The F Team

by Rawah Arja

  Rawah Arja is a member of the Western Sydney women’s writing collective Finishing School. Her work has featured in Arab, Australian, Other (Picador, 2019), SBS Voices, the Sydney Review of Books and at the Sydney Writer’s Festival. She is a WestWords Varuna Emerging Writers Fellow, and teaches creative writing at schools and after-school workshops.

  THE F TEAM

  THE F TEAM

  Rawah Arja

  FIRST PUBLISHED IN 2020

  FROM THE WRITING AND SOCIETY RESEARCH CENTRE

  AT WESTERN SYDNEY UNIVERSITY

  BY THE GIRAMONDO PUBLISHING COMPANY

  PO BOX 752

  ARTARMON NSW 1570 AUSTRALIA

  WWW.GIRAMONDOPUBLISHING.COM

  © RAWAH ARJA 2020

  DESIGNED BY JENNY GRIGG

  COVER ILLUSTRATION BY BEN JUERS

  TYPESET BY ANDREW DAVIES

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  BOOK IS AVAILABLE FROM THE

  NATIONAL LIBRARY OF AUSTRALIA

  ISBN: 978-1-925818-54-3 (PBK)

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED, STORED IN A RETRIEVAL SYSTEM OR TRANSMITTED

  IN ANY FORM OR BY ANY MEANS ELECTRONIC, MECHANICAL, PHOTOCOPYING OR OTHERWISE WITHOUT THE PRIOR PERMISSION OF THE PUBLISHER.

  9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  For my parents, Mohamad and Raife. Thank you for reminding me that I have something to offer the world.

  And for the boys and girls I have and haven’t met, who were my mirror in times of darkness. May this book be a reflection in which you see yourself, and know that you are worthy, and that you matter.

  Chapter 1

  ‘Feet together. Back straight. Shoulders out. Hands on your knees. Chin up. Eyes this way. Hold still and in one, two, three, say “monkeys”.’

  ‘Donkeys,’ we all shouted.

  ‘Really, boys? On a Monday morning?’ Mr Ahmed said, shaking his head. ‘These photos are important, so stop messing around. And Tariq, you know as the BBL, I expect more from you.’

  I had been chosen as the Year Ten Big Brother Leader (BBL), a program Mr Ahmed introduced to help with our school image. It basically meant that I lost the first half of Monday lunch in stupid meetings, talking about how I have a lot of potential but am easily distracted.

  According to every report card comment since kindergarten, anyway.

  As BBL, I was chosen to be a role model, someone the boys could turn to if they needed to talk or if they suddenly got the urge to blow themselves up. I know, I know, very dramatic, but our school needed to prove that it was doing something useful about our bad reputation besides tweeting a couple of photos here and there.

  Term 2 was supposed to be a fresh start, but our school has already featured on almost every news channel this year. Apparently, we’re ‘out of control’ and at risk of becoming ‘homegrown terrorists’. I don’t understand how a couple of guys with beards in my area get raided, and now all of a sudden we’re Bin Laden’s best friends.

  The media (aka vultures) and the helicopters (aka ghetto birds) haven’t left us alone. Our ex-principal, Mr Kayan, the old and smelly one, left at the end of last term – or rather, I should say, was ‘quietly escorted out’ by the men in suits. Some people blamed him for stealing money from school funds and sending it over to some Arab country for some terrorist group. I can’t see how he could have done that, since our school had a GoFundMe page just to help us with the basics, like pencils and rubbers, and at least one aircon that we’ve been dying to get for our school hall. Along with the recent terror raids across Punchbowl and Bankstown, our principal getting fired only made a bad situation worse, and for some reason, white people were linking the two together. Our school was officially ‘too terroristy’.

  We’ve had men in suits in and out of our school for most of Term 1, assessing what was needed, and apparently, what we needed was a new principal. He starts tomorrow.

  In the meantime, the mess of our school was left to Mr Ahmed, our Year Ten advisor and acting principal, who was like our cool older brother who didn’t think twice before putting us in a headlock. He had a thick black Lebanese beard and tied his hair into a top knot, and was a monster machine when we played footy at lunchtime. No matter what, someone always ended up stretchered off, bruised and in tears.

  With all the work Mr Ahmed did in the community, such as helping boys find jobs or talking them out of leaving school, he could do no wrong in our parents’ eyes. They all gave him free rein to whip us into shape. My dad in particular was his No. 1 supporter.

  ‘If you don’t listen, I already tell Mr Ahmed, he can use belt,’ my dad constantly reminded me. ‘I left one in his office.’

  He actually did.

  Mr Ahmed set up this photoshoot to help change our school reputation. There weren’t many things we took seriously at this school, but these photos were supposed to be a big deal. They were supposed to ease some of the pressure our school has been facing from the Department as we tried to help ‘rebrand the school image’.

  The school hired the photographer, Maxine, who, until about five minutes ago, we all thought was a man. Her hair was shaved, she wore army boots and had an Adam’s apple – what else were we supposed to think?

  ‘Look, look at her calves, bro,’ one boy said.

  ‘There’s no way she’s a girl,’ another added. ‘I swear she should change her name to Max.’

  Mr Ahmed curled his fingers inside one of the boys’ collars. ‘What would you do if someone spoke about your sister or your mother like that? Or is it only okay for you because you feel tough and strong around your mates?’ Their eyes never left the ground as he continued to tear them to shreds. ‘Let me remind you that if I hear any disrespect like that against anyone, you’ll be gone before you can blink. Now hurry up, we need to get these photos done.’

  ‘You know, little boys,’ Maxine said, fiddling with her camera. ‘I can bench your weight with my eyes closed.’

  While Mr Ahmed got away with wearing his usual tank and shorts on a fifty-degree day like today, we were stuck in the stinking, stifling school hall with collared shirts and ties that almost choked us to death.

  Maybe that was actually the plan?

  We only had a small, silver, dust-covered fan trying to move the humid air around. The ceiling-high windows only let more sun in, and half the boys were now dehydrated, lying on the sizzling brown floorboards, trying to survive the heat.

  The hall did look better than usual, I guess. It had received a makeover ahead of the shoot – which is to say, the Honour Boards were now updated and recognised all types of achievements.

  They now looked something like this:

  Name Date Achievement

  Peter Murphy 1985 Dux

  Michael Bowen 1985 Citizenship

  David Nguyen 1985 Excellence in Academic Achievement

  Abdul-Khalifa Razzak 2020 Excellence in spelling when vandalising school property

  Mohamed El-Mirwani 2020 For lighting up the classroom without the use of a matchstick

  Bilal Abdul-Haafiz 2020 For using manners when verbally threatening both peers and staff

  Okay, so not exactly those achievements. But they weren’t far off.

  Not only had we gotten our hall fixed up, but our oval had been re-turfed, which meant that for once the sickbay wasn’t packed with boys bleeding out from the patches of gravel on the field. Mr Ahmed kept saying it was connected to some new program that only a few lucky Year Ten boys would be part of. No matter how much the Wolf Pack asked, he wouldn’t give us any clues.

  Meet my Wolf Pack, by the way. First, there�
��s Huss the Hustler – the hairy, bearded one, the hothead who has the battle scars marked across his lip and eyebrow to prove it. His ears stick out, which is why he let his hair grow over them to mask their size. He can get you anything you want on the Black Market, i.e. his grandma’s corner shop. He works there some weekends, during which we always raid Big Haji’s shop, taking as many V cans as we like. Then there’s Ibby the Panda – the slow and round one, who eats everything he sees. Ibby never leaves home without his green taqiyah cap, the plate-looking thing Muslim men wear on our heads. He’s not religious or anything, but he thinks it makes him look skinnier. We all know he mostly uses it to pretend he’s collecting money for charity. PJ the Tank is the big and strong one with an afro like a bowl of noodles. He plods around school with his shoulders and elbows out, knocking into doorframes, unaware of how huge he is. Teachers know to have a roll of bandages in their drawers. He can sing, and also uses his guitar as a weapon. Then there’s me, Tariq. The school’s Under-17s footy captain and the only Arab in Advanced English. We all live around the block from each other, though the guys spend most of their time at mine, eating my mum’s food and sometimes sleeping over. They’re basically part of the furniture.

  When he was setting up the photoshoot, Mr Ahmed told us that we needed to be a more inviting school. The problem was that our school looked like a prison and no amount of Photoshop was going to change that. Bars on windows, graffiti on walls, chained doors and a courtyard fit for the toughest prisoners. So Mr Ahmed decided to get a little extra help from our friendly neighbours to help brighten our photos.

  We spent the morning in Abu Zaid’s backyard, where some boys had to help tend to the vegetables and plants.

  ‘Think “environmental warriors”,’ Maxine said, rolling on the ground in weird positions with her camera. ‘Pose with the tools in your hands.’

  Before Mr Ahmed could do anything, we ran around the garden, swinging shovels and rakes, yelling ‘Allahu Akbar’ like crazy jihadists.

  ‘They take everything literally,’ Mr Ahmed explained to her before he pounced on each of us and made sure no one lost an eye.

  We moved to the day-care centre around the block to show our softer sides and pose with children who, for a bunch of four-year-olds, had some serious attitude. That didn’t work well either. Ibby and PJ almost got into a fight with the toddlers after they were ambushed and teased about their ‘fat heads’.

  ‘Let’s just go back to the school and finish the photos there,’ Mr Ahmed advised Maxine. ‘At least they won’t embarrass us in public.’

  He only wanted us back at the school so no one would see him whip my dad’s belt out on us.

  Our next photo was supposed to show our ‘intellectual’ side. What better way to do that than to wear gigantic safety goggles and white lab coats while pouring some liquids into test tubes?

  ‘Just pretend to mix things,’ Maxine said, snapping more shots.

  ‘No, wait!’ Mr Ahmed yelled. But it was too late. Huss had snuck into the science labs earlier and replaced the blue Powerade in the beakers with some chemicals that made things smoke and stink. The alarms went off, which meant we had to be evacuated.

  ‘We have alarms?’ Huss said, confused. ‘And they work?’

  Mr Ahmed clenched his jaw, closed his eyes and took a deep breath. ‘Everyone to the main hall now!’

  We thought that after all the trouble we gave him with the photos, he’d let us go. But as always, Mr Ahmed didn’t give up and found a way to make us pay.

  We made our way back to the scorching hall for individual photos, and stood around watching Ibby struggle to keep his round, bald head still for the camera. Two gigantic spotlights shone directly in his face, almost blinding him as he huffed and puffed about how hungry he was. His belly oozed over the sides of the chair that had been placed in front of a blue curtain, beside our new school banners with the words BROTHER FROM ANOTHER MOTHER.

  Who the hell thought that motto was a good idea?

  It took fifteen minutes for Ibby to get into position, and his face was now bright red and covered in sweat. It didn’t help that his tanned skin was peeling from all the time he’d spent in the sun.

  Mr Ahmed held out a tissue box to me and tilted his head towards Ibby.

  ‘Hell no!’ I said, palming the box away. ‘Get someone else to wipe his sweat.’

  Mr Ahmed smiled to himself as if to ask why I even bothered to argue. He had a special style of teaching that convinced you to do things you really didn’t want to.

  ‘If you don’t, I’ll tell your dad about your little adventure to the girls’ high school.’

  Yeah, blackmail was his speciality.

  ‘Sir, you know that’s illegal?’ I said, snatching the tissues. ‘You can lose your job for blackmail.’

  ‘Yallah, yallah,’ he said, shooing me away. ‘You’re an Arab from Punchbowl. No one will believe you.’

  He was right. Punchbowl was one of the ghetto hoods of Sydney, the place where white people locked the doors to their 2004 Hyundai Getz.

  Ibby stood up and pulled his shirt loose from each of his stomach rolls. ‘I can’t take it anymore. Why am I the only one taking a photo by myself?’

  ‘It’s because of your man boobs,’ PJ mocked. Those two would fight one minute and then, in the next, lay on the oval like two giant seals and share a family-sized bucket from KFC.

  Mr Ahmed leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. ‘Half a chicken, chips with garlic from El Jannah.’

  Ibby’s eyes narrowed. ‘And a large tabouli.’

  Mr Ahmed smiled. Deal complete.

  ‘Okay, and in one, two, three. Say cheese,’ Maxine said, right up in Ibby’s face.

  ‘Jibnaaa!’ he yelled, irritated.

  Mr Ahmed got up and called for the next group of boys. ‘I gave you a chance, but you still want to act like a smeek. You’ve lost El Jannah.’

  ‘Nah, sir. Please. Wallah, I’ll do anything you want,’ he pleaded. ‘I’ll tell you who jigged to the girls’ high school.’

  That was classic Ibby – feed him, and he’s your best friend. Ibby was only at school to use the wi-fi to watch those five-minute dessert-hack videos on YouTube. If you needed a good laugh or a belly dancer with a head like a trumbaki, he was your guy, but if you needed to get out of trouble, he was the worst. He couldn’t keep a secret if his life depended on it. Our teachers even rewarded him with food if he kept them in on the loop.

  ‘Too late, Ibby,’ Mr Ahmed said shaking his head. ‘Plus, you don’t think I know who leaves and enters this school?’

  It had been a long day with these photos. If Mr Ahmed said to do it, we did it. But I couldn’t see how they were going to make a difference to the way people see us.

  Elias and Johnny, our twin Year Seven scouts, rushed over to alert us that the hot blonde reporter from Channel Nine was back. With all that had been happening around our school, she was the only good thing about the media attention. Our phones came out and our stories on social media began trending. #hotreportercomestopunchbowl #thuglife #talktome #gethernumber #arabsloveblondes

  Yeah, yeah, I know. Every local news channel was outside our school and here we were taking shots of this hottie reporter.

  ‘I got one where she’s bending down,’ PJ said, excited.

  ‘Nah, my shot is better,’ Ibby said, waving his phone around.

  Mr Ahmed grabbed their phones and ordered them to delete the pictures. ‘You wanna be known as Perverts from Punchbowl? This is unacceptable behaviour, boys.’

  He thought that was unacceptable? Mr Ahmed didn’t know that Huss had been taking bets for the last week to see who could get her number first. He was updating it right now.

  Tariq, $35

  Huss, $25

  I don’t mean to talk myself up, but I’ve never had problems with the chicks. They dig my abs and dimples. If ever Huss and I went for the same girl, it was always my dimples that sealed the deal, not his thick eyebrows or tangled beard.
>
  Huss stroked his beard. ‘Girls dig the rugged look.’

  ‘But wallah, Tariq is so sexy.’ Ibby tried to kiss me. ‘Like, I’d marry you if I was a girl. Look at your sparkly eyes, and man, that smile.’

  Malik, $15

  Josiah, $10

  PJ, $10

  Ibby, $2.50

  Ibby snatched the list from Huss. ‘Which jahash wrote that for me?’

  I’d watched Huss make up a price for Ibby before school, purely to stir the pot and watch Ibby lose his marbles. That was Huss, always starting the fire then pretending he had nothing to do with it. We all laughed now, which made Ibby’s face turn bright red in anger. As in most cases, he took it out on PJ.

  ‘At least I don’t have a coconut head like yours,’ he said.

  PJ stopped laughing. ‘Ay, watch your mouth, Oompa Loompa.’

  Here we go…

  ‘Yeah, well at least…at least…’ Ibby struggled with a counterattack.

  I could see in his eyes that he was about to cross the line. ‘Watch it, Ibby.’

  He ignored me.

  ‘Nah, I’m gonna say it,’ he called out. ‘At least my mum didn’t go to jail for being a junkie.’

  Crap. Someone’s going to die.

  Within a split second, PJ grappled Ibby to the floor. I tried to pull them off each other, but they both weighed a ton. Boys hollered and whipped out their phones, taking sides as our photographer Maxine packed her things and left. She’d obviously had enough of all of it. Mr Ahmed ran over with some seniors and finally managed to pull them apart.

  PJ was wiping the blood from his nose with the back of his hand. ‘He called my mum a junkie.’

  ‘Yeah, well, he called me an Oompa Loompa.’ Ibby pulled at his ripped shirt and adjusted his cap. ‘He’s pissed because he knows I have a chance with that reporter.’

  Mr Ahmed shook his head and tried to make sense of what he’d said. Huss and I froze.

  It was too late. Ibby told Mr Ahmed everything about the bet.

  Mr Ahmed turned to Huss and me and held out his hand, waiting for the list. We sometimes thought he had superpowers because of his ability to find out who had done what without asking any questions. His eyes ran down the paper, but before he could tear us to shreds, Elias and Johnny ran back over and told him that the blonde reporter wanted to talk. Don’t ask me how they knew that – these boys were pros at getting classified information.