‘Two can play at that game,’ he says. And before your mind can even really process what’s happening – and without any attempt to help save his petrol-soaked friend on the floor – he leaps for the door, reaches back inside, and holds his lighter up to the orange curtain over the window.
Woomph. The curtain bursts into flame. The petrol-soaked man gives an enraged yell and throws himself at the door too, but he doesn’t make it – now he is a screaming tornado of flame.
The rest of the room is alight within milliseconds, and you are swallowed by the flames.
To return to your last choice and try again, go to scene 10.
You sigh. You’ve narrowly escaped from al-Shabaab twice now. To go back and try your luck a third time would be madness. Maybe they’ll overlook the letter. It’s just a piece of paper on the ground. It’ll still be there in the morning.
While you hold Jamilah’s hand and walk to the ruined theatre by the sea, you entertain a brief fantasy: you will go back tomorrow; the house will be untouched; and you will call Aadan and he will say, Please, call me uncle! and immediately send you two tickets to Australia.
The little hovel in the ruin is deserted. You wonder what happened to the lime lady. You show Jamilah to the hole in the floor where you hid with Zayd and Rahama, and you huddle there together silently in the dusty dark. Then waves of sleep crash and recede as you lie there, exhausted and on guard, half-awake the whole night.
Fragments of plans drift through your brain. If you can’t contact Aadan, you could hide here in the ruin until al-Shabaab stops looking for you. How long would that take? Would your few weeks’ worth of money get you through? What would happen if they did find you? If they found Jamilah …
Or you could go to the countryside, where you might find some people of the same clan as you who would take you in. But the whole country is in the grip of a fierce drought, so there won’t be much spare food to go round. Besides, al-Shabaab controls a lot of the countryside – so the chances of you being caught there are even higher.
Or you could try to get across the border, into Ethiopia or Kenya. It wouldn’t be easy, and you’d have to spend almost all your money getting there – and al-Shabaab does have a presence there too – but at least those countries are at peace.
When dawn comes, it’s a relief to be released from the endless circling of your thoughts, and instead to begin to take action. The lime lady left behind a little kettle of water, and you and Jamilah use it to wash, then you kneel on cardboard boxes for your morning prayer.
Your prayer mat at home belonged to your father. It has three worn patches in the places where he pressed his forehead and knees, five times every day, till the day he died. If it’s still there when you go home, it will be the one sentimental treasure you will bring with you on your journey. You make Jamilah wait in the ruins while you slip back towards your place.
You hear the yelling before you can see the source. It’s the deep, booming voice of Mr Jabril, the grocery shop owner and your landlord.
‘Why me?’ he is wailing. ‘All my savings, my family’s livelihood, gone!’
The word ‘gone’ hits your chest like a stone. Please no, please no…
You come into sight of the place you used to live: it’s now a smoking, charred wreck. Neighbours’ houses and shops are damaged too, and the neighbours stand in the street, pointing fingers, laying blame for the damage and haggling over who will pay. An AMISOM guard walks by, looking over the commotion.
‘It must have been your tenants! They should pay!’ cries the hairdresser from across the road.
‘They probably died in the fire,’ sobs Mr Jabril. ‘Those poor children …’ He shakes his head helplessly.
You think about running to him. But you don’t want a dozen angry neighbours turning on you. If you get the blame for this fire, you might have to give them all the money in your pocket just to appease them and get away.
That’s it, then – your lifeline to Australia is gone. So is your prayer mat, Jamilah’s teddy – everything. Your only hope now is that there might be some information on the pen, or even just on the internet, that will help you track Aadan down. But for that, you’ll need a computer.
By the time you get back to the ruin, you’ve decided: you’re going to spend the money trying to get to Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. Kenya’s the closest country to Mogadishu, and you’ve heard hundreds of Somalis cross the border every year, escaping the war and the famine.
You take Jamilah’s hand and look around the little hide-out. On impulse, you pick up a stick and scratch your initials into the dirt – you don’t want to leave your home town without somehow saying I was here – but then you think better of it and rub out every trace. Instead, you just write the word ‘goodbye’. Then you wrap your arm around Jamilah’s shoulders and begin the walk to the marketplace.
BY ASKING A few questions in the marketplace, you find out that there is one man, a carpet-seller, who also does business in Kenya. You see a truck being loaded up with carpets, and you guess that the man in the blue shirt who seems to be giving the orders is the owner. You don’t know how to go about asking this man if he’ll do something illegal – take you and Jamilah across the border.
Eventually, you approach him and ask: ‘Will you take a package to Kenya for me?’
‘How big is this package?’ he
