When I told this to Laila, she said, ‘Maybe she was found in a dustbin?’ ‘Maybe,’ I said thinking about how my Mum could just flip from one mood to another. ‘Mums,’ Laila laughed, ‘can’t live with ‘em.’ ‘Can’t live without ‘em,’ I added. Laila and I chatted all the way to Boarhead College. I told her what Donna had done to me. Laila shook her head in disbelief. It was like we’d been best friends all our lives. I had never been to the college but Laila knew her way round. We went down a flight of stairs, along a corridor into the women’s toilets and Laila taught me how to do my voozu, to clean myself up before prayers. After that, we went into a large room. There were kids from East Boarhead, people from Africa and even some white people. Most of the women wore hijabs. The men had beards. Some of them wore long skirts; some wore shalwars that ended above their ankles. Someone tapped on a microphone, and a white man, in his early twenties stood up on the platform.
