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

of the taxi driver’s seat. It doesn’t help that we’re now zooming down the highway with the wind from the open window hitting me in the face.

Huda looks at me and rolls her eyes. ‘He would never shoot a kid, Akeal,’ she says smugly.

I turn around just in time to see the soldier standing there in the distance as we zoom away. The traffic is banked up all around him, but he’s still. Watching us. Our driver turns the corner and the soldier disappears.

Huda knows what’s coming before I can speak. ‘Oh come on, it was just a bit of fun! Lighten up!’ She waves her hand at me as if she’s shooing away a fly and looks out the window.

‘No, that was really irresponsible. He could’ve shot us if he’d wanted to.’ I hand her back the roll. I don’t feel like eating anymore.

‘Don’t be so dramatic. Soldiers don’t just shoot people for no reason! You’ve gotta do something really bad, like run over his foot.’ She takes two more big bites and finishes the roll, but still won’t look at me.

‘We’re not in Australia anymore. We need to respect the customs of this country,’ I try to explain to her.

Huda scrunches the gladwrap into a ball and squeezes it in her fist. ‘You’re boring. You sound like my teacher,’ she grumbles.

The taxi driver turns into a little street and pulls the car over. Now I want to yell at my sister because he’s going to throw us out for almost getting him killed. He turns around and hands me the envelope with the address on it.

‘Wasalna.’ He points to a small white house with a brown flat roof across the street. It has two windows at the front, with black metal bars running across them. There’s no garden at the front, just the road, but to the side of the house I can see a huge yard with a massive tree that has low-hanging branches. Perfect for climbing.

Huda looks at the house. Then she looks at me.

‘What he say?’ Her voice is suddenly very high-pitched.

I can’t believe what I’m about to tell her.

‘He said we’ve arrived.’

Both of us sit frozen. In only a few steps, we’ll be safe and looked after again. And we can tell Mum and Dad everything.

The taxi driver interrupts my thoughts. He’s still looking at us. He rubs his thumb into his fingers: Where’s my cash?

‘Oh, you want to be paid! How much?’ I unzip my backpack and rummage to the bottom of the bag.

‘One hundred thousand lira.’

‘One hundred thousand lira?’ I’m in shock. That’s probably all the money we have.

‘Just give it to him, Akeal. Who cares, we’re here!’

After almost getting shot by the soldier, I don’t need the taxi driver to do anything crazy, so I pull out a thick roll of green notes. There are probably one hundred notes held together by a rubber band. I hope he’ll accept it as enough.

His eyes bulge when I shove it towards him. His eyebrows are like little arches that jolt up ready to touch the top of his head. I shake the bundle of notes for him to take it. But instead of grabbing the whole thing, he uses two fingers to carefully pull out only one of the notes.

‘Enough,’ he says.

‘Well, that’s a bargain! Thanks, mister!’ says Huda. She opens the car door and jumps out.

‘Shukran very much,’ I tell the driver.

‘Allah maak,’ he says warmly. He smiles. I don’t know why, but I feel like giving him a hug.

Meeting Jido and Tayta

I step out of the car and into the little street. Tiny stones and dust fill the air as the taxi drives away. The road is uneven, with potholes and cracks. Huda is ahead of me, standing in the garden to the side of the house. She’s looking up at the big tree. She picks something from one of the low-hanging branches and then turns to me, smiling, lifting her hand into the air.

‘Mulberries!’

Huda tosses the berry into her mouth and reaches for more, and I notice that the small white house sits on a corner. On one side, beyond the mulberry tree, lies another house. On the other, beyond another small road, green land stretches as far as the eye can see. The green stops when it reaches mountains far in the distance. I’ve never seen anything like it.

I walk over to take it all in and I notice a small river running a few metres away. It sits lower than the road and I could’ve easily missed it. I look further up the side street. The narrow river snakes itself up and around through the farmland. I wonder if this is the river my mum told me about – the one she would swim and play in with her brother as a kid.

Before he left, Dad told me his family lives in another town, a long distance from Bar Elias. He explained that the first time he ever came here, he saw two of the most beautiful things he’d ever seen: this town, and Mum.

Huda’s voice interrupts my thoughts, but she’s not talking to me. I quickly walk the few steps back to the house and into the yard to see what she’s doing.

She’s sitting on a bench under the mulberry tree with an old man. He’s wearing a grey abaya dress with a white keffiyeh over the top of his head. It drapes down past both his ears. He’s short and a little stumpy with a big pot belly. He reminds me of an Arab version of Santa Claus, but without the beard. I know I haven’t met him before, but at the same time I feel I know him. He sits leaning forward on the bench, resting his hand on a rake. He’s tired. I spot a pile of leaves a couple of metres away.

Huda notices me and waves for me to come over. Her legs are too short to reach