I’m walking along the pavement thinking about the different protests Nana was part of. The oak-tree protest worked and so did some of the really big ones that people all over the world fought for, like the Anti-Apartheid movement and the Civil Rights marches. But lots of the other things Nana was campaigning against are still happening. Was it really worth them doing all that marching and protesting when it hasn’t changed anything? I wonder if Bubbe and Nana did ever go on the same marches. I can’t get the picture of Bubbe listening to the refugee boy on the radio out of my mind. Now she’s told me her own story I can see why she gets so sad when she sees all those children . . .

Someone sprints up behind me and taps me on the shoulder.

‘Sorry, didn’t mean to shock you!’ Pari’s really out of breath. ‘Thought I was going to be late. Had to catch the bus from the tube.’ Something glints on the side of her head.

‘Like the scarf jewels!’ I say.

‘Oh, thanks! Mrs Latif told me where to get them!’ Pari says, turning her head so I can get a closer look at the little diamond flowers. ‘She’s not sure they’re allowed in school, but I said if earrings are allowed then scarf rings should be . . . She said she thinks that’s right and that she’d make the case for me if anyone tells me to take them off! We got lucky with our tutor group, didn’t we?’ Pari smiles at me.

I don’t think she’s only talking about Mrs Latif. ‘We did!’ I say.

We walk the rest of the way into school together, past the Unfriendship Bench.

‘Where do you live?’ I ask.

‘Finsbury Park. It took ages to get here this morning, there were so many delays.’

‘I went there not long ago. A friend of my nana’s lives in a place called the Caring Community – do you know it?’

Pari shakes her head. ‘It doesn’t sound much like where I live.’

I’m not sure if she’s being sarcastic. Pari has one of those faces that’s quite hard to read unless she’s actually smiling, laughing or in a state. She kind of keeps it in the same constant expression, like she’s trying to control what she gives away and what she keeps to herself.

‘You’re so lucky to have a grandmother,’ she says as we walk into Mrs Latif’s class and sit down next to each other.

It’s too long to explain to her that the Nana I was talking about isn’t alive . . . but it gets me thinking. Pari doesn’t really know anyone in my family, so what harm would it do if I told her about going to see Simon and picking up the Protest Book?

‘Do you have any grandparents?’ I ask as we get our planners out.

She shakes her head.

‘It’s just my mum and me and—’

‘Settle down now, class,’ Mrs Latif says.

‘I like her outfit!’ Pari whispers.

Mrs Latif’s wearing an embroidered tunic dress, leggings and golden pumps.

‘Reading books out!’ she orders, as she looks up and down at our desks and types the register into her computer. I think she’s memorized all of our names.

I put my hand up.

‘Sorry, I’ve forgotten my book.’

‘I’ll let you off this once, Laila, but you are expected to have it in school every day.’

She looks in her bag.

‘Here – you can borrow this. I finished it on the bus on the way here. I nearly missed my stop! This young woman is a total inspiration.’

Mrs Latif puts I am Malala down on my desk. ‘You haven’t read it, have you?’

I shake my head.

‘Right then. Half of you –’ Mrs Latif reads a list off her screen – ‘Carlos, Nita, Lara, Stella, Chirelle, Christopher, Lycette, Owen, Carmel, Rikesh, Pari, George, Nathan, Omar, Kelly, Milena . . . please take your books and make your way to the library for your reading assessment.’

Pari hangs back so she doesn’t have to walk with Stella. She makes a worst-luck face that we’re not together as she follows Milena out.

Mrs Latif taps me on the shoulder.

‘Hello! Laila! Didn’t you hear the bell?’

I look up to see the last person’s on their way out of the classroom.

I’d completely forgotten I was even in school I’m so wrapped up in this book. I can’t believe what I’m reading; how brave a girl my age can be. It seems impossible what she went through just to have the right to go to school. I want to go home to my perch right now, curl up and read the rest of the book. While I’m reading I keep thinking about the things in Nana Josie’s Protest Book. Simon’s voice and Bubbe’s are floating around my head . . . Why are people’s lives so different? Why can’t there just be some things that all humans should have? I keep thinking about Bubbe and Stan when they were children, and that boy I heard on the radio at Bubbe’s, Bubbe’s frightened-little-girl eyes, and the expression in the eyes of the girl selling tissues on the tube . . . and Pari.

‘That’s how I felt when I read it,’ Mrs Latif says. ‘I couldn’t put it down. Do you want to borrow it?’

‘Can I? Yes, please, miss!’

‘Please make sure you bring it back to me though. It’s one for my children’s shelf!’

‘I didn’t know you had children, Mrs Latif?’

‘I haven’t yet, Laila!’ She laughs. ‘But I hope to . . . If I do, and when she or he is old enough, I will definitely give them that book to read. Now, you’d better get on . . . you’ve already got one “late” registered – you don’t want another!’

I meet up with Pari outside the library at morning break.

We go into the toilets together and Kez is there. We’re side by side washing our hands.

‘Everything all right?’ she asks.

‘Still grounded!’

Kez and me are at the dryers now but Pari’s still at the sink washing her hands when Rebecca peers around the door. ‘Coming, Kez?’

Kez looks a bit torn but she goes anyway. ‘Yes . . . see you guys later!’

When Bubbe described what was going on between me and Kez it sounded so normal – so how come it feels like I’m being pulled in two all the time?

‘Why are you grounded?’ Pari asks.

‘I went off without telling anyone.’

‘Where to?’

‘I took the tube to see my nana’s friend in Finsbury Park.’

‘So, what’s the problem?’

‘I didn’t tell anyone I was going. Anyway, I’m not allowed on the tube on my own.’

‘Why not? I take it every day.’

Being with Pari makes me think I’m that word that Simon used – mollycoddled. Why should I be grounded for doing what Pari has to do every day?

As we walk along the corridor through the break-time crowds, all the chatter sounds like thousands of pent-up stories ricocheting off the walls. If I tell her in the middle of this din, mine won’t be heard by anyone else. Pari leans in close to hear me better. I tell her about Nana Josie and going to pick up her Protest Book and the Banner Bag with her beautiful painted banner in it . . .

‘I went on a march once with my dad, when he lived with us,’ Pari says.

‘What sort of march?’ I ask.

‘I can’t remember – I was really young. I just remember being carried on his shoulders and people singing a song about peace . . . “Give peace a chance”? Something like that.’

‘Want to come back to mine sometime and see Nana’s Protest Book and her banner?’ I ask.

Pari smiles at me like I’ve offered her something incredible.

‘I’ll ask my mum. She sometimes needs me to help her out. I’ll have to see. Where do you live?’ she asks.

‘Just across the road from school.’