Huda and Me by H. Hayek (readict txt) 📕

Martin passes Amira the brown clipboard with our papers clipped to it. ‘Okay, kids, I’ll be seeing you on the next flight in an hour,’ he chirps. He ruffles my hair before making his way back up the steps to the plane.

Amira is grinning, like she can’t wait to spend the next hour with us. ‘After you, children. Let’s get out of the heat and into the airport.’

She waves her hand towards two humungous red-and-black buses. A shiny yellow buggy is parked in front of them. The other passengers from our plane start to make their way down the stairs now too – hundreds of them, struggling with their small wheelie suitcases, squinting in the bright light and burning heat. In a minute, we’ll be crammed between them all on a bus. I couldn’t think of anything worse.

Huda hops onto the bus closest to us, but before I can follow my sister, Amira zips ahead of me.

‘Ah, Huda love, we’ll be taking that.’ Amira points to the yellow buggy.

My sister jiggles a little. ‘The cool buggy?’

‘Yep!’ Amira’s green eyes sparkle.

Huda lunges off the bus and before the crowd of other passengers have even hit the bottom of the stairs, we’ve leapt into the buggy. There’s no roof and no air con, but we don’t care.

‘Seatbelts!’ Amira calls from the front seat as she hits the accelerator, barely giving us time to clip ourselves in.

The air is boiling, and strands of Huda’s mangled hair poking out of her scarf flick into my eyes. But I don’t care. This is what freedom must feel like.

I twist to look at my little sister as her head swings in the opposite direction to one of Amira’s sharp turns. Her face is stained with dirt and sweat and sugar, but she laughs – like, really laughs. And hearing Huda giggling next to me like that reminds me that no matter what happens, she will always be my favourite little sister.

The List

‘Akealie!’

Aunt Amel’s voice shot through my ears. I thought it was the middle of the night at first, because it was still dark. I looked at my alarm clock: 5:02 a.m. She was so close I could feel her sour breath on my face.

‘Wake up, little pumpkin! I have an idea! I need you all in the kitchen.’ She sounded even more excited than usual.

I didn’t move. I didn’t want to move. Aunt Amel switched on my lamp and light zapped into my eyes.

‘Up and let’s go! We have a fabulous day ahead of us!’ she shouted and rushed out of my room.

I could hear a fuss happening in the kitchen, so I dragged myself out there to see what was going on. Still in their pyjamas, most of my siblings were already standing in a line in front of the dining table. Huda was the last to join us. She rubbed her half-closed eyes as she walked in. She only had one sock on, and one of her pyjama legs was pulled up to the knee.

‘What’s going on? Is Mum back?’ Huda mumbled.

‘Oh no, little Hudie, Mummy isn’t back. But I’ve been up all night thinking of how we can make this a wonderful holiday for me!’

Suha grumbled like a bear.

‘Holiday for you?’ Layla questioned under her breath.

Huda stepped behind me and held the back of my skivvy.

Aunt Amel paced back and forth in front of us. She had Raheed’s favourite blue dummy and was tossing it up and down. Mum would’ve killed us if any one of us had done that. She’s always so worried about germs.

‘As you know, children,’ Aunt Amel began, ‘I work at that box factory down on the other side of town. When your mummy told me she was going on holiday, I figured, Why not! I should take a holiday over here with you kiddies too. It’s not exactly the New Zealand ski trip I’ve been dying for, nor even the two-day day-spa at Daylesford, but I’ve always made the best out of any situation …’

None of what Aunt Amel was saying made any sense. She must’ve realised this from the look on my face.

‘What I mean is, I’ve had to take two weeks off work and this house is so lovely and clean, and you are all so adorable, and your mum is always saying I need to take time to relax a little …’

Huda leaned in closer to me while Aunt Amel was blabbing away. ‘What’s she talking about, Akeal?’ she whispered, her words slurred with exhaustion.

I couldn’t answer her, because I still had no idea.

Before any of us could register what was going on, Aunt Amel clicked both her fingers either side of her face and froze.

We all froze too.

She pulled a piece of paper from her pocket.

‘This is our pact.’

As she un-scrunched it, I noticed it was covered in doodles.

‘From now on, you’ll be waking up early. This is good for both of us. Good for you because you know that the greatest blessings are at Fajr time, and good for me as you can help me unwind during my mini-holiday here.’

My jaw dropped.

Aunt Amel pulled an orange texta with no lid from the front pocket of her fluffy nightrobe.

‘What time do you think is suitable to start the day? Three a.m.? Four?’

She looked around at each of us, hoping for some feedback. She held the texta to the scribbly paper, like she was interviewing us, poised for an answer.

‘We don’t wake up that early,’ Kholoud said, her voice sharp.

‘Very well – five a.m!’

Aunt Amel jotted this onto her paper. There was no time to react before she moved on.

‘I have determined seven tasks to make this holiday most pleasant. One for each of you.’

She walked over to Omar, who still had his eyes closed and looked a bit like Mr Kostiki the other night. His body swayed in a weird, gentle way. I wondered how people could possibly sleep