she wouldn’t worry so much. He could talk to Tariq about stuff that his friends wouldn’t care about. They were probably all going to stay in Rochdale their whole lives, but Khalid wanted to see the world. He didn’t want to end up like his dad, working hard for someone else all his life. Khalid was always telling his dad to set up a restaurant of his own, but he wouldn’t listen.
“There’s nothing I haven’t seen,” Tariq writes in his e-mails to Khalid. “I’ve been to Turkey, to Medina, seen the first mosque at al-Quba. You wouldn’t believe how green the dome is.”
Khalid tries to imagine a green that’s brighter and greener than any other green, but he can’t. Green is just another color to him.
Tariq tells him about the sacred places of Islam, especially Medina, where the Prophet Muhammad is buried. But they are places Khalid finds it hard to care about. His curiosity sometimes closes down when he reaches these bits of Tariq’s e-mails. The places that interest Khalid are cold and isolated, like remote parts of Iceland and the Arctic. Countries with few people and loads of floating icebergs would suit him. He hates being hot. Greenland, for example, he’d love to go there.
Plus he hates being preached to. It annoys him because it makes him feel he’s back in school, not at home chatting to his cousin. Tariq’s only two years older than him, yet sometimes he treats him like a little kid. For a start, Khalid doesn’t know where any of these places are. He’s only been to Pakistan once, and that was eleven years ago, to see Uncle, his mother’s brother, who moved there from Turkey. He hadn’t met Tariq, who was staying with his grandmother at the time. All Khalid could remember was the heat and the dusty roads, plus the curved gold sword on the wall in Uncle’s living room. It’s not much of a memory.
He’s never been to Karachi to visit Dad’s sisters. But he imagines it to be just as boring as the small town near Lahore where Tariq and his family still live.
The bits of Tariq’s e-mails that really interest Khalid are about computer games, and now that Tariq has invented a game of his own, Khalid can’t get enough of their online sessions.
“Khalid’s actually touch-typing now. You should see him,” Dad boasts to anyone who’ll listen. Mostly, that person is Mac, their Scottish neighbor from number 11, with daughters the same age as Khalid’s sisters. “He types faster than the wind.” Mac pats Khalid on the head whenever he pops round, which makes everyone laugh. Then Dad and Mac wander outside to talk about petrol gauges, drive shafts, tuning, or something else that the rest of them don’t care about.
Mum hurries Aadab and Gul to get in the bath and the kitchen falls silent. Always the best time of day for Khalid.
The barrage of words from Tariq begins the moment the kitchen door closes and Khalid is at last alone in front of the computer, which takes up all the space on the smaller corner table.
“Hi, cuz,” the e-mail starts. “I haven’t had time to look at Rochdale Football Club’s results for Saturday. How did they do?”
“It was a draw—a bit of a tough game,” Khalid fills him in.
“Which means they have to win the next match or they’ll be in danger of being relegated, yeah?” Tariq types.
“Looks that way.” Khalid sighs as he waits for Tariq’s response.
“What a shame for Rochdale. The only real lesson I learned today is that no matter how much you learn there is always more to find out. Reading many books has shown me how little I know about anything! And I thought that match was going to be a sure-fire thing. For something happy I will tell you what I have been doing today . . .”
Khalid rushes through the news about Tariq’s Arabic lessons. Scrolling quickly down the page to the bit he wants. Leaning forward, elbows on the table, to grab every detail.
From the very first sentence, “Latest game news,” Khalid hangs on every word of
“There’s nothing I haven’t seen,” Tariq writes in his e-mails to Khalid. “I’ve been to Turkey, to Medina, seen the first mosque at al-Quba. You wouldn’t believe how green the dome is.”
Khalid tries to imagine a green that’s brighter and greener than any other green, but he can’t. Green is just another color to him.
Tariq tells him about the sacred places of Islam, especially Medina, where the Prophet Muhammad is buried. But they are places Khalid finds it hard to care about. His curiosity sometimes closes down when he reaches these bits of Tariq’s e-mails. The places that interest Khalid are cold and isolated, like remote parts of Iceland and the Arctic. Countries with few people and loads of floating icebergs would suit him. He hates being hot. Greenland, for example, he’d love to go there.
Plus he hates being preached to. It annoys him because it makes him feel he’s back in school, not at home chatting to his cousin. Tariq’s only two years older than him, yet sometimes he treats him like a little kid. For a start, Khalid doesn’t know where any of these places are. He’s only been to Pakistan once, and that was eleven years ago, to see Uncle, his mother’s brother, who moved there from Turkey. He hadn’t met Tariq, who was staying with his grandmother at the time. All Khalid could remember was the heat and the dusty roads, plus the curved gold sword on the wall in Uncle’s living room. It’s not much of a memory.
He’s never been to Karachi to visit Dad’s sisters. But he imagines it to be just as boring as the small town near Lahore where Tariq and his family still live.
The bits of Tariq’s e-mails that really interest Khalid are about computer games, and now that Tariq has invented a game of his own, Khalid can’t get enough of their online sessions.
“Khalid’s actually touch-typing now. You should see him,” Dad boasts to anyone who’ll listen. Mostly, that person is Mac, their Scottish neighbor from number 11, with daughters the same age as Khalid’s sisters. “He types faster than the wind.” Mac pats Khalid on the head whenever he pops round, which makes everyone laugh. Then Dad and Mac wander outside to talk about petrol gauges, drive shafts, tuning, or something else that the rest of them don’t care about.
Mum hurries Aadab and Gul to get in the bath and the kitchen falls silent. Always the best time of day for Khalid.
The barrage of words from Tariq begins the moment the kitchen door closes and Khalid is at last alone in front of the computer, which takes up all the space on the smaller corner table.
“Hi, cuz,” the e-mail starts. “I haven’t had time to look at Rochdale Football Club’s results for Saturday. How did they do?”
“It was a draw—a bit of a tough game,” Khalid fills him in.
“Which means they have to win the next match or they’ll be in danger of being relegated, yeah?” Tariq types.
“Looks that way.” Khalid sighs as he waits for Tariq’s response.
“What a shame for Rochdale. The only real lesson I learned today is that no matter how much you learn there is always more to find out. Reading many books has shown me how little I know about anything! And I thought that match was going to be a sure-fire thing. For something happy I will tell you what I have been doing today . . .”
Khalid rushes through the news about Tariq’s Arabic lessons. Scrolling quickly down the page to the bit he wants. Leaning forward, elbows on the table, to grab every detail.
From the very first sentence, “Latest game news,” Khalid hangs on every word of
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