Huda Was Here - Softcover

Hayek, H

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1761068431 ISBN 13: 9781761068430

Publisher: Allen & Unwin Children's Books, 2023

Synopsis

Huda hatches a bold plan to help her dad get a job - which lands her and her brother in all kinds of trouble. A delightful and hilarious story from a CBCA award-winning author, about a lion-hearted girl who just wants the best for her family.

Huda yawns loudly and stretches out her arms. Almost like she's bored in science class and waiting for the bell to go for lunch. Except we're not at school, we're in police custody. Because of her stupid idea.

When her dad loses his job as a security officer and has to work interstate, Huda convinces her brother Akeal to sneak out at night to make mischief, hoping to force their dad's bosses to hire him back.

As their misdeeds escalate, will the daring duo be able to outsmart the authorities? How much are they willing to risk for family unity - and what else might they uncover along the way?

A thoroughly entertaining story full of hijinks, courage and hilarity.

Praise for the CBCA shortlisted Huda and Me:

'An irresistible invitation to young readers to embrace a story that is wonderfully fresh.' RANDA ABDEL-FATTAH, author, The Lines We Cross

'Sparkling with mischief, adventure and family love, Huda and Me is a gem of a story.' KIRSTY MURRAY, author, Eat the Sky, Drink the Ocean

About this title

About the Author

H. Hayek is the second-youngest of seven children, born to Lebanese-Australian parents. She was born in Adelaide, grew up in Perth and now lives in Melbourne. She struggled with reading and writing through her earliest years at school, but knew from the time she was a little girl that she wanted to work with words. After completing a degree in Mass Communication (Journalism & Public Relations) she went on to graduate with a degree in Teaching. She has worked as a primary school teacher in Melbourne's west and as a journalist. But above all, writing stories involving unique kids, with unique backgrounds, has been her passion. H. Hayek enjoys exploring themes of identity - what it means to be Australian, Muslim, and Lebanese. She also enjoys being a little bit mischievous.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Prologue
COP SHOP

 

I told her this would happen. I told her we’d get caught and arrested. But she didn’t listen. Now we’re stuck here. At the police station. The officer at the door blocks the exit with his hulk-like body. I see his bulgy eyelids flutter and then his head flop. It looks like he’s about to fall asleep.
   I turn to Huda and open my mouth to speak, but she puts her finger to her lips to shush me. Then she points at a security camera on the ceiling. It has a little blue light that blinks at me and I think I see the camera move. I imagine detectives sitting in the other room in front of a big screen, zooming in on our dirty, tired faces. I wonder if they’re eating donuts with pink icing, like in the movies.
   Huda yawns loudly and stretches out her arms. Almost like she’s bored in science class and waiting for the bell to go for lunch. Except we’re not at school, we’re in police custody. Because of her stupid idea.
   ‘Relax, brother. It’s going to be fine,’ she whispers as she leans over and scrunches herself into a ball like a baby armadillo.
   My little sister’s black puffer jacket makes her look like she’s made of marshmallow. I’m not sure if Huda is going to sleep or wants to block out everything that’s happening. But I know we have to get out of here, before it gets any worse and before our parents find out we’re missing. It’s so cold we might as well be sitting in the coolroom of Uncle Ahmed’s shop.
   I glance towards the officer again and this time his eyes are fully closed. His body fills the entire frame of the door and I know there’s no escape. I rest my arms on the long table in front of us and take a moment to soak in the details of the room. This isn’t what I pictured a police station looking like. I imagined we’d be thrown into a little cell with a metal toilet and only a few pieces of one-ply toilet paper. Not like the soft stuff we have at home. I also imagined prison to have a tiny window above my bed, that I’d be too short to see out of. There’d be a little, raggedy pigeon that would visit me every morning and I’d reach up and feed him leftover breadcrumbs. Instead, this room has a glass teddy-bear jar on the table filled with Tim Tams. Over to our left is a sink with coffee cups hanging from little gold hooks. Beside that is a plate with a half-eaten sponge cake on it with the three half words:
   Happ
   Birt
   Fran
   I glance over at Huda and notice she’s staring at the cake too. She licks her lips and points to her mouth.
   I shake my head.
   Then she squeezes her eyes shut and presses two fingers together up near her face, in a way to say, Just a little bit?
   I ignore her and glance over again to the police officer. But this time his eyes are wide open.
   ‘Either of you got any food allergies?’ he grunts.
   My eyes shift around the room and my neck goes stiff. I’m not sure what he means, so I don’t answer.
   ‘I said, you got any allergies?’
   Huda elbows me in the ribs.
   ‘Allergies?’ I mutter.
   The guard nods.
   ‘Pork,’ I stammer.
   Huda snorts and tries to muffle her laugh.
   The guard narrows his eyes and tilts his head to the side.
   ‘You’re allergic to pork?’
   From the corner of my eye, I can see Huda shaking her head.
   ‘No, I mean we can’t eat pork.’
   He scratches his bald head and waves his hand towards the cake near the sink.
   ‘Right, well, you can help yourself to some of my birthday cake, if you like,’ the officer grumbles, but what he’s saying is nice and this confuses me. I glance down at his name tag. Franklin. He doesn’t look like a Franklin. He takes a gigantic step towards us and I notice a small metal sign on the door where his big head just was. TEAROOM.
   ‘I’m fifty-three today.’ Franklin puffs out his chest, but then he realises something and looks at his watch. ‘
   Well, yesterday. It’s after midnight now.’
   My sister grunts and then pushes out her chair so it makes a loud scraping sound on the tiles. She stretches her arms above her head and then slowly gets up and walks over to the cake.
   ‘Yeh, well, that’s because you have us locked up in here. You could go home and have a little party if you let us go. Happy birthday, by the way,’ she says as she grabs a plastic knife from next to the cake.
   My throat goes dry.
   My eyes dart between her and Franklin. I can tell Franklin doesn’t know what to say from the way his eyebrows sit at the top of his forehead and his bottom lip juts out. He watches as Huda carefully serves two big slices of creamy jam sponge cake onto paper plates. She walks them over to the table and plonks one down in front of me, then shoves a plastic fork into it.
   ‘Frank, you don’t have to watch us. We’re not going to try and run off again. Go have a break. You look tired.’
   Franklin’s eyebrows are still sitting at the top of his forehead, but he takes a breath and I see them slowly float down to just above his eyes as he exhales.
   ‘Listen, kids. I explained it to you earlier. We can’t let you go without knowing what’s happened and who you are.’
   Huda shoves a big mouthful of creamy cake into her gob.
   ‘And we told you earlier that we ain’t talking,’ she says between swallows. Blobs of cream sit on both corners of her lips. I wonder why she didn’t speak and then shove the cake in.
   ‘I’m not here to lock you up or keep you from home.’
   ‘Well, it certainly looks like that, Frank.’ She stops eating and stares at him with her gigantic black eyes.
   I glare at my sister, trying to make her stop talking. She ignores me, stands up and rolls her shoulders. Then she strolls over to the other side of the table and stares up at Franklin. Huda might be two years younger than me, but I don’t know any other nine-year-old who would go face to face with a cop.
   ‘We haven’t done anything. We’re innocent.’ She pokes his big gut with her pointy finger.
   My hand leaps to my mouth. I can’t believe she just did that. Franklin can’t believe she just did that either. I can tell because his head seems to inflate like a balloon and his face changes from white to grey to red in about three seconds. He takes a step towards my sister, but Huda doesn’t take a step back. Instead she lifts her chin so she can keep looking up at him, right in the eye.
   ‘Yeh, what are you going to do – chuck us in jail?’ Huda chuckles at her own joke and this makes the guard’s big balloon head bobble from side to side like it’s about to pop. But she doesn’t stop.
   ‘We ain’t talking and you’ll never find out our names, so go and eat some donuts at your little desk.’ I’m surprised Huda imagined him eating donuts, too.
   ‘We found you near a crime scene late at night. We have evidence connecting you to more than one crime in the area. It’s in your best interests to speak to us. We’re trying to help you.’ Franklin almost sounds like he’s pleading with us.
   ‘Sure you are, Frank. Locking up a couple of small kids...’
   ‘I explained it to you earlier. If we don’t figure out who you are, you’ll need to be taken by Child Protection to another home.’ I see a bit of white spit fly from his mouth and onto my sister’s head. Huda wipes it off dramatically.
   Another home. My heart almost stops.
   Franklin turns to me.
   ‘You gotta tell us something, kid. So we can send you back to your family.’
   I’m not sure whether his monobrow or his moustache is thicker because they look exactly the same, just on different halves of his head. I think my teacher would say the right word is hemispheres – I guess his big head is kind of similar to a planet.
   ‘You understand what I’m trying to tell you, right?’ he says, leaning forward.
   Franklin pauses, waiting for one of us to say something. We don’t need to answer, because we already know.
   He sighs and shakes his head.
   ‘I’m afraid time is up. I’ll give you ten minutes to make your choice.’
   Franklin slowly strolls to the door and stands slightly outside of it, his back to us.
   Huda doesn’t move, she just watches the space in front of her – frozen.
   Finally, she blinks three times and shuffles back to the seat next to me, gripping the table. Her eyes are darker and more tired than I’ve ever seen them.
   She knows what I’m going to say before I even say it.
   When I open my mouth, she winces. ‘We don’t have a choice, Huda,’ I whisper.

Edition details

• Publisher: Allen & Unwin Children's Books
• Publication date: 2023
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1761068431
• ISBN 13: 9781761068430
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288