As if parties and grades matter now, as if anything matters now apart from him being alive and safe and able to live the rest of his life.
Steve has put down his mobile and is speaking too fast, a shake in his voice, as if his fiancée’s feelings have physically transferred themselves to him.
‘A little boy in her group is missing. He didn’t get on to any of the boats. Chloe thought his form teacher, Mrs Cardswell, had him, but his form teacher thought Chloe was looking after him. It wasn’t her fault, I kept telling her that; a girl had an asthma attack and—’
‘What boy?’
‘Which class?’
‘In Chloe Price’s class?’
‘Is the girl all right? The one that had an asthma attack?’
‘Yes.’
‘You’re certain it’s a boy?’
‘Do you know his name?’
‘Basi Bukhari,’ Steve says.
‘Oh, thank God. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.’
* * *
In the shed, eight-year-old Basi Bukhari is standing because it’s less cold than sitting on the floor, which is all damp and icy, but his legs are getting wobbly with being tired and frightened. His hands and ears sting with cold. He tries to pull his sleeves over his hands but they’re too short, so he hunches his shoulders together so the sleeves will reach.
When they all got to the beach it was freezing, the wind picking up the icy cold of the sea and throwing it at their faces and hands and any part of them where their clothes had got untucked.
Rafi was looking at Miss Kowalski’s phone, with other teachers looking at it too, but he was just listening to the sea shouting that it had monsters inside it – Wa-hush, Wa-hush, Wa-hush!
Sometimes it pretends to be blue and friendly but it drowns people.
Rafi put a life jacket on him and they joked about the piñata in the shop in Alexandria and he thought it would all be okay because Rafi was with him and it was okay if Rafi was with him.
He told Rafi he needed to put on a life jacket too, but Rafi didn’t say anything and he didn’t want Rafi to say the next thing, because he knew it would be a bad thing. He said he didn’t want to play any more, though he knew, really, that they weren’t playing. And then they argued, Rafi saying he’d be safe and him saying he needed Rafi to come with him, so it wasn’t a real argument, just him trying to stop Rafi leaving him. Rafi has never left him.
‘But they’re shouting at me, the monsters, Wa-hush, Wa-hush, listen! Can you hear? It’s even worse than a hole!’
‘Remember the princess in Milan, Basi? Do you remember her face?’
‘No.’
‘She was in the station, remember?’
‘We pretended the station was a palace,’ he said because maybe if he kept Rafi talking he wouldn’t leave.
‘Romanesque,’ Rafi said because he is going to be an architect when he’s older, like Mama, and knows the names of everything. ‘With a piazza and columns and friezes.’
‘And there were benches made of marble.’
‘That’s right.’
‘But we had to go into the bit that had ropes around it. The migrant bit.’
‘And when people went past I told you to watch out for their briefcases,’ Rafi said. ‘Because you were at the edge and they could bash into your head.’
‘I thought you said “brief faces” not “briefcases”!’
‘That was brilliant of you, because that’s what they were like; lots of brief faces. And then the princess stopped.’
‘We don’t know for sure she was a princess.’
‘I think that she was.’
‘Me too,’ Basi said, because she probably really was, and he was only arguing before because he wanted to keep Rafi talking.
‘And she gave us money,’ Rafi said. ‘So we could buy new clothes and train tickets. Do you remember what you got?’
‘Blue trousers and a shirt with cowboys on it from the shop in the station.’
‘Zara Kids,’ Rafi said.
‘And lots of pants and socks.’
‘We had a good wash and we got changed.’
‘And we put our old clothes in the bin,’ Basi said, ‘because they were really smelly and horrible.’
‘We looked so smart and smelt so nice that no one thought we were migrants any more.’
‘Two princes out for a stroll together.’
‘A couple of regular brothers having a latte together.’
‘You had the latte and I had the choco frappuccino,’ Basi reminded him.
‘That’s right. Remember her face?’
‘Course.’
*
In the shed, Basi thinks Ratty is making scuffly noises, telling Basi he’s there with him.
‘Her eyes were bright blue, Ratty, and her skin was like caramel, and so was her hair, like a princess; like the station was her palace. Her face was all shiny with tears and she said she was sorry but I don’t know why she said that.’
And then after he and Rafi had spoken on the beach about the princess in Milan station, he’d felt a bit calmer, and Rafi must have thought that meant he was all right because he took him to Miss Price. And they spoke really quietly so all he could hear was the sea shouting. Miss Price held his hand but he tried to pull away and still be with Rafi. Then Rafi said, ‘It’s a Have-To-No-Arguments, okay?’
Rafi had only said ‘It’s a Have-To-No-Arguments’ twice on the Journey. Have-To-No-Arguments means Rafi is talking for Baba and Mama.
Basi nodded but that can mean you understand, not that you agree. Mr Lorrimer says he is a slippery character. And he thinks he was being slippery then.
Rafi kissed him.
‘You are as brave as a Barbary lion,’ Rafi said. ‘And a Bengal tiger.’
‘Brave as Sir Lancelot,’ Basi said. ‘And the little mouse in The Gruffalo.’ If he could just keep thinking of more brave people and animals, on and on, Rafi wouldn’t leave him.
‘Brave as Odysseus,’ Rafi said. Basi tried to think of another brave person or animal, but he was being too slow.
‘Brave as Basi Bukhari,’ Rafi said. ‘I love you, Little Monkey.’
Then he turned and ran back to the cliff path.
Miss Price held his hand and asked if he’d like to stay with her or go and be with Mrs Cardswell and all his friends. And he thinks he said he’d like to be with his friends, or maybe he didn’t say anything, because he was listening to the sea shouting at him.
And then Miss Price took her hand away from his because Milly was wheezing, like she couldn’t breathe properly. She took off Milly’s life jacket to check her coat pockets for her puffer. His hand felt lonely and afraid.
Wa-hush, Wa-hush, Wa-hush.
Miss Price called to the teachers, ‘Does anyone have Ventolin?’ But the wind and the sea were too noisy and then Miss Price shouted, ‘A CHILD NEEDS VENTOLIN!’
Wa-hush, Wa-hush, Wa-hush.
People falling from the boat and the monsters in the sea holding on to them and pulling them deeper and deeper and not letting them back to the air. A little girl fell in wearing armbands, and her mama and baba both jumped in after her and they drowned as well. Rafi held on to him, really tightly, and didn’t let him go. When people were pushing hard and he thought he was going to fall into the sea, Rafi held on to him.