Why Is Nobody Laughing? by Yasmin Rahman

Author:Yasmin Rahman
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781471411359
Publisher: Bonnier Publishing Fiction
Published: 2022-06-14T00:00:00+00:00

22

Sunday night is game night in the Malik house. It all started last year when Mariyam became obsessed with Monopoly and kept begging us to play with her. She’d cry for hours if we said no, so Ma forced us all to play, and it somehow became a weekly thing we all now enjoy. We have a rule that everyone puts their phones face down in the middle of the board. If any of us checks our phone, we have to pay a penalty. I’ve only been caught out once or twice, but Hamza gets caught every week. Baba’s got a pass for this week, considering all the fraud drama. The money still hasn’t come back into the account, even though the bank said this morning that it had been sorted. I tried telling Baba about how sometimes it takes a while for information to feed through, and that it’s a good thing that the bank sees it as sorted on their end, but he’s still attached to his phone, refreshing the app constantly. Hopefully game night will distract him a bit.

‘C’mon, Bhaiyya!’ Mariyam says. ‘If you get a seven, you can take all the money from free parking.’

‘Noooo!’ Hamza whines, leaning over the Monopoly board. ‘That’s my money, you can’t take it!’

I roll the dice, mumbling an audible prayer about getting a seven. It’s nice. This. Being with my family. Being at home and having fun, rather than feeling down and anxious and stressed. Game nights are one of the few times I don’t get anxious about being in the house, that I don’t worry about being asked to look something up for my parents, or call an electrician or something. The power of board games. Maybe we should get some new games though. Monopoly usually gets … heated. And it lasts forever.

The dice land on a four and a two. Hamza gives a whoop.

There’s a chirp from the under the pile of Monopoly money in the middle. The sound of a Snapchat message. In the space of a split second, Hamza’s hand reaches out and grabs his phone, scattering the paper bills.

‘Ha! Fifty-pound penalty!’ I say, as Hamza looks at the screen.

Mariyam also yelps with joy and raises a hand for a high five. I give her one, feeling the smile stretch on my face, mirroring hers. Even Baba gives a little laugh.

‘Wait, what is this?’ Hamza mutters. ‘“Stand Up, Bridgeport – the finale is here! Which local comedian will win a year-long mentorship with award-winning stand-up guru Kai Matthews and £250?”’ he reads out.

Wait, what? I look at Hamza and see that he’s picked up my phone, not his, since they look so similar.

‘Get off my phone,’ I say, yanking it out of his hand. There’s adrenaline coursing through me now. My heart’s pounding as I turn to see what he’s reading. I look at Dexter’s message. He’s written ‘Why are we not screaming about this already?!’ over the image of an official poster advertising the competition, featuring all of the contestants’ names and the dates of the remaining rounds.

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