Ruby Tanya by Robert Swindells

Author:Robert Swindells
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 9781448100187
Publisher: RHCP

- Fifty-One

Asra

IT IS GOOD we had this time together, Ruby Tanya and me, because next day comes a bad thing: the baddest that could happen.

It is a letter for my father, from the government. It comes in the morning, but I do not know about it till afternoon because I am at school. It is a quiet day at school, no fighting. The pupils will put on a play for Christmas, Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat, and we are learning our parts. I will be in chorus.

When I get home, Mother is weeping. Father is holding her. I am very scared. What is wrong? I ask.

There is a letter, says Father. It is the one we have waited for, but not the one we wanted. He shakes his head. The government says we must leave England, return to our country.

But why, Father? I cry. We have made no troubles and I can’t go: I’m in the play.

Play?

Yes, the Christmas play, at school.

Ah. He smiles sadly. I don’t think the government will change its mind because of a play, Asra. We have ten days to appeal.

We will be killed in our country, sobs Mother. Do they know that, Gul? Do they know?

Hush, Nusrat, murmurs Father, you will frighten the child. Of course they know, I wrote it on the form.

Then how can they—?

Sssh! He is rocking Mother like a baby. I don’t know, Nus. I have no answers to your questions: they are my questions too. Who knows how the mind of a government works? He laughs, short like a bark. Perhaps it has no mind, just programs like a computer.

Will they come with guns, Father, to drive us away?

He shakes his head. I think not, Asra, unless we refuse to move.

Will we refuse? Can we? I will refuse because of the play.

He smiles, a tired smile. No, my dear one, you will not, because it would change nothing. We will continue to behave as we have always behaved, so that whatever happens, nobody will say of us, It is their own fault, they brought it on themselves.

At the mess everybody is looking to the Sabers, because the blow they all fear has fallen on us. They are not glad it isn’t them. They are thinking, You now, us later. The fear has thickened.

When I have gone to bed, two people come to talk to my parents. They are from an organization that helps asylum seekers with their appeals. They talk softly, I don’t hear anything they say, I hope it is something nice, because I don’t want to be a goat again, and I don’t want us to die.

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