17

Camp-out

By the time we got home, Gus and Dan were in the back garden, putting our old blue tent up. It’s huge – with a double sleeping section on each side and a sort of living area in the middle. Lil and I stashed our sleeping bags and pillows on one side, chucked the bags of food in after them and then went to grab all the cushions from the living-room sofa to dump in the middle bit. After that we strung the outdoor Christmas fairy lights along the fence and put tea lights in jam jars on the garden table.

It was going to be magical after dark.

Matt was piling up a ridonkulously huge mountain of burgers and sausages on the patio table next to the barbecue.

‘Want a hand?’ Lily asked him.

‘Back off. This is Man Food!’ joked Matt, pretending to threaten her with the big barbecue tongs.

Lily squealed and ducked out of range. She loves it when The Brothers tease her.

Chloe and Elly arrived just in time to eat, so we took our burgers and hot dogs into the tent. Then we lay on the cushions and watched the sky darkening. We’d lit the tea lights, and switched the fairy lights on, but it was still too light to really see them.

I kept expecting Kara to phone Lily. She didn’t. But it didn’t stop me worrying that she might. In the end (rather brilliantly, I thought), I suggested we all switch off our phones and talk instead. We talked about everything and anything – after a while we started talking about Nadima.

‘What’s she like?’ asked Chloe.

‘She’s nice,’ I said.

‘How can you tell?’ asked Elly. ‘I mean, I don’t want to be horrible or anything, but she hardly says anything.’

‘I’ve hardly even spoken to her,’ said Chloe. ‘It’s not that I don’t want to. I just don’t know what to say.’

‘But she’s just like us!’ I said. ‘You can talk about any old stuff.’

‘Like what? I don’t know anything about her,’ said Lily.

‘What bands does she like?’ asked Chloe.

‘Has she got any brothers or sisters?’ added Elly.

‘What does she like doing?’ asked Lily.

I realised again that I didn’t know very much about Nadima at all.

I knew where she came from, of course. Syria. But somehow it didn’t feel right to tell the others – not even Lily. Nadima hadn’t exactly been keen to tell me, had she? So maybe I should leave it up to her to tell people about her past.

‘Does she have to wear that headscarf all the time?’ Chloe asked suddenly.

‘I don’t know!’ I cried. ‘I’m not the world expert on headscarves!’

‘Well, did she wear it yesterday when she came round to yours?’ asked Elly.

‘Yes …’ I said.

‘Maybe she does then.’ Lily shrugged.

‘Or maybe only when there are boys around,’ suggested Elly.

‘Do you think she’ll wear it to my party?’ asked Chloe.

‘Probably!’ I said. ‘Honestly, why are you making such a fuss about a headscarf!’

‘We’re not! It’s just that we don’t wear one and she does,’ said Elly.

‘So? That doesn’t make her different from us,’ I said.

‘We didn’t say it did,’ said Lily.

‘Well, maybe we should think about what makes her the same as us rather than what makes us different!’ I suggested. Which came out a lot snottier than I meant it to and Lily raised her eyebrows at me.

Then Chloe said, ‘I hope she’ll be all right at the cinema.’

‘Why wouldn’t she be?’ I asked.

‘Well, it’s a bit of a responsibility, isn’t it? With her not speaking English,’ said Lily.

‘Yeah, what if there’s an emergency?’ said Elly.

I roared with laughter. ‘Elly, we’re going to the movies, not free-fall parachuting! What’s to worry about!? A massive popcorn explosion? Or maybe there’ll be a violent volcanic eruption from the slushy machine!

We all collapsed laughing. Partly because it was funny, but also to relieve the tension filling the tent.

But actually I was anxious. What if something did happen at the cinema? A fire or something. Nadima wouldn’t be able to understand what was going on and I wouldn’t be able to explain it to her, or tell her what to do. I mean, I know she’s not ‘my responsibility’. But now that I knew more about her, I sort of felt I needed to look out for her a bit.

And then of course I started to feel bad again that I hadn’t invited her to the camp-out. I could still have spent all day shopping with Lily. Nadima would have loved being here with us. I could imagine her lying in the tent, grinning away and trying to follow what was going on. Then she’d try to join in and we’d all fall about laughing – including her – when she said something wrong. But instead of that I’d left her out and she was probably sitting at home feeling lonely and miserable.

Pretty rubbish friend I was turning out to be.