But after school Steven’s mum grabs him and he has to go home first. Me and Kim stay in town at the bus stop on the high street and I nearly bite my fingernails down to the elbows waiting for him to show up.
Kim keeps saying, “He won’t say anything, Ali, promise. Steven has principles; he’s always going on about justice and people in prison in China because they oppose their governments.”
“Mohammed’s on Hayling Island, not China,” I mutter, checking my watch for the umpteenth time. “Where is he?”
Eventually Steven strolls up. He’s dressed in a neatly pressed denim jacket and jeans, but at least he’s alone.
“Did you say anything?” I almost yell at him.
I’m expecting police cars to converge on the bus station from all sides, sirens blaring, like in American cop shows.
But Steven gives me a look that could wither the sun and says, “What do you take me for?”
“Okay,” I mutter, and we get on the bus.
Kim and Steven climb straight upstairs, laughing away like a couple of kids on an outing. The top of the bus is empty and they go right to the back and sit down close together.
They probably want to practice their Mozart fingering, I decide, so I go up front and sit on my own.
I have to admit it’s good to have some time to myself to think. So much has happened today. But apart from all the stuff with the police and the fight and now another person involved in our massive secret, something else happened this morning that has been lurking around in the back of my mind.
Just before I dashed out of the house, already late for school because I’d spent ages upstairs after the police had gone, Mum had called from the living room, “Alexandra.”
“What!” I’d yelled back impatiently.
She didn’t answer, so I stomped in, moaning at being made even more late.
Mum was sort of tucked under a blanket, breakfast telly blaring out.
“Sausages for dinner?” she said.
“Whatever,” I muttered, annoyed she had held me back for such a stupid reason and then I ran off.
But now when I think about it, Mum’s face was all smudged and bleary as though she’d been crying. If she has, shouldn’t I be going back home instead of charging off to our man? And I’m skipping detention with Mr. Spicer this evening. I’d already decided there was no way I was going to detention, leaving Kim to take Steven to the hut. Samir would go ballistic.
I wonder why my mum was crying. Is it because of Grandpa? Or maybe my “waste of space” Dad? Or maybe it’s something I’ve done to her, like how I behaved when the police came around. And I’m just deciding that of course it’s because of me, I mean let’s face it I’m not exactly Daughter of the Year at the moment, yelling at her about Dad and hiding stuff from her, when the bus stops at Sandy Point.
After the bright sunshine yesterday, today is cold, gray and miserable again. It rained quite a lot this morning and the path over the marsh to the Lifeboat Station is almost under water. There are a couple of yachts tacking to and fro out on the Solent but the yacht club road is deserted like most Mondays in winter.
Steven is picking his way gingerly through the mud. He’s still wearing his shiny school shoes.
Kim’s back in her fantasy world of Mozart, humming to herself, and I’m getting totally worked up about how Samir is going to react when I turn up with another school friend.
So I’m not really concentrating when I turn around the side of the Lifeboat Station. The beach below the piles of breakwater pebbles is mostly deserted. But down by the pillbox I can see two figures, one standing, one leaning against the old concrete wall. Its takes me a couple of seconds to realize why they look so familiar.
Its Samir and Mohammed!
“There they are,” says Kim cheerfully, and she pulls Steven down the pebbles. I try to sprint ahead to get there first but I slip and I’m too late. By the time I arrive Samir is scuffing his torn sneakers in the sand and winding his Arsenal scarf around his neck, glaring at Steven.
“Just listen, Samir, please,” Kim is saying. “Steven’s all right, he’s safe, he’s not going to run to the police or his parents, are you, Steve?” and she pulls on Steven’s arm, as if to encourage him.
Steven’s face is impassive. He is watching Mohammed carefully and as usual Mohammed’s head is bent, his eyes and face hidden, his scruffy hair sticking out from under a black beanie hat, which Samir must have given him.
“What are you doing out here? Someone might see you,” I say nervously to Samir, but he doesn’t answer me, his eyes are fixed on Steven.
Any minute now someone is going to kick off again, and if it’s me I don’t think even Kim will be able to cool me down.
Then Steven says to Samir, “You support Arsenal?” Silence from the ice man.
“Do you think they’ll win the League?” says Steven, and Samir shrugs.
Mohammed raises his head, his face wary. The wound on his forehead, above his bruised eye, looks very hot and red, and sort of green around the edges. Samir said the smugglers hit him with a baseball bat before they chucked him overboard. I can’t help wondering if Steven brought the antibiotics with him, but it doesn’t seem the right moment to ask.
Mohammed starts speaking in a low voice and I can make out the words “. . . football . . . Iraq . . . win . . .” mixed in with Arabic. Samir gives a sort of scornful laugh, and they’re both looking at us in a funny, peculiar way. Kim signals to me with her eyes and I raise my eyebrows back. Now what’s going on?
Then Samir says, “Arsenal’s a great team, but we support the Iraqi football team, the Lions of Mesopotamia,” and his voice sounds all sort of proud.
He says something quickly to Mohammed. It sounds a bit like “ammo,” does that mean ammunition? I decide to ask. “Ammo what?”
Samir laughs more gently. “Ammo Baba,” he says. “He’s our greatest footballer, like the Pelé of Iraqi football.” Mohammed nods and snorts in agreement.
“Last summer we beat Saudi Arabia one-nothing and we won the Asian cup,” Samir goes on. “The whole of Baghdad went crazy. People were running through the streets waving flags, and some of them were even firing guns in the air. It was on the news. Me and Naazim and Auntie Selma were jumping up and down so much the Chinese below were knocking on the ceiling.” And Samir gives a big grin.
“We saw it on TV,” says Steven, which really catches me by surprise. How does he know stuff like that? “It was really cool. My mum and dad said maybe it’d be a new beginning for Iraq.”
I can’t imagine snooty Steven’s mum worrying about Iraq’s future. But then what do I know? I thought Chaz was cool and look how he turned out, and then I thought Kim was racist. How wrong was that? So much for relying on my own judgments.
But Samir says something to Mohammed and they are both looking at Steven in a more sort of curious way, which is better than open hostility.
Then Steven gets the box of pills out of his pocket and offers them to Mohammed. This doesn’t go down too well. Mohammed shrinks away as if he’s scared, and he starts waving one arm around and saying, “No, no.”
“He thinks you’re offering him drugs,” says Samir, and says something in Arabic to Mohammed.
I can’t help grinning. Geeky Steven with the pressed jeans and Toyota mum, pushing drugs on Hayling beach. Well, he is, of course, only they’re just antibiotics.
Samir and Mohammed talk some more and then Mohammed reaches out and takes the pills.
“Zank you,” he says, raising his eyes and looking up at us for the first time.
And then we have one of those embarrassing moments when no one knows what to say next. Everyone goes dead silent, and all you can hear are the gulls screaming and the sea dragging back and forth over the sand. Samir has turned and he’s staring out to sea, all frozen up again. Mohammed has tucked back into himself. I can see Kim is standing very close to Steven and I’m just wondering if I’ve missed something when there’s a hooting and whistling and we all turn, startled.
It’s Terrence Bellows and he’s got blond Gaz with him, the biggest thug in Terrence’s gang. What has Lindy gone and done?