My name is Mehdi, and I live in a housing estate just outside Paris. I’m eight years old, so I’m a big boy now. My dream is to play for the French football team. When will France ever win the World Cup again? I’m always kicking a football around the estate, rain or shine. I play every night after school. My friend Youssouf doesn’t like football – he prefers to watch T.V. with his dad. His favourite character is Goldorak. Come to think of it, ever since his dad lost his job at the factory they watch a lot of T.V. Sometimes he falls asleep in front of the set, so we have to be quiet when we want to go and listen to music in Youssouf’s room. Youssouf’s mum scolds us sometimes. She’s always cooking, Youssouf’s mum; she makes food from the old country, as we say, and you can smell the spices from down the hallway. She doesn’t watch much T.V. apart from The Young and the Restless – that’s that new American show all the mothers watch. I don’t really understand what it’s about, but every time I go to the hairdresser’s I hear them talking about it. I go to the hairdresser’s a lot, because my older sister’s doing an apprenticeship there. Anyway, this American T.V. is giving people around here lots of new ideas for baby names. There are kids called Brandon, Kevin and Alison; something about it just sounds cool and makes you think of America, where everyone lives in big fancy houses and drives their cars with the top down. My mother mostly cooks for Ramadan; she makes pastries with honey and orange blossom. I hate it, because you can see all that food being made during the day but you can’t touch any of it until night time. The rest of the time she doesn’t cook much; she doesn’t like doing it and she always says she’s “too busy, go and look in the fridge!” That’s because my mother is a medical secretary in Paris, and every morning she takes the train for an hour, and the train ride makes her very tired because it’s very busy and she has to stand up the whole way with her high heels on. My mother works late, too, and has to look after three children to boot (even though my sister’s almost grown up, and she'll be moving out once she finishes her apprenticeship). I’ve never known my father; he stayed behind in the old country. Mother says he was very handsome, and very intelligent. I don’t like him, though, because he never comes to see us, so I never reply to his letters.
Youssouf found the wreck of this old car where you can sit and pretend like you’re an F1 driver. Yesterday we sniffed some Cleopatra glue as we ate our biscuits on the back seat. We tried to open the boot, but Youssouf’s brother was walking by with his gang and he told us off. He said you should never force open the boot of any car on the estate, even if it was a wreck – you never know what you might find. Might be dangerous; might bring trouble. I wanted to ask him why, but he said I’d understand when I was older. That’s what I hate about being eight: everyone always says you’ll understand when you’re older. I want to understand now! Youssouf doesn’t care; he never asks questions. Youssouf is the silent type; you never know what he’s thinking, but he’s my friend. When I struggle with my homework, he offers to help me. He’s very good at maths – he can add up faster than a calculator! I call him the Goldorak of maths, and he likes that. But tonight I don’t want to do my homework, and maths can wait. I don’t want to because my mother called to say she’d be home very late, because she had accounts to go over and her boss said she had to have them ready for tomorrow. And even though I know she’ll come back and give me a kiss on the forehead to say goodnight, when mum isn’t here it always makes me feel a little sad.
Alan Alfredo Geday
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