Page 37 of The New Girl

‘Thank you so much,’ Ruby said, picking up her fork and taking a large mouthful.

An explosion of flavours filled her mouth. Flavours that she had never known before. It was amazing. A bit hot, but soooooo good.

‘Wow,’ she said, giving Rima the thumbs-up sign. ‘This is delicious.’

Rima smiled broadly and patted Ruby’s head. ‘Good girl, Ruby.’

‘You are so lucky your mum is such a good cook,’ Ruby said between mouthfuls.

Safa smiled. ‘I know, I love her food. She couldn’t cook properly in the camp in Greece and the food they gave us was horrible. It was so nice to taste her food again when we came here. But she finds it difficult to find all the ingredients she needs.’

The two girls continued to eat in silence and Ruby scanned the room. It was a small kitchen with no obvious place to keep important documents. They must be either in the TV room or in Rima’s bedroom.

Rima asked Safa something in Arabic. Safa said, ‘Thank you for being such a good friend.’

Rima turned to Ruby, and repeated the words, ‘Thank you for being such a good friend.’

Ruby felt her face go red. ‘That’s very nice of you, Mrs Karim. But Safa is a great friend to me too. She’s so kind to help me with my lines.’

Rima turned to Safa. She translated for her mother. Rima nodded and smiled. ‘Safa is very good girl. You good girl too. You have sick brother. I pray for him.’

‘Wow, thank you. That’s very nice of you.’

Rima patted Ruby’s head and then cleared the girls’ plates. Ruby’s was wiped clean. She felt all warm and full inside.

As the girls went up to Safa’s room to practise, Ruby saw that the door to Rima’s bedroom was open. There was a locker beside the bed with three drawers. She bet the papers were in there.

Safa’s bedroom was very bare and painted a rotten green colour. Ruby and Orla’s bedroom was crammed, stuffed full of Orla’s make-up, clothes and shoes, and Ruby’s old cuddly toys and books and sparkly pens and markers. Safa’s room had a bookshelf filled with books in English and Arabic and a desk that just had a lamp on it. There was a small wardrobe in the corner of the room and then just her bed. It felt like something was missing – stuff. Stuff from her childhood, old cuddly toys, dolls, pictures, cushions ... it just seemed very sparse. But one thing did catch Ruby’s eye: the photo of a man beside Safa’s bed. That must be her dad. Ruby’s heart jumped. If she could get a photo of that photo, they could send it to the Department of Justice with all the documents.

They sat side by side on the bed and went over the lines. Ruby had her phone on her lap. After a few minutes she ‘accidentally’ knocked the script out of Safa’s hand. As Safa bent down to pick it up, Ruby quickly snapped a photo of Safa’s dad.

Now Ruby just needed to get into Rima’s bedroom. She fidgeted on the bed while Safa read out the lines from the play. Ruby kept getting her lines wrong because she couldn’t concentrate. She stood up and walked around the room, pretending to try to remember the lines.

Suddenly, she heard the noise of the television in the room below them. Rima must be sitting down and watching TV. Now was a good time to snoop. Ruby needed to get out of the bedroom. She told Safa she needed to use the bathroom. She walked out of Safa’s bedroom, closed the door and loudly walked towards the bathroom before turning around and, as quietly as she possibly could, tiptoeing back down the corridor towards Rima’s bedroom.

The bedroom, like Safa’s, was sparse. Just a bed, a bedside locker and a small wardrobe.

Ruby thought of her mum and dad’s bedroom. It was stuffed full of books and clothes and medicine for Robbie and newspapers and bills and medical files. Mum kept all Robbie’s medical files, from the day he was born until now, in big black folders on a bookshelf in their room. She said it was vital that she kept on top of things. ‘I’m Robbie’s voice,’ she said. ‘He can’t speak for himself, so I have to be his voice.’ Dad said that Mum knew more about Robbie’s condition than any of the doctors. Mum said that Robbie was just another patient to the doctors and specialists, but he was her little angel, and she was there to fight for him and make sure he got the best care possible.

Ruby slowly approached the bedroom. It was dark but she was afraid to turn on the light. She knew she had very little time. She went straight to the bedside locker and slowly opened the top drawer. It squeaked. Dammit. Ruby froze. She listened out for any footsteps. Nothing. She pulled the drawer out and quickly looked through it.

It had books in it and a wallet and a couple of pens and some medicine. She closed it carefully and moved down to the second drawer. This one opened easily without making any noise. It was full of headscarves and a pair of woolly gloves.

There was only one more drawer left. Ruby said a silent prayer:please let the documents be in this one, otherwise we’ll never find Safa’s dad. She held her breath as she opened the bottom drawer.

Bingo! It was full of important-looking papers. Ruby grabbed them and laid them on the bed. She rifled through them. There seemed to be birth certificates, and some of the other papers had ‘refugee’ and ‘permission’ and ‘authorisation’ and ‘immigration’ and words like that written on them. Ruby had taken her phone out to photograph them when she heard footsteps on the stairs.Oh my God!She panicked. Looking around for somewhere to hide, she saw there was only one option. She grabbed the papers and rolled under the bed.

Just as she pulled her right foot in, Rima walked into the bedroom. Ruby held her breath. All she could see were Rima’s silk slippers. Rima shuffled about the room and then sat down on the bed.Oh no.Ruby watched as Rima’s hand bent down towards the locker. Ruby thought she was going to be sick. She covered her mouth.

Rima’s hand hovered and then she opened the top drawer and pulled out a book. She sat on the end of the bed and took off her slippers. She began to massage her feet. Ruby was shaking. What was she going to do if Rima lay down on the bed and started reading? What would she do if Rima fell asleep? Would she have to stay here all night?

She knew Safa would come looking for her soon. She’d been gone too long. Oh God, why had she let Denise and Clara talk her into doing this? Why did she have to do the dangerous part? All Clara and Denise had done was ask Safa questions, not risk being found hiding under her mother’s bed with her personal papers.

Ruby was sweating now. She thought she was going to faint. How on earth was she going to explain to Rima why she was hiding under her bed holding her private papers?

The bed creaked. Ruby almost cried out, but clamped her mouth shut. Rima stood up and walked out of the room and back down the stairs. Ruby wanted to punch the air and scream with relief. Instead, she opened her mouth and took in big gulps of air. She had to move, fast.

Ruby rolled out, threw the papers onto the bed and, with trembling hands, quickly snapped pictures of all the documents. She didn’t have time to go through them to figure out which ones were the most important. Her hands were shaking so much she wasn’t even sure if the photos would come out blurry or not, but she didn’t care. She snapped photos of all of them and then shoved the papers back into the drawer.

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