THE GAME I WILL NEVER FORGET – CHILDREN’S QUOTES FOR INSIDE COVER

‘Thank you for writing your stories. They make me feel like I can do anything one day.’

Jameela, age 7

‘My teacher keeps laughing and crying whenever she reads your books to us. It’s a bit annoying. Can your next book stop her from doing that?’

Nio, age 9

‘Thanks to you, I know my postman now – his name isn’t Mo, but it’s ok. I’m still going to be his best friend.’

Bea, age 8

‘Do you really know people like the ones in your stories? If you do, that’s good. I want to be brave like them one day.’

Dimitris, age 10

‘How do you come up with ideas for a story? I tried once and it hurt my brain.’

Piya, age 6

‘I wish all your characters were real people. I feel like the world would be better if they were real.’

Raymond, age 8

Also by Onjali Q. Rauf

The Boy at the Back of the Class

The Star Outside My Window

The Night Bus Hero

The Lion Above the Door

Hope on the Horizon

Where Magic Grows

The Letter with the Golden Stamp

www.hachettechildrens.co.uk

For my brother Zak,
the chess champion of my world.

For my nani, Shaista Shelley Khanom,
and all grandmas(ters) whose legacies we,
their grandchildren, carry forward.

For my ‘Colet Flat’ nani, Julekha Rahman,
stolen from us by dementia too soon.

And for Mum. Always.

‘If you want to be a champion, you must think differently from the crowd.’

— Judit Polgár, Chess Grandmaster —

‘It’s a poor sort of memory that only works backwards,’ says the White Queen to Alice.

— Lewis Carroll, Author —

1

The Opening

Pew-pew! Pew-pew! PEW!

‘Zak, put that down, please …’

Ignoring my dad’s voice, I pressed the buttons on my gaming console harder and faster and threw out a few more pew-pews at the giant robot that was trying to destroy my empire.

‘ZAK!’

Pressing pause on my game, I looked up with a ‘Whaaaaaat?’ and then frowned. I hadn’t realised that both Mum and Dad had ignored my KEEP OUT sign made of foil and come into my room. I couldn’t remember the last time they’d both come to see me together. And on a Sunday morning too.

Thinking fast, I tried to remember if I had done anything wrong … Nope, there was nothing. I hadn’t accidentally broken anything recently, my room wasn’t too messy, and I hadn’t got into trouble at school even once this term. In fact, Ms Koumi had said she was super impressed with my work at the last parents’ evening, so there was definitely no reason for Mum and Dad to come and tell me off. In fact, if anything, they probably owed me a few awards for how good I’d been!

Giving me a big smile, Mum sat down on my bed and said, ‘We’ve got something important to tell you.’

The second she said that, I knew something bad was about to happen. Whenever a parent says they’ve got ‘something important to tell you’, it usually means you’re about to be a pageboy at some random wedding of relatives you’ve never heard of, where old people pull on your cheeks and tell you that you’ve grown – as if that’s not something kids do every day. But when your parents say that and sit down on your bed, then it basically means there’s a ninety-nine per cent chance your life is over.

I watched as Mum bit her bottom lip nervously, like a rabbit that had run out of carrots, and Dad’s ears turned so red they looked as if they were about to sprout strawberries.

I put my console down and waited.

Mum pushed a strand of her shiny black hair behind her gold-hooped ear and leaned in closer. ‘Well, actually, there are three things we need to tell you. Do you want the really magnificently important, best news you’ll ever hear first? Or the only marginally less best ever news first?’

‘Or do you fancy a news sandwich – with the it’s-not-really-all-that-bad bit of news in the middle?’ asked my dad, looking down at me, his wide brown eyes getting wider and wider.

Whatever this sandwich was made of, it was definitely going to give me a tummy ache. The last time Dad’s eyes had got so wide was when he had to tell me my TX-200 console was broken and couldn’t be fixed, which meant weeks and weeks of having no games to play after school. And, even worse, being forced to play Monopoly with him and Mum at the weekends, because for some reason, they thought making a tiny top hat and a car hop around on a board collecting fake money was as exciting as destroying zombies and red-eyed robots.

I quickly glanced over at my new TX-200 – the one I had got on my birthday after two whole months of Monopoly torture – and instantly felt better. Whatever Mum had to say, it couldn’t ever be as bad as losing my games and points and bonus levels. Or hearing everyone at school talk about the latest games that I couldn’t play. As long as my TX wasn’t being taken away from me, I could handle anything.

‘I don’t mind,’ I said, shrugging at the pretend-sandwich options. News is news, no matter what order it comes in. It doesn’t matter what bit parents tell you first or last because it’s all already happened before it reaches you and you can’t control any of it.

Giving a nod to Dad, Mum reached out and took my hand, instantly making me even more worried. Why was Mum taking my hand? Did she have an incurable disease? Or did Dad? Or was something wrong with me? I hadn’t been to the doctor at all this term. Not unless you counted my evil dentist who said I might need braces. So it couldn’t be me …

‘Well, the first piece of super-exciting news is …’

I saw my dad give my mum’s shoulder a squeeze, before she took a deep breath and finally cried, ‘You’re getting a BABY BROTHER OR SISTER!’

For a single second, I’m pretty sure a nuclear explosion went off in my brain. It made my mouth and hands go numb, and my eyes forget how to blink.

‘TA-DA!’ sang my dad, waving his hands at me as if he had joined an invisible jazz band.

I stared up at my parents and tried to say something. But all my mouth could do was bob up and down like an apple dunked in a water barrel.

‘Oh, Imran, he’s speechless with joy,’ whispered Mum, giving my dad’s hand a happy tap.

‘Not sure about that …’ said Dad, his forehead crumpling. His eyes searched mine as he asked, ‘You all right, Zak?’

Opening my mouth again, I tried to make some sort of noise come out. But there was nothing. Even though I could hear police sirens going off in my brain and shouts of, HOW COULD YOU DO THIS TO ME? I was ten! That made me WAY too old to have a baby brother or sister! And everyone knew babies ruined everything – they cried all night and pooped at least EIGHTY-SEVEN times a day.

I knew all this for a fact because my best friend on the planet, Dahlia, had been given a baby sister by her parents two years ago, and she was still coming into school talking about poop and nappies and looking like a slightly electrocuted zombie. She says babies aren’t legally allowed to let anyone get any sleep at night, so that means her hair gets extra frizzy because they can’t get any sleep either. She’s even been in detention twice for falling asleep in lessons with her eyes open.

I didn’t want to talk about poo and look electrocuted and sleep with my eyes open. And I definitely didn’t want my hair going weird – especially not just before moving over to the big school. It was going to be bad enough being at a new school next year with all new people and teachers and other, way bigger kids, but becoming a big brother to a pooping machine too? I shook my head. Nope! Mum and Dad would just have to stay in the hospital forever with it, or send me off to an orphanage so I could get adopted by someone who didn’t have any babies in the house.

But before my mouth could say any of that out loud, Dad gave my hair another ruffle and said, ‘You’re going to be a brilliant big brother, Zak. And guess what? We have someone coming to live with us – to help us out – even before the baby gets here.’

‘That’s right,’ said Mum, smiling. ‘That’s the second bit of the magnificently brilliant, wonderful news. Do you want to make a guess who it is?’

HOLD ON TO YOUR MEAT SAMOSAS, I wanted to cry out! So it wasn’t enough that a baby was about to move into the house, but someone else was coming too?

Sitting up straighter, I pulled out as many noises as I could find in my voice box and cried out, ‘Noooooooo … Whooooooooo?’

‘Well!’

Dad looked at Mum, and Mum looked at Dad, like two presenters at an awards ceremony about to announce the winner. Then they both turned to look at me like I was the envelope waiting to be torn open, before shouting out together …

‘YOUR NANI!’

‘Isn’t that just the best, Zak?’ squealed Mum, stroking my face. ‘You love your Nani Shelley, remember? Remember how she always used to make you her famous chips with the skin on? And her lentil boras? And how you used to hang on to her scarf and bark after her like a puppy?’

I shook my head – because no! I couldn’t remember. Who would want to remember barking after their grandma like a puppy anyway? All I could remember was a pair of greyish-brown, crinkly eyes and someone who always smelled of tea and sugar and toast. But I hadn’t seen my nani since I was five. That was the last time we had visited her in Bangladesh. And now she was coming to live with us?

‘How – how many days is she coming for?’ I asked. I knew from all my cousins that when old people came to stay in your house, they hardly ever left again. But Nani had her own farms and a huge mansion. She’d hate being in a small house in freezing-cold England, so hopefully she wouldn’t stay long.

‘We’re not sure. But at least for half a year,’ replied Mum.

‘Half a YEAR!’ I shouted. She might as well have said forever and got it over and done with!

‘At least,’ said Dad, before grinning happily. ‘She’ll be a godsend to us, you’ll see. Now, you ready for the middle part of that good-news sandwich I was telling you about?’ he asked, also sitting down on my bed next to me.

Oh no. Now I had two parents sitting on my bed. If there had been any security alarms in my room, all of them would be have been going off right about now.

Feeling a bit sick, I looked up at my dad and waited. But it was Mum who got there first.

‘Now, darling, do you remember a long time ago we talked about changing the attic room into a lovely extra bedroom?’ asked Mum. Without waiting for me to answer, she continued, ‘Well, that’s what we’re going to do. We’re going to clean it up this week and get it all nice and cosy.’

‘F-For the baby – or – or Nani?’ my mouth asked, while my throat gulped the rest of my questions down.

‘Well, the baby can hardly get up there now, can it?’ laughed Dad. ‘Not for a good few years, anyway.’

‘And your nani can’t keep going up and down that ladder at her age,’ said Mum, shaking her head at me and laughing too. ‘No … We thought she could move into your room, especially as it’s right next door to ours and the bathroom too. So …’

‘So …’ added Dad, throwing a nod my way before he waited for me to catch it.

Slowly, like all the communication lights of a spaceship flickering on one by one, I finally got the message.

It was me.

I was the one getting kicked out of my room! I was the one who was being banished to the attic. The same room Mum called a spider’s paradise and Dad was always dumping boxes of junk in! Was that what this baby was turning me into already? A piece of junk, to be hidden and stored away in the attic with my old games and Dad’s broken bits of furniture that were waiting to be fixed ‘one rainy day’ – even though there had been four million rainy days since he’d first said that.

I jumped off the bed, my heart kicking at my chest so fast it was making me want to kick something too.

‘B-But I don’t want to move out of my room!’ I shouted. ‘It’s MINE! And the attic is full of spiders! And it’s too small! Why can’t Nani move there? You can get proper stairs for her, or a lift or something!’

Mum shook her head while Dad scratched his forehead.

‘Zak, we know this isn’t easy and we know how much you love your room.’

Looking away from Dad, I stared hard at my homework table and my three bookshelves, filled with all the Lego models I had made and collected, and my cool Iron Man and Ninja Turtle posters, and my signed Salik Rehman poster – the coolest football player that had ever lived. I couldn’t believe we were all getting kicked out faster than even one of his footballs.

‘Listen,’ said Dad, placing a hand on my shoulder. I couldn’t really see his face because my silly eyes were filling up with angry tears, so I stared at the floor and waited for whatever lie he was going to tell me next.

‘I promise we’ll make that attic room into the best bedroom ever,’ said Dad. ‘And before long you’ll forget this was even your room, OK?’

‘Exactly,’ said Mum. ‘Once it’s done, you can invite your friends over – it’ll be like sleeping up in a treehouse. You can choose whatever colour you want to paint it and we’ll get you a nice new bed and one of those big blobby lamps you’ve always wanted. And whatever else you think might look nice up there.’

Not knowing what else to do, I wiped away my tears and stared harder at the floor.

My silence was enough to make Mum whisper, ‘That’s my boy!’ and Dad to give my cheek a squeeze and say, ‘Good lad,’ before they both headed over to the door.

‘Wait,’ I cried out, before they disappeared.

‘Yes?’ asked Mum, turning around.

‘When is Nani coming exactly?’ I asked.

‘She flies in next Saturday, darling,’ said Mum. ‘She’s been wanting to see you for years, Zak. You’re all she asks about half the time.’

I wanted to shout out, ‘A WEEK? A WEEK? SHE’S COMING TO TAKE OVER MY ROOM IN A WEEK?’ But instead I just stared at the floor again and waited for Mum and Dad to leave MY room and close MY door with MY KEEP OUT! sign. As soon as the door clicked shut, I ran to my desk and ripped out a sheet of paper from the back of my homework book extra angrily. At the very top, I wrote in giant letters:

BATTLE PLAN

Mum and Dad might THINK they could take my room away from me forever and banish me to live in the attic until I probably turned into a spider myself. But if the games on my TX consoles had taught me anything, it was how to fight back against an enemy force trying to invade my space. It didn’t matter if that enemy force was an Egyptian mummy zombie, a monster robot with red eyes, or a little old grandma who made boras and chips all day long.

There was no way I was giving up my room without a fight.