Alias Read Free Page B

and some of our friends stayed too and … it got out of hand.’
    ‘How out of hand?
    ‘Quite. We knew we were dead, so we barricaded ourselves in.’
    ‘Did the police come?’
    ‘In droves.’
    ‘So that’s why you arrived mid-GCSEs.’
    ‘It is.’
    Hugo kissed me and then manoeuvred me towards the stairs, clearly worried his mum would put a curse on me.
    He offered to call a taxi but I only had three quid and didn’t want to ask him for money, so I textedMum, gave her the twins’ address and said I’d be outside – not keen for her to meet Hugo right at that moment.
    Mums have antennae. As soon as I got in the car, she said, ‘I think you’d better tell me what you’ve been up to, Samiya.’
    She didn’t really mean that. No one would want their daughter to describe exactly what they’d been up to.
    ‘I haven’t been up to anything.’
    I got the raised-eyebrow look, so I told her the bare minimum.
    ‘His name’s Hugo. He’s an undernourished albino. We’re close.’
    ‘Invite him round and we’ll feed him up,’ she said.
    I did invite him round, but he only came to the house once – the next Wednesday, which was one of the days Mum worked at the art shop, so she didn’t meet him. He didn’t suggest I go to his again.
    Despite my high hopes for the summer, I spent most of August at home on my own, reading and watching films. Lucy had started going out with Jake – the class comedian – and in no time they were inseparable. I did meet Hugo in Buckingham a few times but he had Juliette in tow, which was a bit annoying, though not unexpected. The twins were Loyal to each other, capital L. And quite happy to be hermits.
    One afternoon, fed up with obsessing over whether Hugo and I were actually a couple, I decamped to thesupermarket to find the ingredients my grandma had used – the goat became chicken – and surprised Mum and Dad with a Yemeni stew. It was the start of a cooking frenzy. I made breads, a biryani-type dish, samosas and green chutney, all from memory. The neighbours, Dad’s footie mates and Mum’s Zumba crowd all benefitted from my reincarnation as chef extraordinaire.
    The day after we got our GCSE results, the twins left for Vancouver. Hugo was silent apart from three Snapchats – his big toe, Juliette coming out of American Eagle with three brown shopping bags and a seagull. I missed him, apart from when I was playing EVE on my new laptop (a reward for my stack of A*s), when I didn’t think about anything at all.
     
    Unlike the rest of us, who were wearing Marks & Spencer’s suits ‘because they’re washable’, Hugo and Juliette turned up on the first day of sixth form looking like models from Vogue . I only saw them briefly because we were put in different forms, but they waited for me after school.
    Hugo kissed me on the lips.
    ‘You’re lucky I’m still here,’ he said. ‘I nearly got packed off to boarding school again for getting so many Bs.’
    ‘He’s promised to work hard,’ said Juliette, with a disbelieving face.
    ‘You’ll help me, won’t you, Samiya?’
    ‘Maybe … if you grovel.’
    Hugo dropped to his knees.
    I stayed with them until their lift came, then headed home, happy, full of the future. My grades were good enough to do whatever I wanted – law, or maybe psychology. I had a boyfriend, of sorts. And since our trip to Yemen, I had a whole other bit of me to think about.
    Dad’s car was outside even though it was only five o’clock. I noticed, but didn’t think anything of it. I let myself in, shouted, ‘I’m home!’ and headed straight for the kitchen as usual.
    ‘In here, Samiya,’ said Mum. Her voice was odd. I walked into the front room, knowing something was up.
    My dad was crying. Proper body-shuddering sobbing. My big, strong dad with the neat moustache never cried.
    Mum was sitting on the sofa next to him, puffy-eyed, her arm round his shoulders. She’d made a mascara river, which she tried to wipe away.
    ‘What is