Page 51 of The New Girl

‘I’ve tried everything –Peppa Pig, food, sweets, singing, whispering, walking him around outside, but we had to come back in because everyone was staring at us. I didn’t know what else to do and I didn’t want to call Mum because I want Ruby to have this night, this one night where Mum and Dad see her shine. So I called you. Could you sing to him, please, Safa, could you try? I’m begging you.’

Safa nodded. Of course she’d help. She looked at Robbie; his head was swerving from side to side, but she managed to get eye contact. She began to sing. She had to sing loudly to be heard over his roaring. At first it made no difference but on the second round of the song, he began to shout a little less. He moved his head to look at her. Finally, he stopped shouting and began to listen. Soon, he was quiet.

All you could hear was Orla crying quietly in the corner.

When Safa finished, Robbie roared, ‘Again, again!’

So Safa sang the song again. On it went, over and over. She sang it eight times until Robbie finally fell asleep, exhausted from his tantrum and soothed by her singing.

Orla threw her arms around Safa. ‘Thank you. Thank you so much.’

‘You’re welcome. I’m happy I could help.’ Safa’s voice was hoarse from singing.

Orla nodded and began to sob again. She seemed so upset. Was she always like this when Robbie freaked out? ‘Sorry.’ Orla wiped the tears from her cheeks. ‘It’s just today has been a really bad day.’

Safa said nothing; she waited for Orla to continue. Safa knew that sometimes it was better to say nothing and let the other person talk.

‘I knew the letter from Grangepark was due about now. So when I saw the postman this morning, I ran out to get the mail. I’ve been doing it every day this week, just in case. Just in case Robbie didn’t get a place. I wanted to get it before Mum saw it. And ... and I was right, look.’

Orla handed Safa a crumpled letter from her pocket. Safa unfolded it. It was from Grangepark. It said, ‘We are very sorry to inform you that your son Robert Fitzpatrick has not received a place at the school. We had a long list of applicants and unfortunately Robert was not one of the lucky ones. He will be placed on a cancellation list, but we very rarely get cancellations ...’

Oh no! Safa’s heart sank. She felt sick.

‘I have to burn the letter. I want Mum to have a few more days of hope,’ Orla croaked. ‘This is going to break her. I know it will. Mum was so sure Robbie was going to get a place. It was the only thing keeping her going. She won’t be able to take this news. It’s going to break our family.’ Orla covered her face with her hands.

Safa sat down beside her on the floor and patted her back. There was no point in saying, ‘It’ll be OK,’ or ‘Don’t worry,’ because it wasn’t going to be OK. It wasn’t going to be all right at all.

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Ruby

Afew days after the musical, Ruby, Clara and Denise stood in Clara’s mum’s posh office with the big glass window looking over the town. In front of them were a man and a woman dressed in dark grey suits, looking very serious. They had big briefcases.

‘This is Kevin Kilbride and Mary Gorman from the Department of Justice,’ said Annabelle.

Clara moved forward and shook the adults’ hands, so Denise and Ruby did the same.

‘This is my daughter Clara and her friends, Ruby and Denise, who signed the letter they sent to you on my company notepaper,’ Annabelle continued.

Ruby knew they were in big trouble and what they had done was wrong. She had to say something, so she stood forward and blurted out, ‘I’m sorry for using your company paper, Annabelle. I know it was wrong, but we just wanted to help Safa so badly.’ Turning to the two other adults, she pleaded, ‘Can you help us find Mr Karim? Please? Safa is such a brilliant person and she misses him so much. If we are in big trouble it was all my idea so I’m the one to blame. I made Clara and Denise help me.’

‘You didn’t make me help you, I wanted to’ – Clara pulled her shoulders back – ‘and I’m not sorry.’

‘Me neither!’ Denise said. ‘We all just want to help Safa.’

Kevin held up his hands to silence them. ‘This is a very unusual case. We don’t usually receive notes from children written on law-firm notepaper. But we have spoken to your mother and she has assured us that your intentions are very good,’ Kevin said.

‘We were impressed with your letter and all the information that you sent us – it really helped us in our search. We have been looking into Mr Karim’s case,’ Mary added. ‘There was a file opened on him already as we had received a request from his wife and daughter a while back. I’m afraid we have a very big backlog of cases so we hadn’t got to dealing with Mr Karim’s application yet.’

Kevin cleared his throat and opened his briefcase. ‘As you may or may not know, all applications for family reunification received by the minister after the thirty-first of December 2016 will be processed in accordance with Section fifty-six and Section fifty-seven of the 2015 Act.’

‘What is he talking about?’ whispered Denise.

‘Shhhh, we have to listen,’ Ruby said.

Clara held up her hand. ‘I am very sorry to interrupt you, Mr Kilbride, but we don’t really understand about Sections and Acts.’

Mary smiled. ‘Look, girls, there is a process that you have to go through. But because of the creative way you went about trying to get our attention and the passion of your letter, we focused more resources on Mr Karim’s case and I am very happy to report that with the help of the Irish Red Cross we have located him.’

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