‘What do you think you’re doing, hanging around with my daughter?’ she spat. ‘Do you know she’s only twelve years old?’
I thought I might die on the spot, and I could feel the blood rush to my cheeks as I waited for Amir’s reaction.
‘Who, Sarah?’ he smirked. ‘What are you talking about? She’s fifteen.’
‘You’re sick, you are!’ Mum said, shaking her head. ‘Anyone can see she’s just a kid.’
Mum screamed abuse at Amir and Rahim for a few minutes, but they both laughed in her face. Dejected, she finally let Amir go. She ordered me to come home with her but I stayed rooted to the spot, refusing to move. I could see the tears in her eyes as she shook her head at me and began to walk off. I think she assumed I would follow her. I didn’t.
‘That’s not my mum,’ I told Amir. ‘What a fucking psycho. I’ve never seen her before in my life.’
‘She’s mental,’ Amir said. He was still laughing. ‘I thought she was going to fucking strangle me.’
‘I can’t believe she’s going about telling people I’m twelve,’ I went on. ‘What a weirdo.’
Amir and Rahim knew I was lying but it suited everyone to keep pretending I was fifteen, so that’s what we did.
Nadine and I had already run away from home a few times when Amir and Rahim suggested they come with us. I was pissed off at Mum because she’d given me another lecture about my drinking. We decided to camp out behind the Aldi supermarket, less than a mile from Ferham. We were having a great laugh, taking drugs and drinking cider, when Nadine and the guys had an idea.
‘I bet my mum has called the police,’ Nadine said. ‘We should pretend we’ve been kidnapped and ask them for ransom money.’
At first I thought she was joking, but Amir and Rahim were getting onboard with the plan and suddenly it was all happening. Now, I’m deeply ashamed that we put our parents through such trauma, but at the time it seemed like the best idea ever. We were swept up in the moment, high on drugs and drunk on cider. What could go wrong? It was just a laugh, wasn’t it? So Amir phoned both our families and demanded they pay £12,000 if they wanted to see us alive again. Nadine and I got so caught up in the drama that we were screaming in the background for effect. I’d even started spending the ransom money in my head, forgetting that Mum would never have that kind of cash going spare. Except, while other girls my age might have fantasised about buying lots of clothes and make-up, I was thinking of splashing out on loads of expensive drugs and having a huge party with dozens of taxi drivers in their thirties.
At twelve.
Poor Mum genuinely thought my life was in danger. Amir told her he’d kill us on the spot if she called the police, so she organised a huge search party of her own. Loads of her friends were trawling South Yorkshire in their cars, desperate for some clues as to where we might be. We eventually walked home a few nights later because we’d got fed up of sleeping rough. Mum looked even worse than she had done all the other times I’d run away. She hadn’t slept in days and her eyes were red and blotchy from crying. Now, I feel terrible, but back then I was just glad she had no energy left to give me a massive telling off.
By this point, we were well known to all of Amir and Rahim’s friends, and a few nights later this really old guy pulled up in a car beside Nadine and me when we were walking near Ferham Park. I’d had loads of weed and I was really quite stoned. There were three younger guys in the car already but the old man told us to get in. He must have been about seventy, maybe even older. I’d seen one of the guys in the car before, but the old man was a total stranger. He had such a strong Pakistani accent that I could hardly make out what he was saying, but he mentioned Amir’s name and I think he was telling Nadine he’d buy us booze. For the first time in months, I felt uneasy. It was one thing chilling with Amir’s mates in their taxis outside the school, but I didn’t recognise this man and he didn’t say where he was taking us. I opened my mouth to protest, but Nadine literally shoved me into the back seat.
We were driving around for what felt like ages when the old guy dropped two of the younger men off at a house in an estate I didn’t recognise. I hoped he’d take us back to Ferham, but he kept driving, chatting away to the man in the passenger seat in what I later realised was Punjabi, one of the main languages spoken in Pakistan.
‘This is weird,’ I said to Nadine. ‘Who is this guy? He’s ancient.’
‘Calm down. He knows Amir,’ she replied. ‘He says he’ll give us some vodka and then he’ll pay for our taxi home.’
‘Can’t we just ask him to take us home now?’ I said. The weed had gone to my head and I could feel the familiar fear and paranoia clouding my brain.
‘Oh, Sarah, shut up,’ she snapped. ‘We’re just going to chill with them – no big deal.’
In the end, the men took us to a grubby-looking Indian-style takeaway at the other end of Rotherham. The walls were yellow and dirty, and a stale cooking smell filled my nostrils. I later discovered it was coming from the ghee, a type of butter used to cook curries. I thought I might throw up because I was so stoned. I was probably drunk too. There weren’t any customers in the front of the shop but the old man led us downstairs into the basement, his younger mate following silently behind us. It was dark and horrible and smelled even worse than the main part of the shop because it was so damp and cold.
A wave of nausea washed over me as my eyes began to focus. In the centre of the poorly lit room was a really old telly, the kind that comes with a video instead of a DVD player. On the screen there were three or four naked bodies writhing around, making all sorts of weird noises. Suddenly, it dawned on me: this sick old man, old enough to be my granddad, wanted us to watch a porn film with him. Even thinking of it now makes me shudder.
I tried to turn away from the screen but this time I knew I was going to be sick for real. The horrible video had tipped me over the edge. I bolted back upstairs as fast as I could. The old man and Nadine were shouting behind me, but I couldn’t make out what they were saying. I burst out of the front door and I’d just made it onto the street when I threw up everywhere.
There was another Asian takeaway just across the road, and I could see one of the workers staring at me as I vomited on the street, but I was too out of it to be embarrassed. All I could think was: how can Amir hang around with these weirdos? And why would he tell them to pick us up when we didn’t even know them?
The man in the takeaway across the road was trying to make eye contact with me but I couldn’t hold his gaze because I felt so dizzy. I started to wonder if he often saw young girls like me out on the street, fleeing from the horrible basement.
‘What the fuck was that all about?’
I became aware of Nadine’s voice behind me, and I turned round to see her huge frame towering over me, her red face contorted with anger. But before I could answer her, the young man in the other takeaway was making his way over to us.
‘You all right there, girls?’ he asked. He was smiling and looked friendly. He was way older than us, of course, but at least he wasn’t a pensioner.
‘Just not feeling too good,’ I replied.
‘Why don’t you come over to our shop and we’ll give you some food?’ he suggested. ‘That might make you feel better.’
I looked to Nadine and she nodded. ‘Yeah, okay then,’ she said.
‘Cool,’ our new friend said. ‘We’ll get you something to eat then we’ll give you some money for a taxi home.’
The man didn’t tell us his name but I didn’t really care. I just wanted an excuse to get away from the old guy and his basement, so I didn’t ask any questions. The shop was quite cramped but he took