A Pocketful of Stars, page 6
‘What?’
‘Cat herder.’
Aminah laughs. ‘That can be my nickname, but my real name is Aminah.’
‘Mine’s Rawan.’ The girl smiles. ‘Meet at the same time tomorrow, OK?’
Aminah nods.
‘And next time, bring snacks,’ Rawan orders as she climbs over the wall and heads back home. As soon as she’s gone the night falls silent, and the inky darkness covers me and Aminah like a blanket.
The more I think about the dreams, the more I understand what’s going on. They’re all happening in Kuwait, in Mum’s old house. And they’re happening in the past. I know this because Mum’s my age in them. But I only have these dreams in the hospital when I visit Mum. Recently, when I’ve been going to bed at night, my brain is like a blank canvas, like it saves up all its energy for the visits. But there’s more to it, I think, because these dreams might actually be real.
The bracelet glowed, and so did the cats. And when I picked up the bracelet and followed the cats it unlocked something in the dream. It reminds me a little of a cutscene in a game, where you watch something that tells you what your next mission will be. But the thing about games is they have a bigger purpose, like saving the world. I just need to figure out what that is. And the only way to do that is to keep dreaming!
‘You sure you don’t want me to come inside?’ Dad asks, frowning. ‘You’re not . . . nervous, or lonely?’
It must be weird for Dad to see me do this alone. When I was a bit younger I used to freak out if he left the room for too long. I suppose he can’t pair that Safiya with this one. I’m not sure I can either.
I shake my head. ‘No!’ I say a little too quickly.
I don’t know how to explain that I’m not lonely at all, not when I’m exploring the house or watching Aminah.
‘I like it,’ I add. ‘Being alone with Mum.’ It’s half true. I do like it, but I’m not exactly alone.
Dad stares at me, long and hard, and then he nods. ‘I’ll just nip and do the food shop and then pick you up. OK?’
‘Perfect!’ I sing.
Dad’s a bit more worried than usual since the doctors and nurses were acting strangely when we got to the hospital today. They said words like ‘slow progress’ and ‘monitoring’ in hushed whispers to Dad.
Could that be why the house was crumbling?
I’m trying not to think about that side of things too much. I’ve got enough to focus on.
I follow the familiar path up to Mum’s ward. Everything around me smells like lemon, so strong it’s almost sickly. When I get to Mum’s room I take my usual seat by her bed. I lay my head next to her arm, just as I have done before. I shut my eyes and wait for sleep to take me.
I wait.
And wait.
After several minutes I sit up again. What’s wrong?
Everything is the same as it has been. So, why am I not falling asleep?
That’s when I panic.
I stand up and pace around, not sure what to do with myself. I leave the room and walk back in to start the ritual again, but nothing works.
‘Safiya!’ Amanda calls as she walks in.
Please go away, I think, so I can see my mum.
‘Hello,’ I say instead, not doing a very good job of sounding enthusiastic.
Elle’s always really good at this sort of thing, but not me. Thinking of Elle makes me feel like bitter medicine is seeping down my throat. All she talked about at school the day after we went to the bike shed was kissing Matty. But she never explained why she didn’t tell me, her best friend, about it first.
We’ve been plodding along this week like normal, but something feels a little . . . off. We don’t send each other as many messages as we used to; Elle just chats to the whole group instead, like I’m not enough any more.
‘How are you holding up?’ Amanda asks me, glancing at Mum briefly with a frown on her face.
Usually Amanda’s really cheerful, so this sudden change worries me.
Is it to do with what the doctors were saying? It can’t be all that bad, can it? Mum’s only been in hospital a couple of weeks. I once had the flu for that long, and had to stay off school for ages.
But then Amanda turns back to me, all smiles again. ‘You know, we’ve had loads of people visit your mum.’ She leans forward, whispering conspiratorially. ‘She’s our most popular patient on the ward!’
That’s when I notice them. All the cards lined up on the window next to Mum’s bed, from people’s she’s helped, friends from work and the pottery class she sometimes goes to. Amanda squeezes in next to me to show me them, like it’ll make me feel better. Like it doesn’t remind me that Mum seemed to be able to get along with everyone but me.
I get a whiff of hospital-standard lemon-scented soap as Amanda leans over me to show me each card. It’s so strong that it makes me feel ill, but everyone here smells of it.
‘Great,’ I say flatly. Say something else, Saff.
But I can’t think straight, because I’m too busy imagining Amanda and all the other hospital staff dressed up in giant lemon costumes.
‘Anyway,’ Amanda continues, ‘I’ve been meaning to ask, since you were thoughtful enough to bring in your mum’s blanket and cushion, does she have a favourite shampoo? I know it’s an odd question, but I’ve been washing her hair this week and I noticed it smelled so lovely when she came in . . . much nicer than the shampoo we have here . . . and it lasted for so long too! Like magic. I wondered whether you would prefer we use that instead? It’s common among our patients . . .’ She goes on for a while and for some reason alarm bells start ringing in my mind because she seems so . . . concerned.
‘Are you worried about Mum?’ I ask seriously.
Amanda pauses, and then she paints a smile on her face in the brightest colours. ‘I think it’s good for us all to do everything we can to aid your mum’s recovery. Familiar sounds and smells, in particular, can be helpful. Which is why . . .’
I don’t listen to the rest of her sentence because I know what she means. She wants us to do what we can to help Mum wake up.
I think, for a moment, about Amanda’s words.
Sounds and smells.
All of a sudden something in my mind clicks. And that’s when I know what’s missing, because I noticed it every other time I had one of the strange dreams.
I glance at the clock. Dad won’t be any longer than half an hour, maybe forty-five minutes at most.
‘Going already?’ Amanda asks as I stand.
‘I’ll be back,’ I answer, finally smiling at her.
She blinks in surprise. I suppose you would if you’d been talking to a girl who barely said a word for about ten minutes and then suddenly started grinning at you like a maniac.
Back at Mum’s flat I rush to her bedroom and straight for the perfume bottle. It’s purple with glass cut like a diamond, and a heart-shaped gold stopper.
Something happens as soon as I pick it up. A flash of colour.
I apply the perfume to my wrist and rub my forearms together. The smell wafts upwards and forms a cloud. In it I can just about see Aminah and Rawan, the girl from the secret hideaway, chatting together.
But then, like an old memory I’m straining to remember, it fizzles out and I’m left alone in Mum’s bedroom.
I check the clock – half an hour left – and slip the perfume into my bag.
When I get to the hospital for the second time today, there’s a different nurse on duty, and she pretty much ignores me, which is a relief; I don’t have much time.
I pull the curtains shut and begin the ritual.
Mum’s body is laid flat, hands by her sides. Her hair is fanned out and wild like some sort of earth fairy.
I smooth out her bed covers and pull a few strands of hair away from her face, for no particular reason other than it feels right.
Then I pull the perfume from my pocket and untwist the stopper. I gather some of the musk in the little pipette and place a drop on either side of Mum’s ears, then a third on her neck.
I watch it slide down her throat and sink, sink, sink into her skin.
I notice the woody smell first, then the rose – each note of the perfume floats towards me like dandelion seeds in springtime – and finally the orange. It completes the scent like ingredients in a potion.
This time the transition is more intense, maybe because the perfume is fresh.
I can feel grains of sand in my mouth. I can taste Kuwait. The room starts to disappear before my eyes, and the beeping of the monitor next to Mum’s bed stops. Instead I hear Aminah’s voice as if she was next to me now.
And above it all I can feel a surge, like an electric shock, as it travels from Mum’s body to mine. But I’m not quite sure what it is. Magic?
‘What are you, some sort of assassin? I didn’t hear you at all.’
My heart sinks at the familiar words. This is what happened last time. But I suppose I should have expected that as I’d followed the cat again.
I watch the scene play out for a few seconds before I decide to go back inside and try another room.
Maybe then I’ll see something new.
I cross the courtyard again and retrace my steps back to the kitchen. It looks different today, more worn. There are cracks in the walls and floor that stretch through the hall and up the stairs. Some of the ceiling has crumbled in places, leaving chunks of cement everywhere.
The heartbeat is much fainter too, and I just know it’s to do with what the doctors said.
I’m worried that the house will turn to dust before I have the chance to understand what is happening.
Out of nowhere wisps of smoke appear above my head. I blink once, twice, and wonder whether my eyes are playing tricks on me. On my third blink the smoke takes shape. A bird swoops down and round my face, its wings fluttering delicately. I twirl round and round, and follow it. I hold my hand out and try to touch it, but every time I do it flies just out of reach.
Soon I’m facing the staircase again. I breathe in the bird’s smoky scent, and I’m reminded of Mum. Every so often she would pull out this wooden pot shaped like a bird, and light tiny pieces of coal in its open beak. She called it bakhoor, and explained to me that her mum did the same when she was young to cleanse the room of old smells. But I know Mum did it mostly when she was stressed, as if she wanted to smoke away the bad feelings too.
She would walk round and round the house, and, after that, her flat – the smoke trailing behind her like a ghost.
Today I follow the smoke up the winding staircase, bypassing the living room on the first floor, where I first met Aminah, Zaina and Mama. I peek through some of the doors, which lead to bathrooms and bedrooms, but something tells me they’re not where I’m supposed to be going, because the smoke keeps flying up.
At the very top of the house the smoke stops in front of a closed door.
I realize the gentle drumming of the house is louder here, like this is where its heart lies.
I wrap my fingers round the cool metal of the doorknob. I twist, and twist, but it doesn’t budge. I frown and try again.
Odd. Why is this door locked?
There’s a large crack in it, and the wood has splintered in places, like the walls that are crumbling in the kitchen and the photos that hang faded on the walls. I peer through the crack and find a world of bright blue and purple. There’s a great big wardrobe, clothes spilling out of it, at one end, and an old-school television at the other. That’s when I realize it’s another bedroom.
At the centre of the room is a small wooden bed. And sleeping in the bed is a woman. It takes me a few seconds to realize it’s Mum. I can tell by her wild hair. But it’s not thirteen-year-old Aminah this time, it’s actual grown-up Mum.
My heart flips and twirls and dances like a leaf in the wind. I gasp and step back, leaning against the banister to hold myself up.
The smoke twirls me round, spinning me away from the door, before trailing down the stairs.
I watch it go for a moment, before turning back and peering through the door again. As I put my hands up to the door the drumming feels louder, more desperate, like it’s willing me to go inside. Or is it warning me?
Without realizing it I call for her. ‘Mum?’ I say. ‘Mum, wake up!’
But she doesn’t move.
I try the door again, but it doesn’t budge.
But before I can try it once more, the house starts to fade as I’m pulled back to the hospital. First the roof, then the walls, and finally the floor.
I feel my world start to crumble and I scream as I tumble down, down down, like Alice when she falls into the rabbit hole.
A key.
That’s what I need to unlock the door to Mum’s room. I realize now that’s the purpose of these dreams, to get into that room.
I still don’t know what the cutscenes have to do with it all. And why did the dream make me watch the second cutscene again? Usually that only happens if you haven’t completed your mission. Maybe my mission is to unlock the door, and after that it’ll unlock the next cutscene and I can carry on visiting Aminah.
‘Your turn,’ Izzy says, interrupting my thoughts.
Izzy’s brought some make-up into school to try on each of us. We’re spending our lunch break hiding behind the stage in the hall – where the heaters are on full blast – playing with eyeshadow.
We’ve all picked our own colour, like we’re in a girl band. Mine’s purple.
I smile back at Izzy and crawl over to where she’s sitting.
‘Are you going to be brave?’ she asks, like a parent chastising a child. I refused to do it earlier until Izzy reminded me we would take it straight off for lessons.
‘Yes, Mum,’ I respond without thinking.
Izzy’s eyes widen, probably because she’s thinking about my mum.
‘Oops,’ I add a beat later, wondering if I’ve just said something really inappropriate.
I laugh nervously, and Izzy laughs with me, so I know it’s not awkward. Then she asks about Mum.
Elle hasn’t asked me about her recently, not since she started seeing Matty officially. They announced it online and the whole year commented on it like they were celebrities.
I tell Izzy about the hospital visits and how I’ve been going to Mum’s flat. The doctors gave us some good news this morning. Mum twitched her hand in the middle of the night while the nurse was checking up on her. They think it might have happened quite a few times over the last couple of days. Apparently that’s a sign that she’s getting better!
‘That’s amazing, Saff !’ Izzy says, hugging me, her long hair tickling my face. She always ties it up at school. Last year some of the boys used to pull off her hair bobble and throw it in the bin. Izzy never said anything, just quietly pulled another one out of her bag and tied her hair back up like it never happened. Eventually they gave up and picked on someone else, probably because that kind of thing doesn’t seem to bother Izzy.
When I pull away I notice Elle glance at us and I wonder, hope, that she’s a little jealous. When we’re done talking I feel lighter. Holding everything in feels like carrying a heavy backpack to school, but instead of books and stationery, it’s spilling with secrets and updates on Mum’s condition. I haven’t told anyone about the house, though, and I don’t plan to.
‘OK,’ Izzy says when we’re done talking. ‘Now sit still, or I’ll make you look like you have a black eye.’
A few minutes later Elle calls for me across the stage. ‘You look so pretty, Saff !’ she says.
My chest swells with pride. It’s nice to have my best friend notice me. It feels a bit like the old days. Sort of.
‘She’s right, Saff, that colour suits you so much!’ Abir adds, which is uncharacteristically kind of her. I make an effort to smile at her and try to forget that she laughed at Jonnie’s joke when we went to the bike shed. Maybe I can move past it. Somehow.
‘Let’s have a look,’ I say, bouncing up and down. I’m sitting on my knees on the floor while Izzy sits cross-legged in front of me.
‘Not yet!’ she scolds. ‘You’re only allowed to see when it’s finished.’
After a moment Elle and Abir get distracted by something on their phones and the room falls silent. I’m suddenly very aware of how close Izzy is to my face, and it’s making me feel insecure.
I wonder if she notices the little dents in my cheeks from popping spots, my wonky eyebrows, or my frog-like eyes. Is she judging me? Collecting my insecurities only to throw them back at me like Jonnie did the other day?
But Izzy frowned at him, didn’t she? She didn’t laugh the way Abir did.
‘Do you want to do this sort of thing when you grow up?’ I ask, if only to distract myself from the bad thoughts.
Izzy looks into my eyes for a second. ‘No. I mean, I enjoy doing it, but I prefer drawing.’
‘What kind of things? Like, pirate ships or apples?’
Izzy laughs. ‘Um . . . characters.’ She almost whispers it. I have a feeling it’s because she doesn’t want the others to hear. ‘I didn’t really have any friends when I joined secondary school, so I just . . . drew them. Stupid, huh?’
I feel something flutter in my chest. I was so busy being protective of Elle that I never thought about what it would be like not to have a best friend.
‘I don’t think that’s stupid at all!’ I say passionately. ‘Can I see them?’ But Izzy doesn’t respond, and I worry I’ve put her on the spot. So, I try a different question. ‘Have you ever watched any of the Studio Ghibli films? The animation is made up of these amazing illustrations. If you like drawing, you’ll love the films.’
Izzy shakes her head, but she seems interested.
My eyes widen. ‘You have to!’ I go on for a while about all my favourites. Izzy picks the one she thinks sounds best, Kiki’s Delivery Service, and promises to watch it over half term.
‘Anyway,’ Izzy says, spurred on by our chat, ‘I’m not sure if I want to draw or be a vet.’
‘That’s cool too,’ I say. ‘I love animals, but I can’t ever imagine doing operations on them or anything like that.’
