Refugee Boy (6 page)

‘Is it OK if I sit here, please?’

‘No worries, yu safe,’ Mustafa replied.

A boy on the other side of the seat just glanced at Alem before tucking back into his breakfast.

Mustafa began speaking to Alem as if he was simply continuing the conversation from the night before. ‘I ain’t trying to frighten ya, yu know. I am just telling yu, guy, yu have to watch out.’

Alem nodded his head in reply.

Mustafa continued, ‘Thing with dat Sweeney is dat if you let him get away with stuff, he’ll keep coming back to you.’ He pointed his finger to someone at the other table. ‘You see him?’

‘Yes,’ Alem replied, ‘I share a room with him.’

‘He’s Stanley. Sweeney beat him up once and now every time Sweeney wants extra biscuits or toast or anything, Stanley gives it to him. Shame, man. Sweeney troubled me once and me and him fight, yu
check? I would of buss him up if staff never come but he don’t mess with me now. Stanley’s soft.’

‘He talks so much,’ Alem replied.

‘For sure, if yu let him talk he’ll just talk yu crazy. I actually see him talk a guy to sleep. For real. He’s weird but it’s not his fault. His dad died in the Gulf War.’

‘The Gulf?’ Alem said, looking down into his breakfast while trying to make sense of it. ‘Why the Gulf, why Aden?’

‘No,’ Mustafa slowed down. ‘Not the Gulf of Aden. Dat boy’s father died in the Persian Gulf War – yu know, Saddam Hussein – Iraq – Kuwait. It’s in the Middle East and Britain fought there with the Americans and them, and that’s where his father died.’

‘Oh, that’s sad,’ Alem said, feeling for Stanley but trying hard not to think of the war he himself had left behind.

‘That’s not all, man,’ Mustafa continued. ‘When his father died, his mother lost it, she went loco, loony. She used to lock him up for hours in his room and sometimes if he cried too much she would take the light bulbs out and leave him in the dark. Could you imagine that, man? Left in the dark for hours, serious hours, yu know, sometimes she would be gone all night, and sometimes he was starving to death. Wickedness, man, pure wickedness.’

Alem looked towards Stanley, who was talking
away to someone. He felt that he understood him a little bit more now and he was trying to think of something he could say to him, some words of comfort. Then he thought he might get plenty of time for that later and anyway he couldn’t really go up to him and say that he knew his life story.

Mustafa spoke again. ‘He’s weird, he don’t harm no one but he’s weird.’

‘He had a very bad dream last night,’ Alem said, chewing on his toast.

‘Bad dream?’ Mustafa replied. ‘Dat guy has nightmares, dat guy wakes up screaming his head off in the night. He even goes sleepwalking. He walks in his sleep talking to his mother. I don’t wanna frighten yu, but everyone knows it.’

‘What’s your name again?’ Alem asked in an abrupt change of subject. ‘I was told but I forgot.’

‘Mustafa,’ the boy replied proudly, ‘and you’re Alem, I know.’

The boys then got down to their breakfasts. Alem was feeling very much wiser for the conversation and wondering whether he had found a friend in Mustafa.

After breakfast all the boys returned upstairs to brush their teeth and make their beds. Alem spoke very little to Stanley, not wanting to start him off on another rant, although he did ask him what would be happening next. Stanley told him that all they had to do now was to go to the recreation room. If there
were any special jobs to be done, boys would be picked from there, or maybe there would be a trip somewhere, but boys who went on trips would have had to be there for a little longer than one day.

Alem finished making his bed and went down to the recreation room. Once again he found himself just standing around alone watching the other boys. They seemed to be playing the same games in the same groups. It felt to Alem as if he hadn’t been to sleep at all, nothing had changed except for the staff members. The only time that any of the boys spoke to Alem was when the table football flew off the table and Alem handed it back to one of them. All they said was ‘Cheers’ but it was enough to keep Alem’s mind busy wondering what ‘cheers’ meant. Then there was Mustafa, but he tended to sit alone most of the time looking out of the window

As Alem went to walk away to venture elsewhere in the room, someone bumped into him from the side.

‘Sorry, mate, but I meant it.’

It was Sweeney and his two friends. Alem tried several times to walk away but one of them would block him each time he tried. He wanted to avoid panicking, conscious that he was in a room full of people. He looked around for help. Everyone was doing their thing, and those that did catch a glimpse of the standoff just looked away as if seeing nothing. Mustafa was unaware of what was happening.

‘Right,’ said Sweeney, placing himself right in front of Alem. ‘Yu mess with me already, right, now I’m gonna show yu dat yu can’t mess with me again. But first I’m gonna give yu a chance. Today we have wonderful cod and chips and beautiful broccoli for dinner. All I want you to do is give me your cod and chips, and you can enjoy yu broccoli in peace. It won’t make me and you best friends, but life will be much easier for you.’

Alem tried to show no fear. ‘You will have your own chips and if there’s some left over you can get some more. Why do you want my chips?’

Sweeney took a step forward, placing himself inches away from Alem. As he spoke into Alem’s face, Alem could smell his bacon breath. Even at this time of danger, Alem’s mind still found a moment to think, ‘This boy has not cleaned his teeth.’

‘I want your chips, that’s all you need to know,’ Sweeney said, smiling wickedly and breathing all over Alem’s face.

‘Well, I don’t think I’m having any dinner,’ Alem replied in an attempt to outsmart him.

‘Well,’ Sweeney said, spraying bacon-flavoured saliva over Alem’s face, ‘that’s even better, you have nothing to lose then, do you? Just get the cod and chips and give them to me, and that will save you from getting a kicking, won’t it?’

Sweeney spoke fast. Alem didn’t catch all that he
said but he had his principles and he was going to stick to them. ‘I don’t care what you say, I am not giving you any food.’

The moment Alem finished his sentence, Sweeney struck him with his fist in the solar plexus. Alem’s breath was completely taken away and as he went down Sweeney kicked him under his chin, causing him to bite his tongue. The pain was excruciating. Alem just wasn’t prepared. All he could do at that moment was cling on to Sweeney’s legs. Sweeney was unable to kick but he rained down a whole heap of punches over Alem’s head and back. Alem could hear other boys cheering Sweeney on; he couldn’t understand why no one was coming to his rescue. He clung on for dear life but the shouting got louder and the punches increased. Quickly, Alem had a change of heart. He had to defend himself; he could no longer be passive. He held on to Sweeney’s feet with one hand, then used his other hand to push him over. Sweeney fell. There was now a scrap on the floor. They traded kicks and punches at a rate of six per second. Alem noticed that he was feeling extra kicks, kicks that weren’t coming from Sweeney, but there was nothing that he could do about them, he just tried his best to deal with the aggressor in hand. Suddenly Alem felt a change in the action, it was Mustafa, and he wasn’t fighting but trying to separate them.

Just then came those immortal words, ‘Break it up,
lads, that’s enough.’ Mustafa backed off and the two male members of staff began pulling them apart, but the two boys still desperately tried to kick and punch each other as if the last punch was a matter of pride.

They were eventually separated and both panted hard for breath, even though, like most fights, it had actually lasted about one minute. As they were being held back from each other, Alem stayed silent, still not confident enough to speak English and fight at the same time. Sweeney shouted threats as if he had rehearsed them hundreds of times before:

‘I’ll kill you, yu bastard – yu don’t mess with me and get away with it – I’ll turn yu lights out – you are dead – yu understand – yu dead meat – I mean really dead.’

Alem was quite shocked by the whole episode. It happened so suddenly, so unexpectedly, but what for? Alem’s biggest pain still came from the first punch to his stomach. He looked at Sweeney, whose nose was bleeding, and said, ‘You do all this for some chips?’

They were both taken to the staff room and given the usual warnings, except they couldn’t be threatened with detention or extra homework. Sweeney was warned that he had a report being prepared for a court case and that he needed to be on his best
behaviour. Alem was told not to use violence to overcome violence, but to report all violent acts to a member of staff. This was rubbish, of course, and Alem knew it. He was tempted to ask how practical it was to report an act of violence just after you’ve been winded, considering how quickly the next kick follows up, but he decided not to.

For the rest of the day Alem felt miserable. He spoke very little to anyone and no one made an effort to speak to him. Only Mustafa asked if he was OK and said he was sorry about what happened and that he did warn him about Sweeney. Stanley wanted to talk for hours about the type of gun he planned to buy, but Alem decided to walk away and leave him talking to himself. One or two of the other boys saw him and said no more than ‘All right?’ But Alem knew by now that when most people said ‘All right?’ they didn’t really mean, ‘are you all right?’ He thought this was a gross misuse of the language, he just couldn’t understand how they could say ‘All right?’ and walk away without waiting for an answer.

What made the rest of the day difficult was Sweeney and his two friends. Every time they saw him they gave him dirty looks, and every time they were near him they threatened him. At the dinner table Alem had nothing to eat, but Sweeney came over to him all the same to tell him that they still had unfinished business. Alem didn’t say a word. He hardly said
a word for the rest of that day. By now he had decided that words weren’t enough, now was the time for action.

Early that evening, a minibus arrived at the home. It was a group of boys returning from their hill-climbing adventure. Tom and Dave were back on duty. Dave stayed in the recreation room while Tom went to help the boys unload.

Alem saw an opportunity. He walked as quickly as he could up to his room and packed his little bag, then he secretly made his way back downstairs, knowing that he couldn’t afford to be seen carrying the bag. He stopped to look around every corner before turning it, listening for the slightest sign of anyone approaching. Eventually he found his way to the very back of the building where a door led to the large garden area. It was dark. He tried to open the door using the handle but it was locked, he then tried various bolts and catches on the door but to no avail. Then in desperation he resorted to shaking it but the door remained locked.

Alem lacked a real plan and was making it up as he went along, and he certainly didn’t have a back-up plan. He searched his mind quickly for ideas but he
didn’t know the building well enough. He noticed a door barely visible in the darkness. He turned the handle and it opened. As he walked in, he kicked something with his feet; it felt like a cardboard box. Bending down to check, he knocked something else, something hard and metallic which fell crashing to the floor, breaking the silence. He tried to turn and make his way out, as he did that he rested his hand on a shelf, the shelf collapsed and all that was on it came raining down.

Alem stood still and let the crescendo happen around him. He was now sure that he would be caught. He realised that he was in a broom cupboard, and he thought he was in trouble. But when the last bucket stopped rolling and silence returned, no one came running. No one had heard a thing. Probably, Alem thought, because the cupboard was so far away from the offices and the recreation room. Then there were all the games being played and the boys arriving from their trip. Alem noticed a small window in the broom cupboard; maybe he still had a chance.

He gripped his bag. Movement was difficult and noisy because of the things under his feet but he made it to the window. Standing on a vacuum cleaner to reach it, he could just see the garden at the back. He opened the window and threw the bag out, realising that this was the point of no return. He just about managed to squeeze through the window headfirst,
and clinging to the window frame he manoeuvred himself around and managed to jump down and land on his feet. As he landed he froze, still listening for any sign of a raised alarm. When he thought it was safe he picked up his bag and began his escape.

The house stood in three acres of land. The garden near the house soon turned into wild, unkempt woods. Alem struggled through it. It was crispy cold; every footstep crunched on the ground as dried twigs broke. He could hear clearly every breath he took, and the cold wind was burning his face unlike any kind of cold that he had felt before. He looked behind and could see the light reflecting from the house; his only thought was that he should get as far away as possible from that house and its reflection.

After fifteen minutes he came to the boundary fence. It was about six feet high. He climbed halfway up, threw his bag over and then proceeded to climb the rest. When he reached the top he tried to grip the fence, only to find that it was barbed wire. He shouted out in pain, then he stopped, balanced precariously on the fence, hoping no one had heard his shout. He jumped down on the other side and fell on his back on the ground, where he lay for a moment in a tired celebration of leaving the grounds. He didn’t know where he was, he didn’t know where he was going, and he could feel the small but painful cuts on his hand. Although he had lost all sense of direction, at least he
was on a well-trodden path that had to lead to somewhere else. He took a couple of deep breaths, picked himself up, grabbed his bag and proceeded to walk.

Soon he came to a road. It had no pavement, no lights and no markings. He waited for a couple of minutes but he didn’t even see a car. Looking left and right in the darkness made no difference, the darkness in both directions looked identical. For no reason at all he went left.