by Rawah Arja
‘Until you stop fighting about clothes, that’s when you can wear different things,’ Dad said. ‘Everyday same argument, now you have nothing to argue about. So you stop fighting, then maybe your mum let you wear different clothes.’
No wonder my dad liked Mr Archie so much – they both had the same sort of wild approaches to problems.
Instead of eskys, my parents used old cucumber and tomato styrofoam boxes they kept from the markets. My dad made us pack green plastic chairs, a fold-up table and our bright yellow gazebo with my dad’s Australian flag. Uncle Charlie had to take the ice-cream truck to help ease the load, and, thank God, Abdul lost scissors paper rock and ended up in the truck.
It took us about fifteen minutes to find parking at the gardens. My dad, with his fluffy white beard, wearing his white abaya, popped his head out of the window and asked random people if they were leaving their car spots. My uncle zoomed up and down with the ice-cream music on blast, which caused more commotion as a long trail of kids ran after the truck.
‘Ya Allah. I have no ice cream!’ he yelled. ‘I have good honey. Come buy honey.’
Saff and Abdul carried the foam boxes, still arguing about whose fault it was that they looked like twins. I tried to take advantage of the chaos and quietly slip away, but my uncle grabbed me by my collar and handed me a box of honey jars.
‘Yallah, you help Bob and me sell these to Australian later.’
As I placed the box of honey jars under one of the gigantic fig trees, I saw a couple of people pack their things and move away, but we were used to that by now. The rest of the family settled our tables and chairs in Mum’s favourite spot, with a view of the Quay and the Opera House.
‘Shoo haydar?’ Aunty Salma said, unimpressed with the view. ‘The bridge isn’t even that big.’
‘Maybe we should inject it with some botox,’ I said under my breath.
Mum kicked me beneath the table and raised her eyebrows.
The table was set with our traditional Lebanese breakfast: olive-oil drenched yoghurt, watermelon and toasted haloumi, boiled eggs and homemade crunchy falafels. My uncle set up the honey jars on the mini fold-up table as he and Amira discussed how they were going to split the millions of dollars they’d make.
Aunty Salma in her ladder-high heels decided she wasn’t hungry and went to take photos with an old man who was feeding lorikeets with a bag of bread. She raised her phone to the sky when a lorikeet landed on her shoulder. She smiled from ear to ear, gesturing for us to come over. We turned away and pretended not to notice, no matter how many times Mum told us to get up.
‘Yallah, I’ll go,’ Uncle Charlie said, tucking his singlet in his pants. He thought it would be hilarious to put a fistful of bread all over his sister’s hair. It didn’t take long for her to be swooped by all the birds in the gardens. As though my family didn’t make enough noise settling in, Aunty Salma now screamed and squawked loud enough to wake the dead.
‘Make her stop,’ Saff said covering his ears. ‘She sounds like a dying cat.’
Eventually, we packed up our portable restaurant and headed towards the Opera House. Even though it was almost a half-hour walk, Dad liked to check out the scenery and Mum loved smelling the flowers.
‘Okay, everybody stay here. I forgot to get something from van.’ Dad rushed away. He eventually came back holding a red megaphone. ‘Okay, we now go on walk and I show you around.’
Saff closed his eyes and prayed to disappear. ‘Ya Allah, please take me.’
Dad was now the self-proclaimed tour guide and tried to convince Aunty Salma that we had the best city in the world. We walked through the gardens and stopped at different plants and trees where Dad read all the information signs through the megaphone. He couldn’t pronounce half the words so he’d just make them up. Amira was up on my shoulders because once again she was too tired to walk.
At long last we reached the gate where the gardens opened onto the Opera House forecourt, when a man yelled out to my dad. He was a tall, muscular man, with a snake tattoo on his forearm, someone I never thought my dad would know.
‘As Salaam Alaykoom, Abu Jehad,’ Dad said. ‘How are you?’
‘Hamdulillah. I’m good, Hajj.’
Dad ushered me, Abdul and Saff forward to shake Abu Jehad’s hand. ‘These my sons.’
‘Ah, salaam, boys, strong sons,’ Abu Jehad smiled, just as the smell of coconut floated along the breeze. ‘My daughter JouJou and my younger son, Jehad.’
‘He’s in my class,’ Amira pointed at Jehad from my shoulders. ‘He’s the one that helped me when those boys said I had a football head.’
In any other situation, I would’ve clapped the kid on the back and thanked him for standing up for Amira, but I couldn’t move my eyes from his elder sister.
It was Jamila. Here. Where she was about to meet the whole circus that was my family.
‘Mashallah, your daughter is beautiful!’ Mum exclaimed with a smile. I’d seen that smile before. ‘How old is she?’ she asked. ‘And where you live? What school you go to, habibti?’ There was only one reason Mum grilled girls for this sort of information, and she wasn’t subtle about it.
Jamila’s hair waved in the wind as she answered Mum’s questions in perfect Arabic. Her eyes then caught mine and she twitched an eyebrow, as if to ask ‘I wonder if you’d look at my short dress now, in front of your family?’ I could feel the sweat dripping down my back and my face burned. No girl had ever made me this nervous.
Amira tugged at my hair and leaned down to whisper, ‘Stop staring at her, weirdo.’
Jehad came over, so I put Amira down and they talked for a while as Jamila made her way to me. She tucked her hair behind her ears. ‘Tariq, right? From Poetry?’
‘Uh. Yeah.’
She then smiled, but that just made me more nervous. ‘Should I be worried?’
‘Worried about what?’ My tongue felt ten times too big, and I sounded like I was talking through a mouthful of cotton balls.
She looked at her dress. ‘Well, I wouldn’t want you to get too distracted in front of your whole family. Might be embarrassing for you. Again.’
‘I’m sorry,’ I said. ‘Not going to do it again.’
She smiled.
‘Like, seriously. Wallah. Am I off the hook now? Or are you still going to kill me?’
‘Jury’s still out,’ she said, before turning to Amira and Jehad. ‘So, this must be the girl he doesn’t stop talking about. Something about the monkey bars?’
‘Yeah that’s our Amira. She’s been trying for the last month to get all the way across without feeling like her hands are going to fall off, but still no luck.’
Jamila squinted against the sun. ‘Maybe she should wear gloves. You know the ones with rubber grip? That could help her hold on.’
I shook my head and laughed. ‘So, all this time she’s been trying to finish it and all it would’ve taken is gloves?’
‘JouJou,’ her dad called. ‘Yallah, we need to go.’
‘I’ll see you at next week’s class, Tariq,’ she said, with a quick glance my way as she walked off.
I liked the way she had said my name. It was a dumb move with my family all around me, but I couldn’t tear my eyes away from her.
‘You know,’ she called without turning around. ‘The flowers in the gardens are much nicer than the ones on my dress. Maybe you should stare at them a little more.’
How had she known I was looking?
Okay, I needed to make a good impression on this girl, especially to make up for coming across as such a sleaze the two times we’d met. I racked my brain for a plan.
I could grow a beard?
Who was I kidding, no I couldn’t. The most I’d be able to manage would be a patchy moustache, and I was pretty sure that wasn’t going to help me not look like a sleaze.
Someone flicked my ear from behind.
‘Ow!’ I glared at Feda, who stood there, looking like she was trying really hard not to laugh. ‘Shoul
dn’t you be off killing sick people?’
‘I don’t need to go to work on my day off to do that, little bro. Plenty of sick people here, right in front of me.’ She looked to where Jamila was walking off with her family and then back at me with a grin. ‘Love life’s going well, I see. Maybe you could use some help.’
‘Maybe you should shut up.’
This time she did laugh. ‘Whatever. If you need some advice about how not to come off as a total perve, you know where to find me.’
‘Yeah, unmarried, still living with Mum and Dad. You’re a real pro at love lives, aren’t you?’
For once, the dig didn’t get a rise out of her. She just sighed and looked at me with what might even have been pity. ‘Tariq, did it ever occur to you that one of the many reasons I’m still single is because more guys don’t listen to decent advice from their sisters about how to behave? She seemed nice. It would be a shame to let her slip away.’ She patted my cheek and wandered off.
Chapter 15
Our school had its first official review team come in on the Monday after camp. Mr Archie let us know that the men in suits were going to pop in here and there to jot down the changes we were making and take that info back to a department panel.
‘Don’t concern yourselves with them,’ he said. ‘Your job is to follow the rules and make sure you do everything in your power to stay out of trouble.’
Mr Ahmed had managed to keep the boys on track while we were at camp, with only a few boys being asked to leave the school for breaking their contracts. Enrolments going down was one of the big factors in the possible closure of the school. Mr Archie said that we needed to have at least 200 students, but right now, we were at 186.
As well as the review team, there was also an intense BBL meeting with Mr Ahmed and Miss K. They had written out a list of expectations for me.
• Control your anger.
• Be respectful.
• If you see trouble, try to stop it or tell a teacher.
• No physical violence.
• Be committed and hardworking.
• Before making a decision, think of the consequences.
• Be supportive and fair.
• Take responsibilities more seriously.
• Work towards effective communication.
‘You forgot “Save the world”,’ I said. ‘It’s been two weeks with all these changes and you guys need to relax.’
‘You boys have been relaxing for years now,’ Mr Ahmed said. His office had boxes stacked all over the floor, with labels like School Policies and Student Records. ‘We, including staff, need to be more proactive and do what we can to help the school.’
‘If you’re serious about your footy career, then this comp is perfect,’ Miss K added. ‘You’ll have a chance to win a scholarship with the Bulldogs, and you never know, it could change your life.’
I knew winning the comp could open doors for me but it was hard to focus with so much going on at one time.
‘Great! I have faith in you, Tariq. I know you can not only meet these expectations – you can actually exceed them.’ She gestured to dismiss me, then added, ‘Oh, and don’t forget we’re heading over to the girls’ school for the poetry workshops tomorrow.’
As I left the office, I heard Mr Ahmed ask her if I had made amends with Mariam. He had almost chewed my head off when I ghosted her.
‘She got him back good,’ I heard Miss K say, and the two of them laughed like it was the funniest thing ever.
Thanks, guys.
Our first official training session began on Tuesday at the crack of dawn, with Matt accidently converting to Islam. He’d been hounding Ibby to teach him a few Arabic words to help ease his anxiety since most of his days were now going to be spent in our hood. Ibby thought it would be funny to teach him the Shahada.
‘Now repeat after me.’ Ibby held Matt’s face and looked deep into his eyes. ‘Ash-hadu an La ilaha il-lal lah, wa Ash Hadu Ana Muhammadan Rasulu-lah.’
I sat on the bench and watched the colour drain from Matt’s face when Huss explained what he had said. Ibby hugged Matt a few times and referred to him as Mohammed. We all laughed when he tried to get Matt to wear his taqiyah.
‘Dude,’ Matt pleaded. ‘I’m not racist or anything, but is there a way you can undo it?’
‘Matt, they’re just joking,’ Mr Ahmed said, giving Ibby his cap back. ‘Don’t worry, you’re not Muslim.’
‘Yes, he is,’ Ibby said. ‘It’s done. You’re one of us now.’
Matt was laughing nervously, not wanting to offend us, when I noticed Riley struggling with his boots.
I walked over. ‘You alright, bro? We’re about to start soon.’
‘We should’ve just left Hunter alone.’ He stopped trying to fix his boots and looked up at me. ‘He’s not going to stop now.’
‘What do you mean? Did he do something to you?’
He showed me some photos on his phone. ‘I don’t have any proof it was him, but my bike and our garage door were sprayed with this.’
I zoomed in on the photos to see the words Snow Boy and Traitor Freak in big, red letters. ‘Have you told anyone?’
Riley shook his head. ‘It happened on the weekend. I came home from the library and saw it.’
‘You don’t have cameras?’ I asked.
‘No, but my dad is thinking of getting some now.’
Huss walked over and wrapped his arm around my neck. ‘Yallah bro, we’re waiting for you guys.’
I told him about the situation.
‘It’s not our problem,’ he said in Arabic. ‘Let his people deal with it.’
‘The guy needs help, bro,’ I replied, also in Arabic. ‘If we can help, then why not?’
‘Nah man, he wouldn’t do the same for us.’
I turned back to Riley to find he had already walked off. He didn’t need to understand Arabic to read Huss’s body language.
‘I’m not saying to go SWAT on this Hunter guy, but at least let’s see what the situation is,’ I said. ‘It’s not a joke. The guy vandalised his house.’
Huss shrugged. ‘Look, Riley’s alright, but I’m not going to go out of my way to help him.’
‘Let’s go, lads,’ Mr Archie called as I was about to argue the point. ‘We need to get started.’
There was something about the angry red letters on Riley’s house that made me feel sick. I imagined someone coming over to my home and doing something like that, and how it would make my family feel.
But I needed to be smart about making Hunter pay.
Mr Ahmed and Mr Archie had set up the field and the recent rain wasn’t going to stop their drills from hell. We huddled around, trying to keep as warm as possible in the cold wind. A couple of birds picked out rubbish from the bins.
‘Hey, Aaron,’ Ibby called out. ‘Look, the Yahooda long-nosed birds came to help you.’
‘We’d probably win more games if they helped out,’ Aaron replied, unfazed.
Ibby turned to me and nodded. ‘I like him. He can take a joke.’
‘Remember, words have power,’ Lee sang operatically. ‘Jokes can be harmful, too.’
He was so random. PJ obviously still couldn’t make heads or tails of Lee’s sense of humour, but by now I found it funny, and so did Aaron. Ibby tried to tackle him to the ground but Lee escaped like a slippery fish.
Mr Ahmed high-fived Lee. ‘Good, we’ll need you to be that evasive during our games too.’
‘Before we begin our training session, we’re going to take our first official team photo,’ Mr Archie told us.
We gathered around, our eyes still puffy and our shoulders slumped. Mr Ahmed asked Aaron and me to stand in the centre.
‘That’s better. We want the captains to look like leaders.’
Captains? Plural?
Aaron and I turned to each other in surprise as the flash burst on the camera.
‘Now we’ll have your reactions forever,’ Mr Archie smiled.
All that en
ergy and time at camp I’d spent trying to prove that I was better than Aaron had been for nothing. I should’ve known they’d pull something like this.
‘I don’t know what’s worse.’ Huss was trying not to laugh. ‘Not being captain at all or only being half a captain.’
‘Telhas teeze,’ I muttered, but once I got over the shock, I had to admit it was pretty funny that Aaron and I had been lumped together yet again.
Mr Archie ran through the other positions. Huss was fullback and goal kicker, Lee and Matt were wings, PJ and Ibby forwards, and Riley was dummy-half. Mr Ahmed took the boys for some warm-up drills while Aaron and I stayed to get feedback from Mr Archie. He still intimidated me and I somehow always ended up agreeing to something I didn’t want to do.
‘Here’s the deal,’ he said. ‘Truth is that you both deserve to be captain and because you lads owe me, I expect you both to put your differences aside and actually start to think about the team instead of yourselves.’
‘How are both of us supposed to be captain on the field?’ I asked.
‘And what if we disagree?’ Aaron said.
Mr Archie shrugged. ‘It’s your job to figure it out and bring the team together. As the BBL, Tariq, you should already have the skills. Start to put them to good use.’
Aaron sighed, then shook his head. ‘Footy is not supposed to be this hard, sir. Can’t you just choose one of us?’
‘The decision’s been made. You will do whatever you need to, both on and off the field, to make this partnership work or risk letting Hunter and his team become the competition champions.’
He then swung the net of balls over his shoulder. ‘Oh, and before I forget. You’ll be spending time outside the comp trying to figure out how to win some games.’
‘Like how?’ we both asked.
‘I don’t know. Go to each other’s places. Eat some pizza. Watch a footy game together,’ he said, walking away. ‘You never know how many things you lads will have in common until you let go of the past and move forward. The team depends on it.’
Fantastic. After years of skating under the radar, all of a sudden I was supposed to be the new Muslim superman or something.