Tender Earth

My legs won’t work today. They’re all achy and heavy and I feel a bit like I could fall over. Pari wins the trials easily.

I wanted it to be me and Pari up front, just like last time, so we could go through to the finals together.

‘Well, we all have off days,’ she says, and carries on with the others back to the changing rooms.

When Pari gets her breath back she comes and sits next to me on the bench. She’s brought a special bag and folded all her uniform up in it so there’s no chance of it getting trampled again. She doesn’t say anything but keeps looking at me and checking to see if I’m OK.

‘Laila, I’ve had a few reports from teachers today about how tired you look and Miss Green told me that you weren’t on form in PE. Are you unwell? Is something bothering you?’ Mrs Latif looks down at my arm and I suddenly realize I’m scratching again.

A spot of blood in the crook of my arm seeps through the white cotton of my shirt.

I unbutton my cuff and show her my arm. A crack’s opened up in the skin and it’s bleeding and weeping.

‘Yes, but it’s got worse. I forgot to wear my gloves last night. Mum’s making me an appointment at the doctor’s.’

‘Well, if there’s anything worrying you at school just let me know. Make sure you have a restful weekend at home.’

‘You do!’ Pari says. ‘Sure you’re still feeling up to me coming over to yours later?’

‘I need to use the computer first though. I’ve got to get that history homework done. Can you give me your address and I’ll come over as soon as I’ve finished.’

‘Sure?’ she asks, like doing her homework is more important than coming to mine.

But I do think it’s a bit weird because there is no way I would ever normally do my homework on a Friday night. Afterwards, in the middle of Maths, I start to wish I had told Pari to come over later, because now I’ve got this nagging worry about us bumping into Kez on the way out of school – which is stupid because we’ve said we’re going to be honest with each other. I don’t even know why I keep feeling like this – why shouldn’t I have Pari back to mine? Kez knows so many people I don’t, but still. If she sees me going home with Pari I know I’ll feel terrible, like I’m replacing her or something.

I walk out of the school gates with Pari, silently chanting as I pass the Unfriendship Bench . . . ‘Please don’t let us bump into Kez. Please don’t let us . . .’ If I’m looking for her I never see her.

‘Hi, Laila! How’s it going?’ Kez comes up parallel to me and touches my arm.

‘Hi, Pari.’ Kez smiles at her. ‘Going to the tube? I’m off that way! We can go together if you want?’

‘Thanks, but I’m going back to Laila’s.’ Pari’s voice sounds a bit weak, like she gets it too that this feels awkward.

‘That’s great!’ Kez’s voice is a bit too shrill for me to believe her. ‘OK then. I’ve got to go now anyway . . . Have fun!’

There’s the tiniest pause before Kez turns and heads for home, and in that pause I know that seeing me and Pari together has made her feel all mixed up too.

‘Sure you still want me to come back?’ Pari asks as we cross the road. I’ve been so busy thinking about Kez that I realize I haven’t said a word to Pari.

‘Course!’ I feel around in the bottom of my bag for my keys and we head up the path.

Pari runs her fingers over the stained-glass windows, following the patterns on our front door.

I look at her and then back at our door for a moment before I open it, and I suddenly wish I hadn’t asked her round. This is nothing like when Kez used to come back and we could easily guess everything that was on each other’s mind.

‘Dump your things over there,’ I say, pointing to the pile of shoes and bags spilling out of a rack stacked to bursting under the stairs.

Pari places her backpack and coat neatly in the corner and goes to take off her shoes.

She carries on unlacing her shoes, then squeezes them into a gap on the shoe rack.

‘How many flats . . . ?’ Pari looks up the staircase to the skylight in the hallway that leads to Mum and Dad’s room in the loft. ‘I mean, how many people live here?’

I never ever used to feel embarrassed when Kez came over . . . well, only about the mess, but having Pari here’s making me look at everything in our house as if I’m seeing it for the first time. At a guess I would say there are about forty pairs of shoes, trainers, boots, slippers and wellies under the stairs. Some are Mira’s and Krish’s old ones, some are Mum’s and Dad’s – there’s even a pair of Grandad Bimal’s shiny black work shoes that Mum keeps because she likes to see them every time she comes in.

‘Five of us . . . usually – but my brother and sister are away at college.’

‘Where did that come from?’ She laughs. ‘Sorry but something smells really good in here.’

We go through to the kitchen and I take the lid off the slow cooker. Steam sweats my face.

‘Mum leaves the food ready because she’s sometimes not back till later,’ I explain.

Pari is scanning our kitchen, peering around the shelves and through the doorway. I can see from her expression that our house, with its mess, grubby walls, and its fraying old carpet is more like a palace in her eyes.

‘You should see Kez’s place!’ I say. ‘It’s really . . . modern. They’ve made it so Kez can get around anywhere in it.’

Every single thing that comes out of my mouth sounds wrong. It was better when we were at school. We’re more the same at school.

‘This fridge is the scene of animal torture . . .’ Pari reads out my fridge-magnet sign. ‘Who wrote that?’

I tell her about becoming a vegetarian because of reading how animals are slaughtered in Nana Josie’s Protest Book, and how no one needs to eat meat because it’s really expensive to produce and it’s a waste of the world’s resources. ‘I didn’t realize cows cause so much pollution with their wind,’ I say, pointing to my backside.

After what seems like ages Pari comes to the table. She picks up her spoon and eats mouthful after mouthful of casserole without saying a word. Occasionally she looks up and smiles, but then carries on eating until her bowl is completely empty.

‘I wasn’t joking,’ I tell her. ‘I’ll show you the pictures of what they do to animals. It’s disgusting how they’re treated, crammed into trucks so they can hardly breathe . . . it is torture.’

Pari nods, but she’s got this expression in her eyes that’s half annoyed with me. ‘We don’t eat meat either, but it’s disgusting how people are treated too.’

I don’t really know what to say to Pari. It felt like we were getting closer at school, but now she’s come home we seem further apart.

‘I’ll go and get Dad’s laptop. You can use that computer over there if you want,’ I tell her.

‘If the history teacher doesn’t know why we should learn about history, I don’t see how we’re supposed to!’ Pari laughs.

We’ve been told to answer the question by drawing a mind map. You have to write loads of words and pictures in thought bubbles on a page like a brainstorm, and then, when we get back to class, we have to talk about it.

We look through the websites it tells us to visit to help us make our mind map. Then after that we have to come up with a symbol that means something to us about history.

I can’t think of one, but I make a list of reasons I think we should study history, while Pari writes on the computer.

Mine’s just a summary of what I’ve read on the websites. It’s pretty boring. I don’t think I’ve got more than I would have come up with if I hadn’t looked anything up.

To learn lessons from the past

To learn about ordinary people and great leaders

To learn how old and modern problems have happened

To learn lessons from history

To learn why people behaved the way they did in different times

To learn about our ancestors.

Then we have to write about moments in history we’ve heard about that have affected our own family. I write:

Holocaust

Indian Independence

World War One

World War Two

Women’s March

I want to write something about reading Malala’s book because that has really affected me, but I don’t think that’s the sort of thing you’re supposed to put.

I’m sure there are loads of others, but I can’t really think of anything big to write about after that. But then I get to wondering how long something has to be in the past to be history. Is it yesterday . . . or does it have to be properly in the past? Nana Josie’s my family, and even if the stuff she wrote about in her Protest Book is not that old, it’s still history.

Pari’s eyeing the art materials Mum’s tidied away into pots by the computer table.

‘A banner.’ I think about telling Pari about the Women’s March, but I’m not sure I know her well enough yet. She might think I’m a bit strange, just going off like that on my own.

‘Good idea,’ Pari says – but I get the feeling she’s so enjoying trying out the coloured Sharpies and watercolour pencils that she’s just being polite to keep the conversation going so she can use them for a bit longer. ‘What’s it going to say, your banner?’

She takes her time to write her name in an italic Sharpie pen at the bottom of the page, doing big swirly Ps.

Without looking up at me she says, ‘Sorry if I’m not being much fun. I don’t have a computer – or any of these colours – at home, you see.’

‘I don’t mind! My parents are going to love you! I’ll be the first person in this family ever to do their homework on a Friday night! It’ll be like a Levenson Revolution!’

I type my name on my work, press PRINT and watch it inching out of the printer. Page one falls to the floor and page two starts to emerge.

‘Mostly stuff from my nana’s Protest Book. I’ll show you when we go upstairs.’

Stop war

Stop religious hatred

Stop torture

Make people understand each other better

Iran/Iraq War

9/11

Terrorist attacks anywhere, everywhere

Refugee status

Syria

I feel a bit stupid. Like my list is homework and her’s is actually her life. I get that if you’re involved in things it feels different. I have a picture of myself holding Nana’s banner, walking with Jackie and little Fliss. I don’t think I’ll ever forget my first march, just like Nana said she always remembered hers. Maybe that’s the difference between mine and Pari’s lists. Everything she’s written seems to be more personal.

‘Can I use these before we go up? Do you mind?’ Pari asks, opening the box of charcoals I got last Christmas from Mira. ‘The other colours aren’t right for what I want to do,’ she explains.

She draws a man’s face on one side of the page and then folds the paper over so it prints an identical fainter version on the other side. She completely smudges out that side so it’s like a shadow of a person. You can just work out that it was once a face.

‘It’s what happens when half of who you are gets wiped out,’ she says, without looking up.

I want to ask her more, but she looks at me and folds the paper over to cover up the face of the shadow man. Now she’s doing that little smile that’s not really a smile at all. It says, ‘Don’t ask. I can’t say.’

Maybe Pari’s right. It is a kind of waiting room. The problem is I’m not sure what it is I’m waiting for.

‘That was my old room –’ I point to the door ahead – ‘and this is my sister Mira’s room,’ I say, opening the door. ‘It’s supposed to be mine but I haven’t moved in properly yet.’

‘I would love to have a sister,’ she says, walking over to the window and looking out at the garden below. She scans all the empty ghost frames around the room. ‘Is this whole bedroom going to be for you? You won’t share it with anyone?’ she asks.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt this uncomfortable before. I shake my head, rummage under the bed and pull the Protest Book out of the Banner Bag . . . I think about showing her Nana’s banner, but I’m not sure about anything now she’s here, so I fiddle around trying to close one of the catches while I try to work out why this tension seems to be growing between us, not getting less.

I carry it out to the landing and we sit down on the sofa and look through it together.

‘I see why you wrote so much for homework now!’ she says, carefully turning the pages till she gets to the end. She pauses for a long time on the final page. It’s Nana and Simon’s last march that they went on together, where they’re holding a banner that says:

NO BOMBING IRAQ

NOT IN OUR NAMES

Pari stares into the picture. Nana Josie hardly looks strong enough to hold up the banner.

‘She must have really understood,’ Pari says, passing the Protest Book back to me.

When I watch the news it never feels like the world is all connected up like this. Nana Josie and Simon marched against a war that was happening to Pari’s family.

‘My nana gave me this before she died. It was hers when she was a baby,’ I tell her.

She rings the chime and puts her head on one side to listen. ‘It sounds like someone crying,’ she says.

I feel a bit shivery and light-headed. It’s Mira and Mum who have all these spooky ideas about stuff, not me . . . but I suppose that is what I’ve been feeling and not put into words. Sometimes it does feel like the chime is Nana Josie’s voice, crying, laughing, calling to me, spurring me on . . .

Pari hands it back to me. ‘You’re so lucky to have all this,’ she says, gesturing around the landing.

‘I didn’t know people had this many books in their houses. This is more like a library!’ Pari says, looking closer at some of the leather books in the cabinet.

‘My dad loves books, especially old ones with illustrations in . . . and maps,’ I explain as she looks at the enormous old atlases.

‘You want to take some of those ones?’ I ask her, looking at the pile of Mira’s old books I’ve stacked up on the landing. ‘I was going to give them to charity.’

Pari’s face turns all stony. It’s not hard to read what she’s thinking now. I would do anything not to have said that. I wish I could grab it out of the air and stuff it back inside my stupid mouth.

She’s already halfway down the stairs when I see Mum’s shadow through the glass.

‘I’ve got to take the tube back to Finsbury Park, Mrs Levenson. But thank you for the food – it was delicious.’

‘It’s nearly dark! If you can wait a few minutes, I can give you a lift,’ Mum offers.

But Pari’s already heading down the steps. She doesn’t even turn back and wave.