Secret Gardens (2 page)

When will they come for me? I’m scared and I’m hungry. My tummy growls. I get out two slices of bread and make myself a crisp sandwich. That’s better.

I hear a noise outside. There’s someone in the allotment, nearby. I hear them getting closer. Here they are. My heart beats so loudly, they must be able to hear me. I wait for them to try the bothy door. It’s bolted on the inside. But they can kick it in.

The noises go on. Patter. Crunch. Pop.
Pop
? Now I understand. It’s not people outside. It’s foxes. They’re hunting and playing after the humans have gone home. They yelp and bark. I go to the window and try to see them. But there is no moonlight. I listen to the animals as they come and go and I wait for morning to come.

When I wake it’s light outside. My back feels stiff. It must be late. But when I look at my watch it’s only six.

I go outside. My trainers are wet with the morning dew. The air smells fresh. I think about Nadimah. She’ll be up and working. But I dare not leave the allotments to see her.

The day passes very slowly.Tam arrives at nine. I hear him go into his hut. He shouts a “hello” over the hedge. I don’t shout back because I shouldn’t be here. I should be in school. I hear him go about his jobs. At eleven, he leaves. It’s safe for me to leave the bothy.

I have a little money. I can buy food. But it is too dangerous to go outside the Hungerhill allotments. I need to take my mind off things. So I weed the potato patch. I water the pumpkins. I look for stuff to eat. The allotment is full of soft fruit but it isn’t ready. I dig around the edge of the potato patch. What’s this? Two potatoes from last year. The old man who had this place must have missed them. Maybe I can bake them on my fire later. Or boil them.

I think about school and what I’m missing. English. Maths. ICT. School is OK but I have no real friends there. I know a couple of Kurdish boys who I hang around with at break-times. Sometimes I play football with white boys. They call me “rag-head” even though I don’t wear a turban. My Kurdish friends say they are racist but I say they are only stupid.

I have another crisp sandwich for lunch. Stefan shows up at five. I hear him try to open the door of the bothy. He calls out, “Sayeed?”

That’s my dad. I don’t know what to do. I don’t have a plan. I’m lonely and I like Stefan. So I shout back. “No, it’s me, Aazim.”

Stefan lets himself in. “Sayeed not here?” he asks.

I shake my head. “He left.”

“I’ve only just got here myself. I’ve been helping my son out. I taught him most of what he knows on these allotments.”

“That’s good,” I say. Stefan tells me more about his son and the big gardening firm he runs.

“He works in some lovely gardens,” Stefan says. “Not as nice as here, though. These are the oldest allotments in the UK. Did you know that?”

“No, I didn’t know that,” I reply.

“Better be getting on, then.” Stefan points at the raspberry canes. “You want to cover those with netting, young man. They’ll be ready soon and the birds will get at them.”

Two nights pass. I’ve run out of food. There’s a toilet I can use, just down the hill but I need a shower. I can only wash with water from the outside tap. I wish I had something to read. Or a radio.

I tell myself that no one is looking for me. I go to a shop up the main road and buy bread, crisps, chocolate.

“Hey, Aazim!” It’s Babir, from school. “I heard you were deported.”

I shake my head. “Not me. Why you not in school?”

“Dentist,” he says. “Seriously, man, the police came looking for you at school.”

“Yeah?” I say.

“You hiding?”

I nod. “They took the rest of my family.” I tell him what happened. I have to tell someone.

“Got a job?” he asks.

“No,” I say. “What would I do?”

“Lots of work in restaurants, they say. Farms, too.”

“Maybe. I got to go. Don’t say you saw me, OK?”

“OK,” Babir says. “But I wouldn’t hang around here. Lots of mean kids.”

“I know.”

Babir waits at the bus stop. I head back down the hill. I pass Nadimah’s house. A big African woman is leaving. She yells.

“Silly bitch! Clear it up before I get back!”

I know who she’s talking to. I stop walking. I look back. Babir is getting onto a bus.The big woman gets into a car. I bend down and do up one of my laces. The bus passes me. The car goes. I cross the road. I walk up the alley at the side of the house. The side gate is locked. I bang on it.

“Who’s there?” a small voice asks.

“Nadimah, it’s me, Aazim,” I say.

She opens the gate. I go in. She’s been crying, I can tell. There’s a bruise on her left cheek. Who hit her?

“Are you OK?” I ask.

She shakes her head.

“Can I come in?”

Without a word, she lets me into the house, into the smart kitchen. There is something sticky on the floor. Broken glass. I reach into my shopping bag.

“Would you like a bag of crisps?” I say.

She takes it and eats quickly. I find a cloth and pick up the glass with it. Then I clean the floor for her. While I do this, she tells me her story.

Nadimah comes from the Ivory Coast in Africa.Two years ago, her parents sent her to a family friend in England. Roland. He paid her fare.

Roland said Nadimah would have a good future. She would go to a good school. But Nadimah didn’t stay with him. He took her to a family in Nottingham – the Ubanis. They didn’t send her to school. They made her work as a servant. She was ten years old.

“It’s better than at home,” Nadimah tells me. “If I stay home, I work in a cocoa plantation. Very hard. This is not so bad.”

“But you’re a slave!” I say.

She does not know what that word means. “All you do is work and sleep,” I tell her.

“What about you?” she says. “What work do you do?”

“I don’t work.”

“No?” She points at the dirt in my finger-nails. “Where does that come from?”

I tell her about the allotment. “I feel safe there but it’s cold at night.”

“The days are getting warmer,” she says. “You will be OK.”

“Why don’t they let you go to school?” I ask.

“Too many jobs here,” Nadimah tells me. She looks at the clock on the wall. “You must go. She will be back soon.”

“Come and see me,” I say. “They let you out, don’t they?”

She shakes her head. I see a scratch on her neck.

“Are you OK?” I ask.

“You must go,” she says again.

I hurry across the road. On the path to the allotments I meet Stefan.

“Why aren’t you at school, Aazim?” he asks.

“I’ve finished school.”

“I thought you had another year to do,” Stefan says.

“Me too,” I say.

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?” he asks.

“Not here,” I say.

We go into his allotment and I tell him what happened.

“You need help,” he says.

“Please. Don’t tell people where I am.”

Stefan shakes his head. “I’ll see what I can do.”

I trust him. I have no choice. I have nowhere else to hide.

After dark, the boys come. At first, I think they’re foxes. Then I hear a laugh. I hear glass smash. They’re in the allotment next door. Tam warned Dad about vandals. When the weather is warm, they come to smoke and drink. One time they burnt down his shed. Tonight they smash the windows of his greenhouse.

What can I do? I pull on my trainers. I open the door. I look over the fence. There are three boys. I hear them talk.

“Let’s do the next one. There are new people there. They might have some good stuff.”

“I want to burn down the shed first.”

“Takes too long. Come on, there’s nothing to nick here.”

They smash another window. The moon comes out from behind a cloud. I can see their faces. I know one of them from school. Hakim. He is in the year below me. I should not be scared of him. But we are not at school now.

The hedge between the allotments is high. I hear them plot how to get over it.

“I’ll climb on your back,” Hakim tells one of the others. “We’ll have a look round. See if they have a ladder we can use.”

We have a ladder. I won’t let them have it. I think quickly. We have a torch too. I hurry back into the bothy. I pick up the torch and I put on a baseball cap. I rush back out. Hakim’s head pokes above the hedge. I shine the torch under my chin. He stops moving. Then I begin to shout in my own language.

“Get out of here you good for nothing sons of Satan! Do you think you can steal from people who have less than you? Do you think you have the right to break into places that don’t belong to you? Get the hell out of here before I beat you to death!”

As I speak, Hakim screams. He falls. I hear him hit the ground. Then there’s panic. “Quick!” Hakim says.

“What was that?” says one of the others.

“Who cares?” the other one shouts. “Let’s get out of here!”

They run out of the allotment. I don’t think they’ll be back.

Next day, I want to explain to Tam about the vandals. But I can’t, because I’d have to tell him I sleep here. Tam is English. He might go to the police. Stefan came from Poland when he was my age. There was a war, he says. So he knows what it is like to have to leave your country. He will not turn me in.

At midday, Stefan brings me food. Cold chicken in a bread roll. A pint of milk. I offer to pay him. He shakes his head.

“How much money do you have?” he asks.

“Not a lot,” I reply.

“You want to work?
Cash in hand
, as the English say.
Off the books
?”

“I’ll do anything,” I promise. “I work hard.”

“That’s what I thought,” Stefan says. “I’ll bring someone by later. Be here about seven. OK?”

“OK.” I tell him about the boys last night. He frowns.

“Best to use clear plastic for greenhouses on allotments. Glass is always getting smashed. You scared them off, did you? Well done!”

I wait until Mrs Ubani goes shopping, then I cross the road. Nadimah lets me in. There’s a children’s book on the table.

“Is that yours?” I ask.

“I’m trying to learn English,” she tells me. “I learn lots of words by watching television, but reading is hard.”

“Let me help you.”

“Can you read English?” she asks.

“Yes. I’ve been at school here two years. Until last week.”

I get her to read aloud to me, the way I would get Malik and Sabeen to read to me, the way Dad would get me to read to him and Mum. I miss them all. But I must not be sad.

“I would like to see where you live,” Nadimah tells me before I go. “Maybe I could come at this time tomorrow?”

“I’d like that,” I say.

We agree to meet by the allotment gates at eleven the next morning.

Stefan keeps his promise. His son is Karl. He brings him to the allotment. Karl tells me about his gardening business.

“Lots of people with big gardens don’t have time to look after them,” Karl says. “Some can’t do the heavy jobs because they’re getting too old. It’s hard work but there’s plenty of it. I’ll pick you up at seven tomorrow. By the gates. Don’t be late.”

“I won’t.”

I don’t ask what he pays. Nadimah is meant to be here tomorrow. But I’ll go and see her and explain.

At half past six in the morning, I wait in the alley by the Ubani house. It’s raining. Nadimah does the bins about now. But she isn’t here. I wait. I get wet. At ten to seven, I hear Mrs Ubani shouting. She’s shouting in an African language but I can tell what’s happening. She’s angry with Nadimah. Perhaps she overslept. At five to seven, I have to go. I can’t be late for Karl.

He doesn’t come until ten past seven. On the side of the van it says
Sherwood Garden Services
. Karl drives. He’s about thirty.There are two more workers, Sam and Darren.

“Short drive today, lads,” Karl says.

Five minutes later, we’re on Richmond Drive. It’s a wide road, full of big houses. There are big gardens at the front and back. We’re laying a path at the back. We dig. We cut turf. We move turf. We lay hardcore. We pour sand. We carry heavy stone slabs. It’s hard work.At twelve, we break for lunch. The others have rolls. I have nothing. Karl gives me a cheese roll.

“Next time,” he says. “Bring your own lunch and a flask. Today we were lucky – the people here gave us a hot drink. Most people don’t bother.”

I give him a look and he remembers how I live.

“I’ve got a spare flask you can have if you want,” he says.

I thank him. We finish work at five. He drops me off and hands me twenty pounds.

“Well done,” he says. “Same time tomorrow.”

I look for Nadimah before I go back into the allotments. She isn’t there. I’m too tired to wait. Back in the bothy, I sleep until it gets dark. Tomorrow morning I will find her, and explain.

When I get there at six-thirty, Nadimah is cleaning. She has a black eye.

“Yesterday I overslept,” she says.

“I know.” I explain why I wasn’t there to meet her.

“I didn’t come,” she says. “I was too scared.”

“I have to work on week-days,” I tell her. “Can you come at the week-end? We can read together then.”

“I don’t know.” We hear a noise upstairs. “You have to go.”

Karl comes to pick me up again. He drives me to a village a few miles away. He drops off Sam and Darren at another job on the way.

“Get a peg for your nose!” Darren says.

“What?” I say. The others laugh.

The village is called Stoke Bardolph. It’s full of pretty gardens. It looks like the England you see in picture books. I’m going to work for an old woman called Mrs Babcock. She makes me a mug of tea, then I begin to weed. I think about Nadimah. I want to help her. Wanting to help her makes me feel happy. Then the wind changes. What’s that smell?

The smell reminds me of two years ago, when I started school in Nottingham. At break, two boys put my head down a toilet. It hadn’t been flushed. The smell makes me feel sick. But I keep working. It will pass soon, I tell myself. But it doesn’t.