4

Do You Speak Chocolate?

Outside, on the steps by the canteen, everyone clustered round Nadima like hazelnut chips on a Ferrero Rocher. Partly to make her welcome, but mostly because they didn’t want to miss anything.

Kara was straight in there.

‘Hi! I’m Kara,’ she said, flicking her hair around and grabbing centre stage. ‘Where are you from?’

Nadima smiled and shrugged apologetically.

‘I don’t think she understands you,’ I said.

Kara shot me a withering look. ‘You don’t say,’ she said. Then she repeated the question more slowly and, get this, louder!

‘I don’t think she’s deaf,’ I said drily.

Kara ignored me and charged on. ‘Do … you … speak … English?’

But before Nadima could even answer Chloe said, ‘How long have you been in England?’

And Elly asked, ‘Where did you come from?’

And Lily said, ‘Where do you live now?’

They showered her with questions. It was ridiculous! Nadima just did a lot of smiling and nodding. But she was starting to look a bit dazed.

‘Seriously!’ I cried. ‘Give her a break. It’s obvious she can’t understand a word you’re saying.’

‘Well, that’s just racist! Assuming she can’t speak English!’ declared Kara.

‘No, it’s not!’ I said hotly.

‘Jaz wasn’t being racist,’ said Lily calmly.

‘Mrs C told us Nadima doesn’t speak much English!’ I said.

Nadima looked at me when I mentioned her name. I suddenly felt embarrassed, like we were all talking about her as if she wasn’t there.

But then Ryan and Liam started leaping around like lunatics, jumping on top of each other until they both fell onto the grass. Where they rolled around wrestling. Clearly to make sure Nadima had noticed them. She grinned at us and rolled her eyes.

‘Oh, how very mature,’ I said to the boys. Then I looked at Nadima and said, ‘Boys, huh!’

‘Yes_Boys_Huh!’ she repeated, in exactly the same tone but in her funny accent. Everyone fell about laughing and Nadima smiled at me. Ryan and Liam lay on the ground, grinning like idiots.

‘Wait! I’ve just had a brilliant idea,’ said Kara. She whipped out her phone from her back pocket. ‘We can use Google Translate!’

‘Good idea,’ cried Lily, getting her phone out too.

‘Yes!’ agreed Chloe and Elly, grabbing theirs. I didn’t bother. Honestly, Me + Google Translate? I have enough trouble reading English.

Kara’s ‘brilliant’ idea turned out to be a complete non-starter. (Not gloating, just saying.) The basic flaw in her plan was that we didn’t actually know which country Nadima was from. And, when we tried asking her, she didn’t understand.

‘Let’s start at the top of the list and work down,’ said Kara. She read out the first one. ‘Afrikaans.’

‘Is that what they speak in Africa?’ asked Chloe.

‘Must be.’ Elly shrugged. I looked at Lily and silently face-palmed. She swallowed a giggle. I was still feeling bad about what I’d said to her earlier, about the shorts. I wanted to say sorry. But I couldn’t – not in front of Kara and everybody.

Meanwhile, Chloe was scrolling down the list of languages on her phone. ‘OMG there’s hundreds of them!’

‘I’ve never even heard of most of them,’ said Elly. ‘What’s this one? Bangla?’ She clicked on it.

‘Look at that!’ she cried, showing us the screen.

So then they all got sidetracked looking at different languages.

Like:

which is Arabic, and:

which is Chinese, and:

– Japanese.

All very fascinating – but pointless. Nadima didn’t even get a look in. She just stood there looking baffled. I gave her a grin and a big comedy shrug. She grinned and did a big shrug back.

As soon as Kara realised it was going to be impossible to actually talk to Nadima she got bored and went off – dragging Lily with her of course. So everyone else drifted after them too.

Soon I was the only one left with Nadima.

There was a horrible long silence while we both looked sheepishly at each other.

‘Um … Parlez-vous français?’ I said. Nadima just looked at me.

‘Er … Deutsch?’ I tried.

She frowned. I took that as a no. Just as well really, since I don’t speak French or German anyway.

There was another, even more awkward silence. Then, in a moment of brilliant inspiration, if I say so myself, I dug into my bag and took out a bar of chocolate, broke off a bit and offered it to Nadima.

‘Do you speak chocolate?’ I said.

Her face did that thing again, when it completely lit up, and her eyes seemed to come to life. She took the chocolate, but before putting it in her mouth she rootled around in her school bag and handed me something wrapped in tin foil. I peeled the foil back and saw a chunk of what looked like Turkish Delight. A very large chunk, smothered in icing sugar. I’ve never been that keen on Turkish Delight to be honest. It’s too gooey and chewy. But I ate it to be nice. And OMG it was amazing! It wasn’t like the stuff you buy in the shops at all. It was much softer and didn’t stick to your teeth and it literally melted in your mouth. It was awesome!

We stood there, munching each other’s sweets, and at that moment I just knew that even though neither of us could speak a word of each other’s language, we were going to be friends. Don’t ask me to explain how. I can’t. But I just knew.