A Beginner's Guide to Acting English Read online

  Most times, the rowing did not last all night; eventually they would all agree that it was the CIA's fault and Baba would say things that made everyone laugh and that was that until the next party.

  It was not just the guests who argued at 11 Marcourt Lawns. Baba told us that all husbands and wives have 'discussions' and that it didn't mean anything serious. But sometimes, Maman and Baba's discussions were so loud that Peyvand and I could hear them even when we went to hide in the rose garden. Sometimes we went to Betty. Betty always tutted and put the radio on in the kitchen then got together delicious things on a tray for us. She'd say things like 'Reminds me of me and Arthur when we were young. I don't have the energy for it now; it's easier just to agree with what he says.'

  The lady downstairs banged her broom on our ceiling whenever we made other noises like laughing or running in the flat, but when Maman and Baba were having discussions, she kept her broom well away from the ceiling and didn't make a sound.

  We had got all dressed up one Sunday to go to Maziar's mum and dad's house. They had a big bed that was filled up with water. It swished and wobbled when you lay on it and I screamed when Peyvand jumped up and down on it. I was so scared it would burst and fill their flat up with water and we'd get into such trouble because we couldn't swim and the carpets would be ruined. The low rumblings of Baba's voice came through from the kitchen before the cheese came flying out. Peyvand and I stayed in our room in case anything hit us. It was like Bedknobs and Broomsticks, but not funny.

  Suddenly Baba shouted so loudly that I actually jumped, feet clear off the floor, and when I landed Peyvand and I held hands and dived under the bed. Eventually Baba came crashing into our room, demanding why we were not ready and Peyvand and I put our shoes on and tried to make our faces look as if we hadn't heard anything. I was better at that than Peyvand, who always looked worried and made Baba ask, 'What? What is that face for?' and Peyvand would stammer something really silly.

  'Baba is like a thunderstorm,' Peyvand said to Maman once, when everything had calmed down. 'He rumbles from a distance for a while then explodes and there is nothing you can do.'

  Maman did not like it when we said things about Baba that weren't very nice, but she didn't get angry. 'Your baba has so much to think about and a lot of it isn't very nice, so sometimes, when he gets angry about silly little things, he's really angry at very big things, things he doesn't want you kids to know.'

  'Like what, Maman?' we asked.

  'Like things that are happening in Iran. Sad things Baba doesn't talk about.'

  'Like people dying?' I asked. People were dying all the time in Iran, really young people, even I knew that from overhearing what the grown-ups said.

  'Now,' Maman said, 'it's things that I don't want you to think about either so no more questions, just go and be nice to your father.'

  Peyvand and I were always nice to Baba. I would rather have known what was really upsetting Baba instead of having to hide under the bed.

  When Ahmad Khorsandi died, Soltan cried and screamed and hit her hands on her chest in grief, as was expected of a widow. He had not been ill, there was no sign of a weak heart before this. He just collapsed and died one day. She wept not just at losing her husband, who, God rest his soul, was a good man despite his terrible temper. She wept because she was left alone with four little children to feed. Ashraf was eight, Hadi was six and Mansoor and Kamal were four and three.

  When Hadi cried for his dead baba, he was told to be a man. 'Men don't cry and you are the man of the house now, you have to look after your mother and your sister and brothers.'

  He was only little, people said, he will not know what he has lost.

  But Hadi knew and he knew that life for a fatherless boy would be a struggle. He missed his father. Soltan had no time for grieving children. She left the boys with Ashraf in the little room they all shared and set about making pennies in the village, sewing suits and helping on farms. All her husband had left her were stacks of papers with poetry written on them. What use were Ahmad's poems to her now? Poems would not feed her children and Soltan couldn't read them anyway so she threw them away and prayed to God, who had, after all, taken away three of her babies already and now her husband; surely it was time he helped her a little.

  After forty days had passed since his death, Soltan had to think very clearly about her sons' future. Her husband wanted, above all else, for his sons to be educated. He had taught Ashraf to read and write already and she was a smart girl who would finish high school before she got married, but he wanted more for his sons. He did not want the boys to remain in the village to become labourers. Soltan's mother and brother lived in Tehran. The three little boys were sent to live with her where they would be educated in Tehran schools and would have a chance to make something of themselves.

  Baba never said much about when he went to live with his grandmother when he was six, all he said was that she was not a nice woman and she hated children. 'What was your school like, Baba?'

  'Well, it was so poor, we had no tables and no chairs or any pencils to write with.'

  'So what did you do in class?'

  'Nothing. The teacher farted and we laughed.'

  Hadi was a quiet boy in school. He wrote well and was very good at sums but he didn't play like the other children. When he arrived in the mornings he was crying softly to himself. He was never sad about a particular thing. 'I just woke up crying,' he explained years later when he was grown. 'I woke in the morning and I'd be crying and it usually stopped by the time I reached the school gates.'

  There were no hugs or kisses for fatherless little boys. His grandmother made sure they were grateful for her hospitality and spanked them when they cried for their mother or dead father.

  When Hadi was ten years old she demanded that he paid his way.

  'You have a job at the bobbin factory. You start at five a.m. and do three hours there before school.'

  He clocked in and clocked out of the factory every morning. He worked on the production line. All the other workers were children, some worked all day. They didn't talk. The children all stared ahead and got on with their work. Some had fingers missing from other kinds of factory work and had ended up here because their hands still worked well enough to put a bobbin together.

  The grandmother kept every penny Hadi made in the factory.

  The uncle, who was a surly man, made strained yoghurt in sacks which he sold to local businesses. When Hadi got home from school, his bicycle was loaded up with sacks of strained yoghurt. He rode around the neighbourhood delivering them to shops and collecting the money. Some of them tried to cheat him. His uncle took all of the money and if Hadi had been cheated, he got punished. Very quickly he realised that because he was small, some of the shopkeepers would bully him so he learned to stand up to them. None of them would be worse that what would await him if he went home without the correct money. Hadi learned not to be cheated. He stood his ground. He learned to rely on only himself and he buried his anger and hurt and frustration deep down inside.

  Only the very rich had televisions and Hadi loved to watch the comedy shows and the only place he could watch them was the café at the end of his street, which had a television set in the corner. The café owner wouldn't let him watch unless he bought something. Hadi drew caricatures of the people inside the cafés. They were good and the customers bought the drawings. Finally he had money in his pocket that he could keep. He used the money to buy hot chocolate and sat in the café watching the comedy shows.

  I can write funnier scripts than these, Hadi thought. When he was fifteen, he submitted his own scripts. Two of his sketches were bought. He wrote more and sold more.

  After finishing his diploma, Hadi got a job on the newspaper. He sat on the steps and waited for the bosses and persuaded them to take him on as an apprentice. Soon he was making enough to move his mother and sister to Tehran and they were all under the same roof again. The uncle had to find another boy to deliver his yoghurts.r />
  PART 2

  MONTPELIER SCHOOL

  Peyvand was nearly seven and I was nearly six. We were going to start a new school. 'Not a nursery this time,' Maman explained, 'a big school with lots and lots of children and you'll stay there all day until I pick you up.'

  At this school we had to wear purple and grey.

  I wore a grey skirt and Peyvand had grey trousers. We both wore the school T-shirt. It was purple with 'Montpelier' written on the front in grown-up writing. We had purple cardigans to keep us warm. We looked great. I had purple and white gingham pumps that didn't have a single scuff on them because they were brand-new. I was going to keep them like that for ever. Peyvand had grown-up shoes, with laces! Maman carefully put my thick black hair into two shiny bunches and tied them with new purple bobbles on either side of my head. Betty came to give us a kiss and a shiny red apple each for our first day. She said we both looked 'spick and span'. That meant perfect.

  It wasn't very far to walk from Marcourt Lawns. Peyvand and I kicked the big piles of wet September leaves and I drank in the smell of autumn, which was definitely my favourite smell after wet earth. It was the smell of damp mud and wet leaves. Luckily my new plimsolls had rubber tips and Maman, grumbling once again about the English and their dogs, was able to wipe away the bit of dog poo I had kicked up with the wet tissues she always kept in her bag.

  We heard the screams and shouts of children before we saw the school itself. There were loads of kids in purple and grey. There were big girls and little girls singing ringaringaroses and clapping their hands together in a way I hadn't seen before and singing other songs I had never heard before: 'Si-ssy my baby, I cannot play with you, because I've got the flu, chicken pox and measles too...'

  The bigger girls played complicated hand-clapping games. I wanted to watch more closely but I didn't want to detach myself from Maman for a second. She was going to leave us alone here and it was much bigger than the Miss Kings' nursery school and I didn't know anyone. Not one person, except for Peyvand.

  We were not going to be in the same class. That was the very first thing I found out when we walked in. 'He's older than you,' Maman bent down and wiped my eyes with a hanky as she gently explained, 'you are going to be in a class with lots of children your own age.'

  'Oh, dear me, tears already?' a very tall English lady boomed as she strode towards us. She had curly yellow hair that grew upwards instead of down. She was old and had big teeth and a big voice. 'I'm Mrs Wybrow, your teacher, and I think we're going to have a lot of jolly good fun.'

  Mrs Eyebrow took my hand and told me to say goodbye to Maman. I wanted to have a jolly lot of fun, but I didn't want Maman and Peyvand to leave me. My new teacher's hands were big and wrinkly and very, very dry. She didn't squeeze my hand too tight like some grown-ups did, like Maziar's mum who squeezed so hard once that I nearly cried. I allowed myself to be led away. Not before I saw Peyvand's new teacher.

  'Peyvand Khorsandi? Aha! You're my missing lad. I'm Mrs Hitchcock and you're going to be in my class.'

  Mrs Hedgehog had red hair and was shorter than my teacher and a bit younger. At first I thought Peyvand had the better teacher but then, as they went off, she suddenly stopped and put her hand out in front of a boy who was running and shouted, 'NO RUNNING IN THE SCHOOL IF YOU PLEASE' really loudly.

  I was glad I was with Mrs Eyebrow, who didn't shout at anyone all the way to the classroom.

  Not having Peyvand next to me sent me into a wild, silent panic in my belly and my chest. What was I meant to do? I didn't even know where they'd taken him. I would never remember the right door. The corridor was very long and there were hundreds of classrooms on either side. I had no idea which one he was in. Peyvand did everything for me; he made up all the games and did all the talking. I tried to talk to my new teacher, to tell her I needed my brother, but when I opened my mouth, my face burned and the only sound that came out was crying. I forgot every English word I'd learned.

  Mrs Eyebrow said 'there there' and told me not to be a silly billy. 'All the other children have only been here a few weeks, you know. You're all in the same boat.'

  I cheered up a little, but it turned out we weren't in a boat at all, we were in a classroom. There was a sandpit there – two sandpits! One with wet sand, one with dry. I'd definitely prefer the wet sand. It stayed stuck together and you could make stuff. The room smelled of plasticine. I spotted trays and trays of it on a shelf. Everywhere I looked there were things to make a mess with. Paints, glitter, tinsel, tissue paper. There was a blackboard too, a proper one like I'd seen in my books at home. This place looked great, but I didn't know any of these other kids running around with purple ribbons in their hair. I missed Yumi like anything.

  I was still sniffling and crying a bit so Mrs Eyebrow kept hold of my hand for a while. She said, 'Okay, everybody, settle down and go to your seats!' Everyone settled down and went to their seats.

  'This is Shaparak, it's her first day and she comes from a different country so we must all be very kind to her and make her feel welcome in the class. Now, who would like to look after Shaparak?'

  Nearly all the girls' hands shot up and a few of the boys'. Looking after a new kid was a privilege at this school, it seemed. Mrs Eyebrow chose my first-ever English friend. 'Hannah Bardrick! You're a nice sensible girl. Shaparak will sit next to you and at playtime . You hold her hand and stay with her.'

  Some of the children tittered when they heard my name. 'That's a funny name,' said one boy called Mark Johanssen-Berg, who had snot running from his nose. He chuckled then wiped his nose with the back of his purple sleeve.

  If Maman and Baba had thought, when we were born, that we might live for a while in Landan, then they would probably have given us Iranian names that English people could say, like Sara and Dara or Layla and Sam. Peyvand and Shaparak was hard for even the teachers to say. My name is SHA- (rhymes with 'far') PA (as the 'pa' in 'pat') and RAK, like in rack, except you'd roll the 'r' slightly if you wanted to get the accent exactly right. It was easy but everyone said 'Shap-er-rack' and it sounded horrible. In Persian my name means 'butterfly' or 'king of the little wings', if you want the exact translation. English people didn't know that though.

  Mr Punch was the first person who had laughed at my name. Maman had taken us to Covent Garden, just before we started at Montpelier. A big group of kids had sat down in front of a Punch and Judy show. I hadn't seen them before and I was so excited I insisted on sitting right at the front. Mr Punch was onstage with his wife Judy, and out of all the kids he started to talk to me! 'Hey, you there!' he called in his funny voice. 'You! The little girl with a pink coat and pigtails! Come up here!'

  I got up and went over to him in his little theatre box. 'What's your name?' he squeaked. I told him my name, delighted to be up there in front of everyone. But then Mr Punch threw his head back and laughed a really mean laugh and kept saying 'Hi, Shaperelle!' All the children laughed with him and my face burned and tears pricked into my eyes. The High Chapparal was a cowboy programme on the TV. Judy tried to stick up for me but Mr Punch started hitting her with his stick. Mr Punch was horrible and I never wanted to see his scary wooden face ever again.

  Later at school I got called Sharkattack because of Jaws and Shakatak like a group on Top of the Pops. When they brought the Mary Rose up from under the sea, everyone called me 'Shipwreck'. Peyvand sometimes got called 'Pavement' or Captain Caveman but not very often.

  I first noticed Rebecca Thompson when Hannah went to the toilet and I was not allowed to go with her, even though she was meant to be looking after me.

  It was wet outside so we were all inside playing games. Rebecca was warming her bum on the radiator. Rebecca had the bluest eyes I'd ever seen and she had long curly brown hair that looked really soft and her skin was very pale, very milky. I went over and pressed my bum against the radiator too. It felt very nice; I could see why Rebecca had spent most of her break here. I smiled at her. She narrowed her eyes and scowled at me.
'I don't like you. Hannah Bardrick is my best friend and Susie Hampton is my second-best friend.'

  Then she tossed her hair back and looked at me, making her eyes even more narrow. I narrowed mine back. We didn't stop glaring at each other until Susie Hampton peeped out of the Wendy house. 'Hello, you're the new girl, Shap-er-ak.' She was friendly and she remembered my name. Hannah kept forgetting it. All she had said to me all morning was 'What was your name again?' I had told her about ten times.

  I liked Susie and asked her if she would play with me, only I didn't know how to say that in English so I made it up. I thought everyone made up English. I opened my mouth and made the same sounds as the other children. English is all 'shshshshsh' and 'aar' and 'ow'.

  'Shoosharaarsh?' I asked. I thought she might like to play with the wet sand with me.

  'What?' Susie Hampton said.

  'Shooaarshoshaarsh?' I repeated. Rebecca giggled and Susie Hampton said, 'I don't understand you.'

  At the Miss Kings' school, everyone had understood my gobbledegook and played with me. Here, Rebecca and Susie just held hands and played without me. I went to the wet sandpit by myself. I sat cross-legged in it and watched big tears splash on to my knees. Even Hannah Bardrick was ignoring me. She had come back from the loo ages ago and hadn't even looked for me. She was playing with Susie and Rebecca. A dinner lady tried to get me to stop crying. She couldn't, so she called for Mrs Wybrow, who arrived wiping sandwich crumbs from her mouth and smelling of the cigarettes and coffee the teachers consumed in the staffroom. There was no consoling me. Peyvand was summoned.