29

Sorted!

Nadima’s mum answered the door and, with lots of smiles, invited us in. Then she called Nadima downstairs. So of course Rasha and Sami, and Nadima’s dad, all piled into the living room too.

I handed the note to Nadima’s mum, and Nadima’s dad read over her shoulder, while I stood there cringing and wanting to die of embarrassment.

Nobody spoke. It was really, really uncomfortable.

I felt more nervous than I’ve ever felt in front of a teacher – or even Mrs C.

I noticed that Nadima didn’t try to read the note. I wasn’t sure if it was because she was angry with me, or because it wasn’t the way she behaved with her parents. But then they handed her the note. She read it and then they all did a lot of pulling faces and shrugging and chatting among themselves in Kurdish.

I looked anxiously at Mum.

Finally Nadima turned to me, held out the note and said, ‘Is make no sense.’

‘What?!’ I said.

Everyone looked at everyone else.

Something must have gone horribly wrong.

Then Nadima had the (rather brilliant) idea of translating the Kurdish back into English on her phone. She showed me the screen.

It read:

I struggled to read it (obviously) so Mum read it out loud.

Nadima was right. It made absolutely no sense!

‘What? How can that possibly be how the computer translated my note?’ I cried.

Mum shrugged. ‘It’s a machine! That’s why I’m always telling you not to get it to do your French homework for you!’

(Fyi, she’s right. Our French teacher says Google Translate is even worse at French than 7R.)

‘That is not what I wrote!’ I said slowly to Nadima. I put my hand out for her phone. She handed it to me, and between us, and after a lot of typing and deleting and retyping and even more deleting, I finally managed to type what I was trying to say.

By now, Mum and Nadima’s parents were sitting round the dining table drinking black coffee out of tiny little cups. Sami had clambered up onto Mum’s lap, where Mum was giving him a cuddle. Rasha was shyly offering her some Turkish Delight. I groaned, remembering there must be tons of it in the kitchen.

Nadima showed her parents the final version of my note.

‘Aaaah!’ they both said, and there was a lot of smiling and laughing and nodding.

Then her mum smiled at me gently and said, ‘Jaz! Is OK. Yes! You are Nadima friend.’

‘You are good friend,’ added Nadima. ‘You not bad friend,’ she added and pulled a face. ‘I sorry.’

‘No, I’m sorry,’ I said.

‘Ah, yes. I’m sorry,’ repeated Nadima. She thought I was correcting her English! ‘Thank you!’ she added.

I gave up and just hugged her.

‘See?’ said Mum, as we got into the car. ‘I told you it’d be fine!’

I grinned at her. Yes, it was fine. Better than fine in fact, it was brilliant! I pulled my feet up onto the seat and hugged my knees happily. Then I plugged Mum’s phone in and we sang along to her truly ancient songs all the way home.