Dad also sectioned off another bit of the garden for Mum to plant her rose bushes. She loved roses and had a bush in every colour. However, the roses suffered from Asif’s football practice. Time and again, Mum would scold him for kicking his ball in their direction, but by the end of the summer there were more rose heads on the grass than on the bushes.
‘Goal!’ He’d chant in jubilation as yet another flower fell to its death, and Mum would mutter in Urdu that she was going to strangle him.
One evening, I was looking out the back window when I saw Saeed and Tariq sneaking off down the garden to Dad’s shed. It was still early but the summer was drawing to an end and the evening light was beginning to fade to a wash of inky blue. They looked stiff, awkward and suspicious, whispering to one another as they crept along. I slipped out of the back door and followed them, careful not to make a noise. By now they’d faded into the dusk, but I could still make out their shadows as the shed door creaked open and they disappeared inside. I was puzzled. Why didn’t they turn on the light?
‘How on earth can they see in there?’ I wondered as I tiptoed closer.
As I neared the shed, I spotted something through the window at the side. At first I thought I was seeing things, but as I drew closer I saw it again – the small amber glow of a cigarette end. It burned brightly as my brothers took turns sucking the end of the cigarette and tried to breathe in as much smoke as they could without coughing. This was serious. Smoking was strictly forbidden. Saeed was still only thirteen and Tariq was eleven. If Dad caught them, all hell would let loose.
I was too scared to confront them but I kept watch, and every night, just before bedtime, I saw them nip down to the bottom of the garden for their evening fag. I think they must have stolen some packs of cigarettes from the shop before we left because I can’t imagine where else they would have got them.
A few nights later I crept down towards the shed after them, but this time I couldn’t see a glowing light. I ducked beneath the shed window and rose up on my tiptoes just enough so that I could peer through the glass but there was nothing, only darkness. Suddenly I felt a jab in the ribs. It was Tariq.
‘What are you doing here?’ He’d meant to whisper but it came out so loud it made me jump out of my skin.
I spun around to see him standing next to Saeed.
‘I know everything,’ I told them. ‘I know what you’ve been up to – that you’ve both been smoking in Dad’s shed. I’ve seen you!’
Saeed’s voice was unusually soft and kind, but he gripped my arm tightly. ‘You mustn’t tell anyone, OK?’
I looked from Saeed to Tariq and thought of what Tariq might do to me if I told. I had no choice. I wouldn’t utter a word about this to anyone.
‘I won’t,’ I said. ‘Promise.’
‘Good,’ Saeed nodded. My arm throbbed where he’d held it. ‘Now get back inside the house before Mum notices you’re missing.’
I never told a soul about my brothers smoking in the shed. I kept it to myself, a little secret between us, and that’s how I learned that this was something I could do well. I was good at keeping secrets.
I missed Suki dreadfully at first, even though Mum arranged special play dates. Suki and her mother came to visit us at the new house several times, just to help me settle in, but the rest of the time I felt so lonely. My brothers had each other, but here, living on a main road, there were no other little girls to play with and I had no one to call on when I was feeling bored. At first I cried for my old friend almost every day but once I started my new school and made new friends things became easier.
After a few months I realised living here had some benefits. For a start, I had my own room and didn’t have to share a bedroom with my parents any more. My room was on the first floor at the front of the house, with a window looking out onto the busy road outside. If I craned my neck far enough I could almost see down the entire street in either direction. It was long and ruler-straight, with houses dotted along each side, then it came to an abrupt stop on our side of the road, where there was a petrol station at the end.
I loved having my own room, but there was one thing that I didn’t like and that was the wallpaper. It was a horrible brown colour with a repeating pattern of a house with a boat alongside. Soon after we moved in my brothers told me a story about that wallpaper and managed to convince me there was something evil hiding inside it.
‘There’s a little witch who lives in that house and when you’re asleep at night she comes out to look for you,’ Asif told me.
‘No, there isn’t,’ I replied.
But Asif was adamant. He was usually nice to me so I trusted him in a way I didn’t trust the others.
‘Yes, there is. See the little boat?’ I turned my head to look at it. ‘The witch gets into that little boat and sails away from the house at night and then she comes out of the wallpaper when you’re asleep to get you!’
I tried not to, but I believed every word he said. I glanced nervously at the wallpaper and then back at Asif, who nodded his head grimly in confirmation.
At that moment Tariq passed my bedroom door and heard us talking. Asif beckoned him in.
‘It’s true about the witch in the wallpaper, isn’t it?’ he asked Tariq.
At first he looked a bit confused, but then he realised what Asif was up to and joined in. ‘It’s true. She wants to steal a little girl and take her back to the house where she’ll hold you down and kill you!’
After that, I found it hard to sleep in my new bedroom. I’d waited all these years to get one, and now that I had I could barely sleep a wink. The wallpaper pattern swam in my thoughts whenever I closed my eyes and huddled beneath the covers in my bed. A seed had been planted in my mind and I couldn’t stop it from growing into a new fear. Part of me knew it was silly but the other part was convinced that something evil was hiding inside that wallpaper.
I’d pull the covers over my head and pray that this wouldn’t be the night when the witch came for me, captured me and took me back to her little house. All I wanted to do was run to the safety of Mum and Dad’s big warm bed but they wouldn’t let me. Some nights I lay awake the entire time watching the little house for signs of movement. My eyes focused on the tiny windows and sometimes I was convinced I could see something move inside. I held my breath, watching and waiting, and by morning I was exhausted through lack of sleep. First the wolf and now the witch – I hated this new house.
I begged Mum and Dad, over and over again, to redecorate my bedroom but I didn’t dare tell them about the witch in the wallpaper in case they laughed at me.
‘But you have the best room in the house!’ my father protested. ‘The wallpaper is brand new. There’s a lot more to be done in the other rooms before we tackle your bedroom.’
Asif heard my pleas, glanced up from his bowl of cornflakes and smirked. I shot him an icy stare. It was all his fault that I couldn’t sleep at night.
For almost four months I begged my parents to change the wallpaper in my room. Eventually they buckled and the day came to strip the dreaded pattern from the walls.
‘Goodbye, witch,’ I whispered, as I helped Dad rip the horrid brown paper off with a scraper. I couldn’t get rid of it fast enough.
‘You’re a good little worker,’ he nodded approvingly.
Dad erected a pasting table in the centre of the room and uncurled a length of wallpaper with a pink rosebud pattern. It was both pretty and girly, but then, after the witch wallpaper, anything would have done.
‘Better?’ he asked, looking up at me for approval before he applied the first splodge of wallpaper paste.
‘Much