Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Prue Mason has written articles for a children's magazine in Dubai, U.A.E., and for The School Magazine in Australia. She is also a science and technology editor for a children's magazine in Australia. She lives in Queensland, Australia.

Auszug. © Genehmigter Nachdruck. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.

CAMEL RIDER

Charlesbridge

Chapter One

I should be sleeping, but I'm all tense and nervous. Not scared-nervous. I should be, though, because Mum says she rang and told Dad what I did. He's going to kill me when he gets back tomorrow night. But I'll worry about that then.

I can't sleep. I just lie in bed and listen. All I want to hear is that heavy front door pulled shut. That'll mean Mum's really left and gone back to Australia without me and I'll be in the house, alone, for a whole day, until Dad gets home. Yes!

Well, of course, there'll be Chandra, but she's our maid and she's always so busy downstairs cleaning and cooking.

I'm tingly-excited nervous because I can hardly believe my mind-bustingly brilliant brain wave has worked so well.

I can hear Mum moving around downstairs. She's ready to leave, but as usual is giving Chandra last-minute orders. Mum says that Chandra is very honest and reliable, but that her English is not good so she needs to be told things slowly.

Tonight Mum's so het up she's forgotten what she's always telling me and she gabbles at Chandra.

"Adam's father is due back from his flight at eleven tomorrow night," she says quickly. "He'll deal with Adam then, and no matter what that boy says he is NOT to be allowed out of the compound after what he's done. Oh, except to pick up his new school uniform. I meant to get it today, but with everything happening, I forgot. But he's got to come straight back here afterward. Now, is there anything else? Oh, that's right, there's a list of emergency numbers by the phone, and you know if anything happens to the dog the vet's number is there as well." She finally pauses for breath.

I hear Chandra saying, "Yes madam, yes madam," but I know there's no way she really does know what Mum is saying. For sure, though, she'll be shaking her head in that way that means yes, but looks like no.

Sarah, my older sister—who used to be really funny when we first came here—cracked me up when she took Chandra off, saying "Yes madam, yes madam," sounding just like Chandra does. But I was only seven when my dad got a job as a pilot for Abudai Airlines, and we left our home in Melbourne to live here in the Middle East. Sarah was thirteen then, and everybody said she was a brilliant actress. She's given up that idea now and turned all serious and boring. She says she wants to be a journalist instead.

It's funny, though, how quickly we got used to different things, like the way the Indians and Sri Lankans do all that head shaking. It just seems normal now. Like living in a compound is normal.

My mum still doesn't think it's normal to be living so close to other people who work for the airline. Dad says she should consider herself lucky. If she was an Arab woman, she'd be living in a compound with all Dad's relations. But I wouldn't mind living with Barby—that's my grandmother. And it'd be fun to live with some of my cousins. I guess the downside would be that there'd be more people to tell you off when you did something wrong. Plus, there's not much privacy. With all the houses being built around a garden in the middle, everyone can look through your windows and see what you're up to. Mum says it's like being inside a fishbowl. And then there's all the kids running in and out. That's the part I like, because all my friends live in the compound as well, and we can take turns to hang out at each other's places depending on whose dad—or maybe, if we're lucky—whose mum is away on a trip.

My dad reckons that in the future everyone in the world will be living in compounds like ours anyway, with high walls and guards at the gate. He says it will be the only way people will feel safe. I think that'd be brilliant. I love living in a compound.

I hear Mum rattling on again. "Of course, if you need anything, just go across the compound to Margot madam and she'll sort it out—I could kill that boy! But I have to go tonight to get there in time for Sarah's ..." She doesn't bother finishing the sentence, and I can hear her footsteps hurrying up the stairs. Is she coming up to my room?

I begin to breathe deeply and evenly. If she comes in, she'll think I'm asleep. Even though it's midnight, and the car's waiting outside to take her to the airport, I wouldn't put it past her to drag me out of bed and give me another good telling off. She's pretty angry with me because I'm meant to be starting at my new school next Monday. Now I can't.

And she hasn't stopped going on and on about how Sarah's been looking forward to having her little brother back in Australia. As if! She probably just wants to convert me to her latest cause. Dad says we should give her a soapbox for Christmas. I just wish she wouldn't go on and on. Especially when she comes back here for holidays and starts going off about the way things are so superficial over here and how people are so materialistic and stuff. She's always going on about greedy expats and everything she thinks is wrong with modern life here—how it's all about the oil. It's embarrassing.

She used to be fun. When we were younger she could always think up brilliant games. And because she's such a good actress she could take anyone off. For a big sister she was pretty cool, because she even took the blame when we got into trouble, but that was before she went to boarding school and became superior and serious about stuff.

And just because I'm nearly thirteen now, Mum and Dad say I have to go back to Australia and go to boarding school there. They reckon it will give me roots. Like I'm a potted plant or something.

The thing is, they don't understand. I'm different from Sarah. I've got my friends. She missed her friends when she came over here, and she wanted to go back and be a boarder so she could have midnight feasts and pillow fights and all that girls' stuff. But I know what it's like. I know you can't go surfing in a boarding school, so I don't want to go.

My door opens.

"I love you, darling," my mum whispers. But I keep my eyes tightly closed. It could be a trap. If I let her know I'm awake, I bet she'll go on and on again about how I should be ashamed of myself and how selfish I am and how I don't think of anyone but myself.

I just happen to think it was the ultimate, mind-bustingly brilliant brain wave to slip my passport into dad's flight bag before he went off on a four-day trip. It means that now I can't leave Abudai tonight.

I know I'll get a good blast from my dad when he gets back tomorrow night, and he'll probably make me get on the very next flight out of here, but it was still worth it. At least now I've got one more day of freedom.

Chapter Two

"Mama! Do not leave me. I am so frightened. Mama!"

She kicks me. It's then I wake and look up at the face not of my mama, but of Old Goat.

He is like the devil with his scraggled beard, streaked with the henna he rubs through it to make it orange like a flame.

I am lying on the ground where always I sleep, and he kicks me again. I think it is from kicking boys that he is always limping, but he is saying that a camel stood on him when he held it at the start of the races. If only I had seen this. How I would have laughed!

I sniff the morning air. It is sharp and sour, full of the odors of the night, of piss and tears. From nearby camps there are the shouts...