Guantanamo Boy (35 page)

Finding himself unable to cross the busy road, he stands for a moment, suddenly hypnotized by the sight and sound of cars rumbling past. A whooshing sensation flows through his head as he sees the traffic lights change from red and amber to green, then amber to red again. And the roar of buses and lorries thundering past his face, spitting dirt over his new sneakers, while the sickly smell of deep-frying fish leaks from the chip shop behind him. He can’t breathe. He’s going to faint.

“Is that you, Kal? Hiya, mate. HIYA!” Wide-eyed and suddenly there in front of him, Holgy pulls him away from the traffic and he’s grinning and grinning. Taller than Khalid now, he’s got a crazy line of hair round his chin, joining up to crazy sideburns.

“How you doing, Kal? Your face is everywhere. I keep saying, ‘I know him, he’s an old mate of mine.’”

“I’m a bit all over the place.” Khalid lowers his eyes, shaking. Trying his best not to faint.

“Well, you would be, wouldn’t you?” Holgy sighs and presses the button to cross the road.

“What you up to, then?” Khalid breathes out.

“I’m down the sixth-form college. They let you dress how you like,” Holgy says brightly. “You ought to come and scope it out.”

“But I haven’t got any GCSEs, have I, Holgy?” Khalid says.

“So what? There’s two old ladies there doing A-levels and they haven’t got any GCSEs either. Anyhows, you’ve got a pretty good excuse, eh, Kal? By the way, me name’s Eshan now. No one, like, calls me Holgy any more. I’m too old for that hologram rubbish now.”

“Sure, Eshan, no problem.” Khalid nods, feeling a little better.
I sometimes felt like a hologram inside that prison
, he thinks.

They cross the road together and Eshan fills him in on everyone.

“Mikael’s moved to Australia with his family. He got eleven GCSEs, eight As—did best of the lot of us. Like we didn’t know that was gonna happen, eh?”

“And Tony?” Khalid asks.

“Tony Banda left school once he were sixteen for his apprenticeship with British Gas. He was made up—it was all he ever wanted, remember?”

“No.” Khalid doesn’t remember that at all.

“Well, it’s true. He stopped playing football when he broke his leg, and after you went missing, the team fell apart,” Eshan says. “And, you won’t believe this, he’s still going out with Lexy.”

“Really? Lucky bloke! How about Nico?” Khalid says, not daring to ask him about Niamh.

“Nico’s still at school. His mam wouldn’t let him go to sixth-form college, said he’d never do any work if he got there. She’s probably right. He did about as well as me—seven GCSEs, mostly As and Cs—not bad, not brilliant. But then we didn’t exactly push ourselves, did we?”

Arriving outside Nico’s terraced house, Eshan says, “Good to see you again, Kal. Come over any time. We missed you, mate. It wasn’t the same after you disappeared.”

“What about, er . . .? Have you seen—um . . . No, never mind. See ya later, yeah?”

“Bye.” Eshan walks backwards down the road, doing crazy rapping gestures with his fingers, shouting, “East is East!”

Khalid stands for ages outside Nico’s door before walking up the path to knock for him, but there’s no one in and he sets out for home sad and disappointed. Wondering if he ought to go via the road leading to the school on the off chance he might bump into Mr. Tagg. Then he can find out what forms he needs to apply for college or whether you have to be an old lady to get in without any exam certificates.

But when Khalid arrives home there’s a surprise waiting for him. As if he’s read his mind, Mr. Tagg’s in the kitchen talking to Dad and puffing a cigarette out of the window.

“Welcome home, Khalid.” The scruffy, wild-haired history teacher in jeans, red shirt and brown leather jacket stubs the cigarette out on the chipped blue plate Dad’s given him.

“Thanks.” Khalid looks at his teacher standing there by the sink, nodding and smiling, genuinely pleased to see him, and becomes embarrassed, self-conscious and shy—suddenly fifteen again with no idea what to say.

“I kept the letter you sent me.” Taking a worn page of scribbled writing from his jeans pocket, Mr. Tagg hands it to him and Khalid’s eyes dart down the page, shocked to see the letter had actually reached him, immediately recognizing the words and sentences from that day in his tiny cell. The
strange sensation of reading it again speeds him back to the darkness and distress that caused him to write it. When at last Khalid glances away from the crumpled page, he catches the concerned look on Dad’s face and pulls himself together by faking a huge smile.

“Thanks. I was thinking of asking you about sixth-form college,” Khalid says with a gulp. “I want to get my exams.”

“I’ll be more than happy to help,” Mr. Tagg says, nodding.

“Great. I suppose it won’t be easy, though,” Khalid guesses.

“I’ll have a word with the principal. Can’t see why there would be a problem. Unforeseen circumstances and all that.”

“Yeah. OK, well . . . er, thanks!” Now Khalid’s really smiling.

“And thank you very much on behalf of my family, Mr. Tagg,” Dad chimes in.

Sitting back down to finish his large mug of tea, Mr. Tagg looks thoughtful for a second.

“My pleasure. There’s only one thing I ask, Khalid. Will you come and help me do an assembly on that awful place you’ve been? There’s a lot of anti-Muslim feeling building at the moment and we want to keep the school and Rochdale free from that kind of sentiment.”

“Yeah. Why not?” Khalid grins. “I’m up for it.”

“We hate terrorists as much as you do,” Dad agrees.

It’s not until two days later that Khalid catches up with Nico, who’s running to get through the school gates before the bell goes, rap music spilling from his earpieces. Khalid can’t quite make out the words but Nico’s clearly enjoying the strong bass beat.

“Hey!” Khalid jumps in front of him. Overwhelmed by the wideness of Nico’s shocked smile as he rips the plugs from his ears, tries to lift his old mate Khalid in the air. But Khalid’s too tall for him now and they both crack up.

“Kal. Kal. Kal.” Nico makes do with bouncing him round for all to see. “Mam said to stay away until you’d settled back in. How’s it been, me old matey?” Finally he lets him go.

“You’re about to find out—I’m doing the assembly with Mr. Tagg this morning!” Khalid laughs.

“Aw no, his assemblies go on for hours. Do you have to?” Nico sighs, grinning from ear to ear.

“And now, this fine young man, Khalid Ahmed, who’s been to hell and back in the last two years, has agreed to read out the letter he sent me from his cell in Guantanamo Bay. It was the only one among the many letters he wrote to me that arrived here for me to read. As you know, Guantanamo Bay is situated on the south-east corner of the island of Cuba . . .”

A group of teachers behind him shift in their chairs. Some with drooping, tired faces and untidy hair look half asleep, while others with eager eyes and polished shoes lean forward to listen.

Finally, Mr. Tagg stops talking and nods for Khalid to get up from the seat at the side of the stage, which causes him to stop fiddling with his shirt cuffs and break out in a nervous sweat.

Scraping his chair back, Khalid looks down at the sea of faces watching him walk towards the microphone, the letter in his hand. Breathing heavily, heart thumping faster the closer he gets, Khalid becomes irritated with himself for shaking so much as he grabs the microphone. Seeing most of the kids he used to play football with all looking up at him now as if he’s a hero, thinking because they know him they understand what he’s been through, Khalid is suddenly put off. And all the time he’s scanning the crowd for Niamh’s pretty face, longing for it to jump out at him. To see her is all he wants now, her brown, wavy hair flicking up from her neck. The memory of her smile hypnotizes Khalid for a second, blanking his mind completely. Now, two long years later, someone who looks a bit like her is smiling up at him from the front row and he knows she means nothing by it because she isn’t Niamh.

Mr. Tagg rushes to the microphone to cover for him while Khalid’s heart and mind are lost in the memory of Niamh’s pretty face—an image that has helped him make it to this point.

“Ahem. One. Two. Yes, it’s fine. Go ahead, Khalid. Go on, lad. Speak.”

Then Nico, in the back row, suddenly cheers. Everyone turns to look at him, which makes Khalid laugh and gives him a moment’s pause before he starts.

“Dear Mr. Tagg,” Khalid begins shyly, voice trembling. “I thought I’d let you know why I didn’t finish my history coursework.” A raucous laugh rises from the hall resulting in a sudden burst of confidence. The second the noise dies down, Khalid clears his throat and lays into the letter again.

“It’s a bit of a long story and beggars can’t be choosers, as the man said. I asked my dad to fill you in about all the lies they’ve made up about me here so I won’t go into that now. But I know one thing—even if I am an evil person that doesn’t mean someone has the right to try and drown me by hanging me upside down and pouring water down my nose.
They’ve beaten me. They’ve kicked me. They’ve bolted me to the floor like an animal. They’ve kept me awake night after night. Almost burst my eardrums with loud music. Some are suffering worse things than me, they’ve been badly damaged in so many ways you don’t want to know, and my cousin Tariq is here too. They’ve put the finger on me for no reason is what I’m saying and I’ll never understand why.”

A rumble of murmuring and spate of shuffling fill the hall as kids twist in their seats to catch every word. Shock, horror, disbelief passes over their surprised faces while Khalid takes a quick breath before continuing.

“Hurt is hurt. Harm is harm. Bullying is bullying. What everyone wants is the same thing—kindness. I’d like to see more kindness when I get out of here, because I’m sick of hearing about bombs and seeing pictures of people dying and terrorists doing this and that. I’m just a kid who wants to get A-levels and go to uni and make something of himself. I don’t want to hang around waiting for someone to give me anything, but I do want to see the snow blowing over Rochdale again and get a game of footy going down the park with my mates. That’s something I dream about every day locked up in Guantanamo. I hope you can help me get started again one day, that’s if they ever let me go.

“I know one day, Mr. Tagg, you will ask me what I’ve learned. Well, if I could advise anyone out there, I’d say the only way to prevent violence is to stop being violent, stop thinking nasty thoughts about other people. Stop hurting other people. Stop lying and cheating. How come the world doesn’t get that? One day I’d like to go to Mount Snowdon in Wales or to the Lake District or out walking in one of those pretty villages with nice stone cottages in the Dales. I’d love to have that freedom. But you know what? I haven’t got the nerve to go there because people might stare at me and the woman in the shop will maybe get her husband to serve me because she’s scared.

“There’re woods and streams and fields and nice places in England my family have never seen because people are so suspicious of anyone who looks different. When people do that, I shrink up, trying not to look like a wacko. I hide my face by pretending to find a shop or pavement that’s interesting.

“I’m writing this because I would never have the nerve to say this stuff to your face. Yeah, and sorry about not having spell-check and that to do this properly. Bet you a million pounds this won’t get to you at the school anyway. By the way, you ought really to stop smoking. I’ve seen you light up two cigarettes before you get to the main road.

“I’ve been a regular blatherer, I know. Sorry. I just want to get back and stop in my house, eat some decent food and see my mates. I suppose the main thing I’ve learned is that hatred changes nothing. It just adds to the hatred that’s already there. The person who’s hated has the choice to ignore it, while the hater is always overtaken by his violent feelings. So who’s the loser? It’s the person who hurts every time, who lies and cheats, and I’m never going to be like that, because then I’ll have learned nothing.

“Yours sincerely,

“Khalid Ahmed (10G) (from two years ago)”

The minute he finishes, the hall erupts with cheering and clapping. Nico starts whistling, then shouting, “Close down GUAN-TAN-AMO!” And then another burst of cheering, clapping, whistling and foot-stomping breaks out. Rocking the school hall until everyone joins in. Even a few of the staff.

“Close down GUAN-TAN-AMO!” The sound hits the roof, bouncing off the walls as Khalid returns to his seat. Shaking. Mr. Tagg anxiously flaps his hands to calm them, while proudly nodding at his former student.

“Well read, Khalid. Well done. Thank you!” But his voice is drowned out by another burst of stamping feet.

“Words aren’t enough,” Khalid whispers. Tired of everyone getting high on their own righteousness. Refusing to allow his heart to swell in case he starts sinking. In case he starts forgetting how to let go. Something no one else in the room will ever understand. How can he be blown away by the sound of their chanting? Their words are too far outside the hell he suffered.