Find Her, Fix Him

26 | Our people

On Friday, though, I do come in- but only right at the end of the day, ten minutes before the bell is due to ring, and I lurk in the playground as I wait for Emir to show. I wonder if he'll stand out among all the white middle-class kids streaming through the gates, but it actually takes me a moment to spot him. He's mastered the art of fitting in to perfection. In a pair of jeans, a green sleeveless puffer jacket and his hands in his pockets, he looks as ordinary as anyone else. Maybe he's had to learn not to stand out.

He's holding a white plastic bag, which looks like it's being weighed down by something inside it. When I reach him, he raises his eyebrows in greeting and takes out a can of coke, handing it to me. I genuinely don't like coke that much, but I haven't eaten since breakfast and am grateful to have something inside me, even if it's burning liquid sugar. Emir takes out a can for himself and tosses it up and down in his left hand as we leave the school grounds, heading to the high street.

He never struck me as a talkative person, and true to my first impression of him, he barely speaks three words on our walk along the main road. He juggles with his drink-can, but never takes a sip. I manage to take a proper look at him in the afternoon sunlight, and realise that he doesn't look that much older than me. Eighteen? Twenty? Definitely a lot younger than I first thought. People walking past us must think we're brothers.

Because that's what the English think when they see two people together of the same race- or even looking like they're of the same race. Related.

That thought reminds me why we're even walking together, and I finally bring myself to say something.

"Where are we going?"

"You'll see. I'm sure I don't need to tell you that the location we're heading to is top secret, and that you shouldn't disclose it to anyone?"

"For someone who hates England, you speak it pretty eloquently."

He just gives me a look. I sigh and shrug. "Okay, sure. Top secret. Got it."

"Khanat, I'm not sure if I got this across to you when you were in that hospital, but this is serious. The seekers won't appreciate it if you joke."

He's the first person who has consistently called me by my real name since... well, since my last phone call with my father. Over a week ago.

"No jokes. Got it."

"You haven't told anyone about what we're doing?"

Forcing the image of Lilo's face from my mind, I say, "I haven't told anyone."

I'm half-expecting him to tell me that him and his justice seekers have ways of arranging accidents to get rid of me if I so much as breathe a word.

"Khoob." Good, in Dari.

I allow a few seconds of silence to pass before I eventually ask, "Are you going to drink that coke?"

The sharp sweetness of the drink burns my throat and stomach, distracting me from everything. Just why I asked for it.

Whenever I thought of the meeting place of the Justice Seekers, I thought of dark, shady back-rooms in pubs or something similarly dodgy. Instead, Emir and I end up outside a nice-looking house in the alright area of the neighbourhood. I wait for him to reveal a hidden side-door, but he just rings the doorbell. A girl answers, about my age. She's slender, with dusky skin and straight dark hair that flows just past her shoulders. Her features are sharp and thin-boned, and she's dressed in dark jeans and a cropped black sweatshirt. All newish-looking Western clothes, except from her shoes, which look as dusty and hole-ridden as my sandals from Afghanistan.