Read Online Nowhere Girl by Ruth Dugdall - Free Book Online

Jodie.
    “How you know all this?” Reza asked, still irritated.
    “My brothers, they have all made this trip. Twice they came back but on the third time they did not return.”
    “So which country are they in?”
    “God’s country,” said Jodie. “Inshallah, they are safe now.”
    Amina shivered, and found that she could not stop.
    When the bearded man came close, Uncle Jak told them that they must call him Captain, and that he was an experienced seaman and they were lucky to have him guiding their ship. Captain looked to where Jodie and Amina were sitting holding their boxes. “You must only bring what you can carry, those boxes will weigh the ship down. Here…”
    He pulled plastic bags from his pocket and gave them one each. Amina clutched at the box, thinking she could never part with it, but Jodie immediately began to empty hers, tipping her belongings into the dirty black bag. “Hurry, Amina,” urged Jodie. “They will not wait for us. Our families have already paid for us to burn, and the captain would think nothing of two less in his boat. A lighter vessel is quicker, and we should do as he says.”
    Amina had already left her sister, her home. Omi. Now she left the box, in the protection of the rocky cave. She felt that with each part of this journey she was losing one more piece of her self.
    The small boat rocked, banging against each wave as if looking for a fight, but every time the wave won, splashing over the side and adding to the puddle that was forming at the bottom of the boat. Reza held his sister’s head as she vomited over the side, her blonde hair darkened by sea and sick. The sight made Amina feel ill too, but Jodie told her to watch the horizon and to breathe only through her nose, which seemed to help for a little while. The captain did not flinch, he kept accelerating until the boat was more like an unbroken horse jumping fences.
    Amina wanted to kneel, to face Mecca and pray, but there was no way of knowing which way was east and the floor of the boat was now sloshing with water. As the journey progressed the twins weren’t faring too well, before long both brother and sister had been sick so many times that now all they did was retch, dry-stomached, a sound that was thankfully drowned out by the waves. Because Reza was now unable to help his sister, Amina held Safiyya’s hand, stroked her bony back. It was what Omi would do when Pizzie or Amina were unwell, she knew that comfort was a free thing to give. As the pink sun rose, the siblings were exhausted but at least no longer sick. Reza was hunched like a dog, barely able to lift his head, while Safiyya let Amina cradle her. They were still tightly huddled when the boat finally hit Spanish sand.
    They had survived the terrible journey. Amina felt herself close to tears until she remembered she was not a child any more, and that she must act in a proper way, as Omi would will it.
    After the boat they travelled in a grain truck, and all four were too exhausted to worry that they must sit on a floor crawling with beetles. The twins had been so ill that they fell asleep as soon as the truck began to move. Amina too was soon dreaming, rocked to sleep by the truck’s movement down pock-marked roads. Hours passed, with no food or water.
    She dreamt she was back at home, in the village, and Omi was combing her long black hair with oil so that it gleamed, hair as slick as a bird’s wing. And then she became a bird, huge and black, her wings open and she took to the sky. She was free.
    The truck comes to an abrupt halt and she wakes to discover that freedom was only a fantasy. Here is reality, a truck full of stowaways, the stench of their sweat and recent sickness, their fear, is stifling.
    When the door opens Uncle is there, and a familiar face is good to see, so good that Amina finds she is smiling.
    Jodie has regained her composure. Though she’s pale, she manages to encourage Amina, “Keep grinning, Tina. That’s my trick too.”