Everyone is looking at me. Samir has propped our man up against the door and is standing, staring blankly, hands hanging loosely by his sides. Trudy has her head cocked as if to say, “Sort it, Alix,” and even the man has jerked open his good eye sufficiently to stare at me expectantly.
Sorry, I think, picking locks isn’t on the National Curriculum! I don’t come from a criminal family. We need a Bellows for that.
Then I realize that Samir isn’t actually looking that worried. “There must be a way in, I’ll check around the back,” he says with a determined frown.
“Excellent,” I say. “So when the police finally track us down, we’ll be locked up for harboring an illegal immigrant and breaking and entering.”
But it’s only because I’m worried and frozen to an ice block. Maybe I should take Trudy and go home. But what would Samir do without me?
Just then our man is violently sick and starts to crumple to the ground. Samir manages to catch him and helps him to sit down.
I catch a whiff of the sick. That does it. I promptly throw up on the grass. I warned you, I think furiously, I don’t do sick. Trudy is getting too interested in the emptied contents of my stomach, and feeling weak and shaky I’m busy pulling her away from the stinking mound. So there’s absolutely nothing I can do when Samir appears from the side of the hut carrying a sheet of transparent plastic.
“I took the window out. Quick, let’s get inside.” And he lugs the man off.
Glad to get away from my sick pile, I stumble around the hut and see that all I have to do is step onto a conveniently placed brick and wriggle through the gap. I climb up, pushing Trudy ahead of me, and suddenly we’re all sprawled on the floorboards of a damp, empty hut. No lights, no furniture, nothing.
Trudy starts to nose about the hut, smelling every corner. The man rolls over and wraps his arms around his body, his eyes drooping with exhaustion.
Samir seems to be absorbed in making some kind of list. “We need blankets, dry clothes, food, candles . . .”
He’s ticking off on his fingers just like Mum does with her online shopping. I’ve never seen him so worked up and excited. He’s usually Mr. Ice Man around school.
“. . . maybe one of those little camping stoves, I think Naazim has one . . .”
“Naazim? Are you going to tell him?” My voice echoes strangely in the little hut.
Samir stops, his right hand suspended above his left, mouth opens and he’s staring straight at me, eyes wary, like a fox caught in the headlights on a dark Island lane.
It’s gone very quiet in the hut. Trudy has snuggled up against our man—what did Samir call him? Mohammed? I can hear one of the dog walkers on the beach call out, but the sound is too faint to make out the name of the dog. If it’s Mrs. Saddler with Jeremy we’re sunk. She can smell a rat miles away.
And then Samir takes a small plastic bag with a pack of cigarette papers and some stuff in it out of his pocket. What’s he up to now?
Is he going to roll a joint, I think, going all tense. I’m already Miss Uncool of the Year for worrying about sheltering an illegal person, an asylum seeker who’s been tortured and is probably dying of a brain hemorrhage. But drugs! I begin to plan what I’ll say when Samir offers me a drag.
I’m asthmatic and I’ve forgotten my inhaler. I’m allergic to cigarette wraps.
What would Lara Croft do right now? She wouldn’t give up and go home, whining about cigarette papers. Lara Croft would make a plan to save our man. She’d probably whistle up an elephant and ride us all out of here to some safe, cozy tomb in the mountains. Lara Croft makes things happen.
But Samir has made two roll-ups and lit them both, and even I know the smell of ordinary cigarettes. He offers me one and I take it. I’ve never smoked before and all I can think is, What would Mum say? which makes me feel about six years old. I suck cautiously on the end of the roll-up and actually it doesn’t taste too bad. It’s quite warming in the drafty hut.
Samir sits, smoking like he was born to it. That’s why he can’t run as fast as me, he’s already ruined his lungs. He’s picking stray bits of tobacco off his lips and I can’t help noticing what a comforting color his skin is in the dim light. Not brown and not white, a sort of creamy shadowy color. I get this sudden urge to touch his hand. Does he feel as soft as he looks?
“So who are you going to tell?” I ask cautiously.
“No one,” says Samir, and he’s staring at me hard. “Not yet.”
I look down wondering, If not now, then when?
“First of all Mohammed needs to get warm and dry,” says Samir, and you can see he’s still working it all out. “We need to get him some food.” He’s looking at me hopefully.
Questions start to thunder through my head. What will Mum say? Do I care? She and Dad are off in their own private worlds and I just seem to be here to clean the toilet and do the washing up.
“How long do you think we can hide him for?” I say. It’ll only be a couple of nights at the most before the whole island knows, I think.
“As long as we can. Until he is better,” says Samir. “We’ll have to find someone to help him.”
“Like who?”
“There are people who help asylum seekers. I need to find them on the Internet. They help people who couldn’t get into the country legally,” says Samir, and he’s speaking in a more rapid, urgent voice. “You know, like Mr. Spicer said, some people who come in illegally are genuine asylum seekers but they couldn’t convince the authorities. Mohammed is one of those, Alix.”
He gives me such a desperate look and his eyes are wide with fear and worry. I stare back at him and I must have looked the same because suddenly Samir’s face breaks into that smile which changes him completely. The line of his mustache darkens on his upper lip and the fear disappears from his eyes. “Anyhow,” he says. “Won’t it be good to have a secret from the adults?”
Well, that presses the right button. Not that I tell Mum much these days anyhow.
Mum! Oh my God! “What time is it?” I yell out, and practically squash Trudy as I leap to my feet. “I’ve been gone ages. Mum’ll go ballistic!”
I throw myself up to the window and Samir calls out, “Don’t tell, Alix, promise?” He grabs my ankles and his hands feel warm through my wet socks.
“It’s okay, don’t worry,” I call out. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. I’ll bring some food and dry clothes.”
Then I’m gone, running with Trudy out of the Reserve, past the Lifeboat Station, zigzagging past Mrs. Saddler and Jeremy before they can stop us, and I know it’s insane, but in my head I’m kickboxing and somersaulting over obstacles all the way home. Just like Lara Croft. This is the most exciting thing that’s happened to me since forever. I can’t wait to tell Kim! There’s no way we’re going to let our man die or be deported, not after having heroically pulled him out of a churning sea, which was probably too dangerous for Lara Croft, even on an elephant.
But when I get home everything goes out of my head. As Trudy and I run into the house we hear a moaning and there’s Mum, lying on the kitchen floor, rolling in agony.