Hideous Kinky by Esther Freud Page B

next door.’

CHAPTER NINE
    A few days turned into a few more days and Mum borrowed some money from Linda. We went to the market to choose material. A large piece of white cotton. We left Bea to bargain for it while we waited at the next stall.
    ‘How did she learn to speak Arabic like that?’ Linda asked, as Bea haggled over the price.
    Mum and I exchanged vague looks. ‘She just seemed to pick it up.’
    ‘Bea does all the shopping now,’ I told her, ‘because she’s got brown eyes and mine and Mum’s are green.’
    ‘They think she’s a little Moroccan girl,’ Mum explained. ‘We save a lot of money that way.’
    Mum sat at home all that day and into the night sewing a pleated skirt and a white shirt with short sleeves. Ayesha was invited into our room so that Mum could inspect her uniform. She brought her schoolbook with her.
    ‘It must be my turn to look at it now,’ I whined when it seemed to have gone round the room at least twice. Ayesha watched anxiously as we pored over her book. On the front were two children: a boy and a girl. They were holding hands and about to take a step. The girl had a bright yellow dress against a red background and the boy was red on yellow. They both had short black hair. On the first page there were pictures of animals in different coloured squares.
    ‘Wasp, bat, ant, crocodile.’ I held my breath for a scorpion.
    ‘You’re meant to say them in Arabic, stupid.’ Bea started to rattle through the animals. She had a little help from Ayesha. Tortoise, for example. There were pages and pages of animals and objects of every kind. Telephones, syringes, shoes. All in coloured boxes and some of them had black squiggles above.
    ‘What’s this?’ I pointed to the black.
    ‘That’s Arabic writing. That,’ Mum pointed, ‘presumably means snail.’
    ‘Are you going to learn to read in Arabic?’ I asked Bea in amazement.
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘I already know that you have to start from the right of the page.’
    I bowed my head. I wished I knew what side that was.
    ‘Look, there’s a picture of a girl with blonde hair.’ I leafed through for an orange one. ‘Why are all the people dressed in English clothes?’ There was one picture of a boy in a djellaba and a round cap but he was a shepherd and he wasn’t at school. He was on a mountain like Abdul, surrounded by sheep.
    As soon as Bea’s clothes were ready she started school. My heart was swollen with envy and pride and fear for her. Mum, Linda, Mob and I watched her set off, hand in hand with Ayesha, her stiff white clothes standing out around her like wrapping. Even Ayesha’s grandmother gave us a smile as she shook her rugs into the courtyard.
    ‘My nappies,’ Linda suddenly shrieked. ‘My nappies have gone. I hung them out last night. Five nappies and a vest.’
    ‘Here’s the vest,’ I said. It was still hanging on the railing. ‘It’s dry.’
    ‘Maybe they fell into the courtyard,’ Mum suggested.
    Linda was already heading for the stairs.
    ‘They’re not here,’ she bawled up a minute later, drawing several people out on to the landing. ‘Has anyone seen NAPPIES?’ Linda shouted to them. ‘NAPPIES?’ She drew a square in the air with her hands.
    I crouched in the doorway. Icy with embarrassment. The Henna Ladies had come out and were watching from their landing. They waved at me.
    I heaved Mob up in my arms and took her inside as my excuse.
    ‘You don’t mind, do you?’ I looked down into her pale blue eyes. ‘About nappy thieves?’
    Mob and I sat side by side on the mattress that was now my and Bea’s bed and listened to the high-pitched shrieks and bitter explanations as Linda interrogated one after another of the inhabitants of the hotel.
    ‘When we go out can I carry Mob on my back like the girls in the square?’
    Linda was still distracted over her loss.
    ‘You know Khadija? And the beggar girls in the Djemaa El Fna?’
    ‘Yes,’ Linda said.
    ‘Well, they carry their baby