Little Bee

“What yu scared of, Bug? Maybe dey jus leave us be. Unless yu plannin on callin dem names too, like you done dat taxi man?”

I smiled and shook my head.

“Well all right den. Don be fraid. Me come wid yu, any road. Keep a check on dem monkey manners you got.”

Yevette turned to the girl with the documents.

“What bout you, lil miss no-name? You commin wid?”

The girl looked back at the detention center.

“Why they didn’t give us more help? Why they didn’t send our caseworkers to meet us?”

“Well, cos dey did not elect to do dat, darlin. So what yu gonna do? Yu gonna go back in dere, ask em fo a car, an a boyfren, an mebbe some nice jool-rie?”

The girl shook her head. Yevette smiled.

“Bless yu, darlin. An now fo yu, Sari Girl. Me gonna make dis easy fo yu. Yu comin wid us, darlin. If yu agree, say nuthin.”

The girl with the sari blinked at her, and tilted her head to one side.

“Good. We all in, Lil Bug. We all walking out of dis place.”

Yevette turned toward me but I was still watching the girl. The wind blew at her yellow sari and I saw there was a scar across her throat, right across it, thick like your little finger. It was white as a bone against her dark skin. It was knotted and curled around her windpipe, like it did not want to let go. Like it thought it still had a chance of finishing her off. She saw me looking and she hid the scar with her hand, so I looked at her hand. There were scars on that too. We have our agreement about scars, I know, but this time I looked away because sometimes you can see too much beauty.

We walked through the gates and down the tarmac road to the bottom of the hill. Yevette went first and I was second and the other two went behind me. I looked down at Yevette’s heels all the way. I did not look left or right. My heart was pounding when we reached the bottom of the hill. The rumbling noise of the tractor grew louder until it drowned out the sound of Yevette’s flip-flops. When the tractor noise grew quieter behind us I breathed more easily again. It is okay, I thought. We have passed them, and of course there wasn’t any trouble. How foolish I was to be scared. Then the tractor noise stopped. Somewhere nearby a bird sang, in the sudden silence.

“Wait,” said a man’s voice.

I whispered to Yevette, Keep walking.

“WAIT!”

Yevette stopped. I tried to go past her but she held on to my arm.

“Be sirrius, darlin. Where yu gonna run to?”

I stopped. I was so scared, I was struggling to breathe. The other girls looked the same. The girl with no name, she whispered in my ear again.

“Please. Let us turn around and go back up the hill. These people do not like us, can’t you see?”

The tractor man got down from his cab. The other man, the one who was tying up the gates, he came and joined the first man. They stood in the road, between us and the detention center. The tractor driver was wearing a green jacket and a cap. He stood with his hands in his pockets. The man who had been tying the gates-the man in the blue overalls-he was very big. The tractor driver only came up to his chest. He was so tall that the trousers of his overalls ended higher than his socks, and he was very fat too. There was a wide pink roll of fat under his neck, and the fat bulged out in the gaps between the bottom of his overalls and the top of his socks. He was wearing a woolen hat pulled down tight. He took a packet of tobacco out of his pocket, and he made a cigarette without taking his eyes off us girls. He had not shaved, and his nose was swollen and red. His eyes were red too. He lit his cigarette, and blew out the smoke, and spat on the ground. When he spoke, his fat wobbled.

“You escaped, ave you, my children?”

The tractor driver laughed.

“Don’t mind Small Albert,” he said.

We girls looked at the ground. Me and Yevette, we were in front, and the girl with the yellow sari and the girl with no name stood behind us. The girl with no name, she whispered in my ear.

“Please. Let us turn around and go. These people will not help us, can’t you see?”

“They cannot hurt us. We are in England now. It is not like it was where we came from.”

“Please, let’s just go.”

I watched her hopping from one foot to the other foot in her Dunlop Green Flash trainers. I did not know whether to run or to stay.

“But ave you?” said the tall fat man. “Escaped?”

I shook my head.

“No mister. We have been released. We are official refugees.”

“You got proof of that, I suppose?”

“Our papers are held by our caseworkers,” said the girl with no name.

The tall fat man looked all around us. He looked up and down the road. He stretched up to look over the hedge into the next field.

“I don’t see no caseworkers,” he said.

“Call them if you do not believe us,” said the girl with no name. “Call the Border and Immigration Agency. Tell them to check their files. They will tell you we are legal.”

She looked in her plastic bag full of documents until she found the paper she wanted.