’s visit though, because he doesn’t like asylum seekers. At breakfast he says, What’s he visiting that scruffy camp for? He’d be better off looking round the village, popping into school, seeing how packed it is now their brats’ve taken over. Dad reckons the school will start going downhill because of the asylum seekers’ kids. Mum says everything’d be cool if we let real asylum seekers stay and sent economic migrants back. I try not to get involved in their fratching, it does my head in.

  There weren’t any asylum seekers’ kids in school that afternoon, which is a shame because that’s what started the trouble. They’d all got a half-day off to meet the prince at the camp.

  Anyway there we were, the rest of us, lined up waiting with our little Union Jacks, and suddenly there’s this terrific bang. Not just a bang: there was something else, something invisible that slammed me into the fence and hurt my ears and took all the air away. I didn’t think, What the heck was that? I thought, Maybe this is how you feel when a prince goes by. How sad is that?

  For a few seconds there was just the noise of things falling on the ground, like rain. Then the screaming started, and the shouting. I was lying on the grass with my cheek pressed up against the fence. I wasn’t injured, just sort of dazed; couldn’t get myself together to move my head so the fence’d stop hurting my cheek. I heard somebody – a teacher, I suppose – call out, My God look at the school. I didn’t look. I could see across three metres of grass to the road and I saw the prince pass by. Or at least I saw his car. Long and black it was, with gleaming wheels. It didn’t slow down; in fact it seemed to speed up, and I bet I was the only one who spotted it.

  One or two of the kids were quite badly hurt and Mr Conway the student teacher had vanished completely, but I didn’t know that then.

  - Two

  Asra

  WE WERE VERY happy because the prince will visit our camp. When even a prince has seen us, spoke with us, how can they send us away? That is what my mother and all of the older people were saying. Everybody was working very hard to make the camp look nice so the prince will see we are clean people, and proud. We children have practise a song of our country to sing for him as well, though none of us wants
to go back there because of the bad men.

  It does not happen, this visit we all want so much, because of the explosion. The prince was coming, his motor car was very close when the explosion did damages at my school. The policemen think maybe somebody bad is trying to blow up the prince, so they turn his motor car round and hurry him away. A man comes to tell us the visit is cancelled, and also that the school will be closed tomorrow because of this explosion. He says children are hurt, a man is missing. It could be a gas explosion, or a bomb.

  At six o’clock everybody is at the social club to see the TV news. The very first bit is about Tipton Lacey and it isn’t gas, it was a bomb. The prince was only four hundred metres away when it went off. Two pupils have suffer perforated eardrums, a student teacher is missing. An investigation is under way. The police are having an open mind, but the possibility that this was a terrorist attack by a Muslim fundamentalist group cannot be ruled out.

  We are all shocked, and also very sad. What sort of person blows up a school? What if the bomb had gone off ten minutes earlier or ten minutes later, with all the children inside?

  Not all the children, says Mr Shofiq, our leader here at the camp. He looks worried. Not all the children were inside ten minutes earlier, and they wouldn’t have been inside ten minutes later either, and that’s dangerous.

  Why? somebody asks. What d’you mean?

  Mr Shofiq shakes his head. Our children, he says. None of our children was at school this afternoon. The Muslim children. No Muslim child could possibly have been in the school when the bomb exploded, or anywhere near it. They were here, every one of them. Safe and sound. I’m afraid some people are going to call that a strange coincidence.

  You mean …?

  Yes, of course, said Mr Shofiq. We are not so popular in Tipton Lacey, are we? You mark my words: sooner or later somebody is going to suggest that perhaps we planted the bomb.

  But why would we? cried the other man. We want to stay in England, make our homes here. Also it is our children’s school, where they are learning English; learning to be English. We’d have to be insane even to dream of …

  Mr Shofiq nodded. You’re right, we’d have to be insane, but you see, a lot of people think that’s exactly what we are: mad bombers with beards and turbans. When people die, when children are hurt, people don’t think. They don’t take the time to think. The tabloids wind them up, point them in a certain direction and they go on the rampage. He shook his head. Believe me, there are dangerous times ahead. We must prepare ourselves.

  I was so, so scared when Mr Shofiq said these words. I hoped he was mistaken, prayed that he was, but he wasn’t. I suppose that’s why we made him our leader.

  - Three

  Ruby Tanya

  THEY TOOK US to hospital, all forty of us plus teachers. They don’t have that many ambulances so we went in relays, the most serious cases first. I was in the last batch, which was fine with me.

  The hospital’s in Danmouth. Danmouth Infirmary, six miles from the village. They put us in cubicles, on trolleys. After a bit a nurse came through the curtain. She smiled. What’s your name, sweetheart?

  Ruby Tanya Redwood.

  Cool name. How you feeling?

  I’m all right, but I don’t know what happened. At school, I mean.

  The nurse shook her head, gently turning mine to look in my ears. There was an explosion, that’s all I know. Somebody mentioned a bomb but somebody always does, these days.

  Follow my finger with your eyes please, Ruby.

  It’s not Ruby, it’s Ruby Tanya.

  Sorry, Ruby Tanya. She smiled. Sounds like Rule Britannia, doesn’t it? You know – the song?

  I sighed. Yes I do know, it was my dad’s idea. He’s a moron.

  The finger moved slowly, left to right and back again. My eyes followed it. The nurse nodded. Good. Does your head ache, ears hurt?

  No.

  Feel dizzy at all?

  No.

  Nauseous?

  What?

  Sick; d’you feel sick, Ruby Tanya?

  I said I was all right. What about the others though? Is everybody all right?

  We’re looking after them, don’t worry. She smiled again. Doctor’ll pop by soon, take a peek at you, make sure it’s safe to send you home.

  Mum and Dad came before the doctor, looking concerned. They fussed and twittered like they do, stroking my hair, asking where it hurt. When I told them it didn’t hurt anywhere Mum burst out crying, and of course the doctor picked that moment to arrive.

  When he’d calmed Mum and pulled me about a bit, he said they could take me home. I’d let her have an early night if I were you, he smiled, just to be on the safe side.

  We had to pass the school on the way home. Dad slowed and wound his window down, but he couldn’t see much because the police had strung blue and white plastic tape all along the fence and across the gate and there was a constable on the verge, waving everybody on. As Dad accelerated away he shouted back, It’s a bit late to be guarding the place, isn’t it? You tossers should be up that camp, arresting the bombers.

  It scared me when he said that, because Asra lives at the camp. She’s my best friend. Don’t go upsetting your dad, says Mum about ten times a day, which is why I’ve never mentioned Asra in front of him.

  He’s all right, my dad, but he goes barmy when he’s upset.

  - Four

  Ruby Tanya

  I SULKED ABOUT having to go to bed early. Well, I felt absolutely fine and the sun was shining and I didn’t have to get up for school tomorrow: I wanted to check out the Green for lads. Then the six o’clock news came on and our bomb was the first item and it said a student teacher was missing and two pupils had perforated eardrums. If I’d known that I wouldn’t have sulked, but I didn’t; how could I?

  Student teacher could only be Mr Conway, and missing had to mean dead. Nobody I knew had ever died before. It felt unreal. Of course I didn’t know Mr Conway, not really, but I’d seen him around school. Thin, he was, with blond hair and a beaky, reddish nose. Kids said he was nice. Now I’d never see him again. Nobody would.

  Dad?

  Sssh, I’m listening.

  Is perforated eardrums bad?

  Dad shrugged. Dunno, love. Could be deaf, I suppose. He looked across at Mum, who’d trained as a nurse. That right, Sarah?

  Uh? Yes, could be. I think there’s an operation though: implants. She looked at me. I thought you were getting ready for bed, young woman.

  I am ready, Mum, but I want to watch.

  They let me stay till the reporter handed back to the studio. In bed I snuggled down, telling myself I was lucky. What did it feel like to be suddenly deaf? Or suddenly dead? It was only quarter past six; it took me ages to get to sleep.

  Next day was Friday. The Tipton Lacey Star comes out on Fridays and our copy was on the mat at breakfast time. It’s a small town paper so it’s not known for its sensational scoops. It usually leads with a story about wheelie bins or a giant marrow or somebody’s diamond wedding anniversary, and it’s all downhill from there. For once something had actually happened in Tipton Lacey and the editor had gone to town with a banner headline. TERRORIST BLAST HITS SCHOOL, I read upside down as Dad smoothed the paper beside his plate. Underneath in smaller print was, One Dead, Two Critical.

  Does it say who got the whatsit eardrums, Dad – perforated?

  Hang on a sec, grunted Dad. I’m reading. I watched his eyes scan the first para. Stuart, he said, without looking up. Stuart Conway was your student teacher’s name. Says here he died in the blast so he’s not missing any more, poor beggar. He was the only person inside the building at the time. He read on, then looked at me across the table.

  Kelly Mountain in your class?

  No, Year Five. Is she one of them?

  Yes, and the other’s a boy, Andrew Farrell. Know him?

  I nodded. He’s Year Five as well. It must’ve been where they were standing.

  Dad nodded. Probably. Funny thing, bl
ast. Blows one guy to kingdom come and leaves the feller next to him untouched.

  I didn’t want my cornflakes. I stared into the bowl, wondering what it’d be like to be blown to kingdom come. I felt sick, and Dad’s next words didn’t make me feel any better.

  If I was Kelly Mountain’s dad, he growled, or Andrew Farrell’s, I know where I’d be right now: I’d be up at that camp with a baseball bat, waiting for the first unlucky so-and-so who stuck his nose through the gates.

  What if it was a woman? murmured Mum. Or a child?

  Her nose, snapped Dad. His or hers, it’s all the same to me: one less terrorist to worry about. Pass the sugar, love, will you?

  Doesn’t sound like it, I know, but my dad’s actually quite a reasonable guy. He’s what they call easily led though, believes everything he reads in the papers, and that makes him say stupid things. Do stupid things sometimes. It’ll land him in trouble one of these days.

  - Five

  Asra

  TODAY WAS FRIDAY. No; today is Friday. School is closed. Here at the camp I must be practising my English as if I am at school. As if or as though? It is difficult.

  This camp is good because the bad men who have stolen my country can’t hurt us here, but it is difficult too because of the huts. There are no houses, only the rows of huts. They are long, made of wood. Soldiers used to live in them. Mr Shofiq says thirty soldiers were living in each hut. Now each hut has four families. Blankets hanging from cords are the best we can be having for walls, to make four homes in every hut. This is not so good: everybody can hear everybody, and must walk through somebody’s home to reach her own. You all come from the same country so what’s wrong with that? they ask if we are complaining. Yes, we do come from the same country but not everybody is friends; it is the same for English people, I think. We try not to complain too much, in case they get angry and send us back to our country.

  So we live always on tiptoe and whispering, waiting to be told if we will stay or go home and be killed. The grown-ups are tense all the time: there is shouting, shoes are thrown. We children cannot do noise, we must creep like little mouses. School is better.