Boy Overboard Quotes

I’m Manchester United and I’ve got the ball and everything is good. There’s no smoke, or nerve gas, or sand-storms. Which is really good. Bomb wind can really put you off your football skills.

The others are still backing away and looking at me and I realize I have to do something. This person who is putting us all in danger is a member of my family.

[…]

Bibi must have forgotten that girls aren’t allowed to leave the house without a parent. She must have forgotten that females have to keep their face covered at all times out of doors. And it must have slipped her mind that girls playing football is completely, totally and absolutely against the law.

I slump back, weak with despair. Who am I kidding? I didn’t inherit anything from Mom’s ancestors. Bibi got all the desert warrior genes. All I got were Dad’s. The strength, courage, and fierceness of a baker. Pathetic.

“I hate this whole country,” says Bibi after a while. “This country is camel snot.”

I’m shocked.

Nine-year-old kids shouldn’t hate their country. They should love their country and want it to do well in the World Cup and earn the respect of other nations so they’ll stop bombing us.

‘We’ve got to get out of the house,’ he says. ‘Tonight. And we can’t ever come back.’

I feel like a landmine has exploded next to my head. My brain can hardly take in the words.

I wish I could go to the city and get the government out of bed and tell them what they’re doing to our family. How they’ve made my mum cry. How they’ve stopped me from getting lino. But I can’t. I don’t even know where the government lives.

A wonderful thought hits me. We can do it together. We can improve out skills and impress the government and start a national team and win the hearts of Afghans together. When the government sees how talented Bibi is, they’ll change their minds about girls playing football. They’ll have to.

If Mum and Dad are really going to convince that government football official, they need us there too.

We look at each other. And suddenly I know that if Dad can be a desert warrior in the football stadium, so can I.

‘If a person goes somewhere else and becomes a huge football star,’ I say to Yusuf’s grandfather in my imagination, ‘and so does his sister, and they play regularly on TV, and then they come back to Afghanistan with their parents, do you think they’d be popular enough to help form a new government? A kind and fair government that wouldn’t murder anyone?’

I feel like crying too, but instead I reach out and touch my rucksack. I want to check that my football is still packed safely. Just because I’ve never heard of any Australian football teams doesn’t mean there aren’t some good ones. I want to get all the practice I can on the way there, so I’m ready.

I stand frozen, frantically trying to think how to help Dad. The police all have guns. Any sudden movements could be fatal. But I have to do something because if I don’t, Bibi will, and I’d rather have me shot than her.

We’re not protected any more. We’re about to get on a plane and place our lives in the hands of smugglers and our ancestors aren’t protecting us anymore.

As the plane lurches on into the night, I realize this is what we’re going to have to do from now on. With no candlestick to look after us, we’re going to have to look after each other.

I want to go back to Australia. I saw it. Green football pitches and goalposts of solid gold and little stools for one-legged goalies to sit on. Me and Bibi winning the cup final for Dubbo Abattoirs United. I was there. Now I’m here on this deck shivering.

A desert warrior could swim over there and grab the other boat’s anchor chain in his teeth and swim back dragging the other boat behind him. But I’m not a desert warrior. I’m just a kid trying to keep his family in one piece.

And freeze in shock myself. It’s a teenage girl. All she’s wearing is shorts and a T-shirt with a sparkly pattern on the front. Her arms are bare. Her legs are bare. Her hair is completely uncovered and sticking out in all directions. She’s wearing makeup. She’s got black stuff on her eyelashes and her lips are green. I’ve never seen anything like her in my life.

A pirate stops right in front of us, studying the ball as it goes back and forward. I pray he doesn’t know how brilliant females can be at football. I pray he assumes anyone with knee skills like Bibi and Rashida must be male.

A lot of the men down here are looking at her. They can’t believe a female can keep going this long. They don’t understand how she can do it. I know how. Her father’s a baker.

Bibi’s asleep at last. That’s why I’m lying out here on the football pitch. So I don’t disturb her while I try and plan our future. It’s hard to plan quietly when you’re crying. I don’t want to think about the future. I don’t want to think at all. But somebody’s got to do it and Bibi’s only ten.

‘One lot were desert warriors,’ I say. ‘The other lot were bakers.’

‘Which are you?’ says Omar.

I think about this. I think about the things that have happened. My chest fills with grief again, because suddenly I know the answer it makes me miss Mum and Dad so much.

‘I’m a bit of both,’ I say.

Down on the beach I can see Mum and Dad and Bibi walking together at the water’s edge. Even though they’re picking their way through plastic bags and rotting seaweed, they look so happy my chest fills with love and I feel so lucky.

I know this isn’t really Australia, but it feels like Australia to me.