I slept for quite a lot of the bus journey, which took another whole night. I think it was mostly desert outside so there wasn’t much to look at in any case, even if it hadn’t been pitch-dark again.
When I woke up, we were driving through city streets lined with palm trees. Maman smiled at me and nodded, saying, ‘Casablanca.’
My first impression was of the whiteness that gives the city its name – we drove past low white houses and taller white buildings. But then I noticed that everywhere there were splashes of colour – green, red, orange and pink – from gardens filled with flowers. I felt quite reassured then – it reminded me a little bit of the C?te d’Azur. I pressed my cheek against the dusty glass of the window and looked at those gardens and at the people too as they walked along the streets, women veiled from head to toe in black and tough-looking men in white robes, all oblivious to the busloads of refugees that were sweeping past them. But then we started to leave the city streets behind and the buses drove along a much bumpier road, making dust clouds billow out from beneath the wheels, and there were no more flower-filled gardens, just sand and scrappy-looking shacks where half-starved cats slunk among piles of garbage.
Everyone on the bus got very quiet again then and I didn’t feel so reassured after all.
At last we arrived at the gates of the camp. The buses drew to a halt and the dust slowly settled around us. The soldiers got out of ours and went to talk to some others who were guarding the gate. They waved us through, but still no one spoke a word until we pulled up in front of a big building. A few people stood up and began collecting their things together, but the driver told them to sit back down and wait, which made everyone groan. We all just wanted to stretch our legs by then, not to mention badly needing a bathroom. I pictured the luxury of a lavatory and a basin with taps, basic things I’d completely taken for granted in Paris. But when at last we were shown to our place in the hall, there was only a bucket behind a curtain. Flies buzzed everywhere, but especially around that bucket.
Annette crinkled up her nose and she started to cry again when she saw the mattresses on the floor that were to be our new home in Morocco. ‘Don’t worry, ma chère,’ Papa said, stroking her back as Maman hugged her tight （I think she might have been crying too）。 ‘We won’t be here for long. This is just temporary until they can find proper places for us all. I’ll go and look for someone to speak to straight away.’ I wanted to go with him, but he told me to stay and look after Maman and Annette. ‘Talk to some of the others,’ he said. ‘See what you can find out about how things run here.’
It was so hot and smelly in the hall that most people had gone outside, so I decided that would be the best place to go and try to find someone to talk to once Maman and Annette had settled themselves a bit. I took my book, so it would look as if I was just casually doing some peaceful reading, and went to try and find a place to sit in the shade, only in the camp there weren’t any shady trees or comfortable benches to sit on like the parks in Paris. So I found a patch of hard ground instead, against the wall of the building out of the sun, and sat down and watched some boys kicking a football around in the dust.
After a while, the boys noticed me and one of them deliberately kicked the ball right at me. My reflexes are quick, though, and I managed to catch it. The boys shouted at me to throw it back, but I just glared at them and shouted back, ‘If you want it, you’ll have to come and ask politely.’ There’s never any excuse for bad manners, as Maman frequently reminds us. The boy who’d kicked it at me came storming over and demanded I hand it over. ‘Only if you don’t aim it at innocent bystanders again,’ I said defiantly. You can’t let bullies get away with that sort of behaviour, as I have learned from my reading.
Some of the other boys came over too, and one of them, with a broken tooth, apologised and asked nicely if I would please return it. I was about to throw the ball to him when, to my absolute horror, the bully spotted my book on the ground beside me and grabbed it. ‘A hostage!’ he cried triumphantly. ‘You want your book back then you give us back our ball.’
I leapt to my feet and let the ball fall on the ground. Tears of rage and pain sprang into my eyes as he held my precious book above his head, beyond my reach, laughing and jeering. He was taller than me and a few years older and a truly horrible specimen. As he waved the book about, trying to make me jump for it, the dust jacket came loose and tore and the hot wind snatched it, blowing it across the patch of bare ground and on to the barbed wire of the fence surrounding the camp, where it got stuck.