“Time to go?” I say, and Samir nods.
“Just give me a minute,” and he slips out of the room.
I hear him speaking in Arabic. Naazim answers in short grunts and Auntie Selma’s laughing. Then he comes back with our jackets and a grin on his face, “Okay, let’s go.”
What a relief to get outside and away from Naazim’s interrogation. I wonder if that’s what they taught him in the Iraqi army as we run for the bus. He probably treats every new person like an enemy, automatically. I’d rather pull my eyelashes out than go through that again.
“What’s his problem?” I ask once we’re on the bus.
“Naazim? He says our parents wouldn’t want me to be friendly with a girl, especially if she’s not Muslim. It’s haram, forbidden. Teenagers don’t go out with each other in Iraq like they do here. Muslims are very strict,” says Samir. “Naazim tries to look after me like Mum and Dad would.”
“So that’s why he’s in a total fury every time he sees me with you,” I say.
Samir gives me a shy grin. “He thinks we’re going out.”
“Oh,” I say, and I feel my face go all hot.
We both giggle a little bit and then Samir stares out the window all the way down the Island while I fiddle about with my cell phone.
It’s almost four thirty by the time we’re jogging down the road toward the sea, and its beginning to get dark. I can hear the barking of a big dog as we run between the last houses and onto the yacht club road by the inlet. A huge hairy Alsatian, which I think I recognize, is racing over the top of the sand dunes toward the sea. Then with horror I realize it’s chasing someone.
It’s Mohammed!
He’s looking over his shoulder, arms waving about wildly, as he tumbles down the steep slope and onto the beach.
I think my heart’s going to stop.
“What’s he doing out here?” I yell to Samir as we hurl ourselves over the dunes. Mohammed isn’t looking where he’s going; he reaches the water’s edge and flounders into the sea. At least the water isn’t as deep this side of the dunes, unlike on the Solent side where Mohammed was thrown into the sea on Saturday. But it’s still very dangerous; you can sink deep into mud on this side of the point.
The dog is barking like mad and Mohammed wades farther and farther and then he trips and falls right in. He splashes like mad and rolls right over onto his back. The dog leaps forward with a delighted bark and plants its huge hairy paws on Mohammed’s chest. In horror I see Mohammed’s head sink below the surface.
I throw myself down the steep side of the dune and straight into the sea, the freezing water stopping my breath for the second time in less than a week. I hear Samir yelp with the cold as he rushes into the water behind me. My sneakers are sinking into the squelchy mud of the inlet and I’m terrified we’ll get stuck and start to sink. But I have to reach Mohammed and get the dog, which I now recognize as Barney, off him.
Where the hell is Mad Murphy, his owner? “Mohammed!” I yell. “Just stay still. He won’t hurt you, I promise!”
But Mohammed has stopped splashing and he’s almost completely submerged. He can’t drown now, he can’t!
I lunge forward and grab an arm, hauling him to the surface with all my strength, but I can’t do it alone. “Samir, help me!” I shriek, and then he’s beside me, grabbing the other arm. I push Barney away with my free hand and he closes his teeth around it, playfully.
“Get off, you stupid mutt,” I yell, and he releases my hand after giving it a playful nip.
Mohammed’s body feels like a sack of concrete as we start to wade back to the shore. The water is nearly up to my waist and the dog keeps jumping around us, threatening to trip us up.
“Where’s his owner?” pants Samir, shifting his grip on our man.
“He doesn’t c-c-c-care, he’s m-m-mad,” I stutter, all my muscles shaking with cold.
This is worse than a full marathon, what with the icy water, the mud sucking at our shoes and the terrible weight of Mohammed. I’m almost at the end of my strength. Suddenly Mohammed’s legs give way and he drops down, wrenching my arm almost out of its socket. I lose my grip and both Mohammed and Samir fall forward into the sea. Samir surfaces first, choking and rubbing his eyes. But Mohammed stays under and I’m tearing through the water, grabbing at his arms and shoulders, trying to heave him up.
“We’re losing him,” I scream as Barney shoves against my legs.
Samir drags himself to his feet, lunges at Mohammed and pulls him upright. Mohammed is gasping and sobbing but we manage to lug him to the shore. We fall onto the beach exhausted. A bitter wind is blowing up from the Solent, chilling me to the bone, and I’m shaking with cold.
Then Mad Murphy appears on top of the dunes and whistles down to Barney. “Not in your way, was he, my lovely boy?” sings out Murphy, and I just glare up at him.
“Won’t he tell?” splutters Samir.
I shake my head. “He’s bonkers, won’t even remember he saw us.”
Murphy and Barney wander off along the beach and we start up the dune. But I hear a car approaching slowly from the road. I look over the top of the dune and it’s a police car and we’re out in the open with Mohammed. The car is crawling along the yacht club road.
“Quick,” I hiss to Samir. “Get down into the grass and cover yourselves. I’ll try and get rid of them.”
Hoping the police won’t notice my school trousers are soaked I scramble up onto the concrete road, trying to look as if I’m out for a walk. The car draws up and Good Cop is sitting in the passenger side, the window open.
“Alix, isn’t it?” he calls out.
I walk up really close to the car so he can only see my top half and won’t notice my knees knocking with terror and cold. “Hi,” I say with a cheery smile, “catching some robbers?”
Good Cop gives a hearty laugh and Bad Cop leans over him and snarls, “Seen anyone else down here today?”
“Only Mad Murphy,” I say, and we exchange raised eyebrows. No one bothers about him.
“Well, you keep a lookout for anything strange and let us know, they’ve just stopped a boat coming around the Isle of Wight with twenty illegal immigrants in it. They’ll all go into detention in Portsmouth,” says Good Cop.
“Prison?” I ask in a worried voice.
“Just till we can process them and send them back,” snarls Bad Cop.
“What if that’s too dangerous for them?” I say.
“They get their chance to tell their story,” says Good Cop, and they drive off.
I feel as though I’m sweating even though I’ve probably got hypothermia. I wait until the car is out of sight and then we pull Mohammed to his feet and hurry him away.
Back in the hut I almost yell, “What the hell were you doing? We agreed, Mohammed, you stay in the hut, until . . . Oh God, do you want us all to go to jail?”
Mohammed can only whisper, “No, no jail, no, please.”
“Okay, Alix, he understands,” says Samir, on the verge of tears.
Mohammed’s face is gray with cold and exhaustion. He doesn’t look a lot better than when we pulled him out of the sea on Saturday. He’s muttering in Arabic as Samir helps him get into some dry clothes.
It’s almost dark now. Samir and me are about to die of cold and I need to bring Mohammed a fresh hot-water bottle and coffee if he’s going to survive the night and my clothes are soaking wet and I’ve lied to the police again.
I can’t do this anymore, I think, and feeling completely shattered I slump on the floor, hot tears spurting from my eyes. The police and Dad and Murphy and Barney and the icy water and Mohammed looking as though he’s about to die, it’s all too much.
Samir is looking at me and he reaches over and shakes my arm a little bit.
“It’s okay, Alix, it’ll be okay,” he keeps saying over and over, and Mohammed keeps muttering in Arabic as though he’s lost his mind.
And maybe he has, maybe we all have. I can’t even speak. My jaw feels locked in ice. All I can think is, What’s Mum going to say when she sees me, and what about Naazim when he sees Samir’s wet clothes? Everyone will guess, and then they’ll call the police and Bad Cop will get out his handcuffs and Mohammed will get deported . . .
“What are we going to do?” I sob.
Samir is rubbing my arms frantically, his eyes wide with fear, but I can hardly feel anything. It’s getting so dark in this miserable hut but we can’t just go home and leave Mohammed.
Then suddenly he calls my name, “Aleex, Aleex.”
His gentle voice is shaking with cold but he keeps on saying my name over and over. Then he says, “Go home, Aleex. Go home. You must to go and leave me now. I okay, I okay.”
“But you need t-t-to . . .” I try to speak through my chattering teeth.
“No, go. Go now,” he says, and he rolls over in his sleeping bag and mutters something in Arabic to Samir.
“He’s right,” says Samir in a low voice. “We can’t help him if we get sick too. We are his only hope, Alix. We have to leave him now, come back when we are feeling better, at least warmer and dry.”
My eyes fill with tears but I know they’re right, and then Samir pulls me to my feet and we stumble around to the cottage.
Mum’s surprisingly cool and mainly practical about the whole thing. We tell her we’ve been mucking about with a bit of wood on the inlet and we fell in.
“I don’t know how many times you’ve come home soaking wet, Alexandra Miller,” says Mum sharply. “But it’s not clever in this weather, and what about poor Samir? He’s not used to our English climate, are you, love?” and Samir gives a shivery shake of his head.
Then she’s fussing around on her crutches, flicking on the log-effect gas fire and putting on the kettle. “Go upstairs, you two, and find Samir some of Grandpa’s old clothes, and you, young lady, into the bath, while I make the tea,” which will be a first since she came out of hospital.
But as I lie in the soothing hot water all I can think of is poor Mohammed and how badly he needs us now. More than ever probably. What on earth was he doing out of the hut on his own? Was he trying to run away, or worse, give himself up?