Split (1)

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"I need the loo." Harry laughs. "No need to tell me. It's the far door on the right." Anxious at the thought of walking past so many policemen, Khalid almost decides to wait, but Harry gives him an encouraging glance which helps him take his first unaccompanied steps since his ordeal began. But as Khalid stumbles into the aisle, the policeman the other side of him jumps up to escort him, and stands waiting outside the door to walk him back. Forcing Khalid to realize this whole thing is not quite over yet. Sadly, there's no mirror in the loo. Just a basic chrome toilet and sink. He was hoping to see himself—see how bad he looks. Once back in his seat, smelling of the sweet coconut soap he'd found in the sink, Khalid asks, "Will they ever close that Guantanamo hellhole down?" "One day, Khalid, one day. But the trouble is, they don't know what to do with the men there. Many of them are stateless refugees with no place to go." The idea that some of those men have no home kicks Khalid in the guts. He'd spent so long being consumed by his own problems, living in his own sad little world, that he hadn't given much thought to anyone else. At least he has a country, a home and family, mates even. In that moment, Khalid feels very, very grateful to have everything that matters.
27 TOUCHDOWN The wing flaps flick up, waking Khalid from a delicious long sleep. His head's been twisted sideways on his shoulder for what must have been hours and he's paying for it now that he tries to sit straight, hands on his aching neck. Through the window he catches sight of an astonishing maze of gray clouds. Clouds that go on forever without a hint of blue. The noises coming from the galley kitchen sound like bones cracking until someone laughs instead of screams and Khalid breathes in the pleasant smell of warm bread rolls. "Feel any better?" Harry smiles. "Yeah, just starving," Khalid says. "Well, that didn't take long." Harry nods at the steel trolley making its way towards them and before long the trays soon slot into place. One fresh bread roll, a golden square of butter, curly omelette and a portion of baked beans. The best meal of his whole life. He swallows everything so quickly, Harry pushes his tray towards him. "Have mine too. I'm not in the least bit hungry." "Thanks, mate." Aware that Harry is totally enjoying watching him eat with his elbows in the air, grunting happily after each mouthful and licking his lips at another small chocolate croissant, which he saves until last, Khalid scoffs the lot and sits back to rub his stomach.
"What now?" "Well, I'm afraid you won't be going directly home. We land at RAF Northolt." Harry pauses for a moment to scratch his chin. "There are a few formalities to be dealt with first. More interviews, that sort of thing. Plus someone will talk to you about adapting to real life after your ordeal. It will take a few days and then you'll be going home." "How many days?" Khalid had imagined the plane was going to land in Manchester, not RAF Northolt—somewhere else in England. "Three or four days. A week at the most," Harry says. "Nothing to worry about. You'll be given a comfortable room this time—with a bathroom." "What about my family?" he asks. _Aadab and Gul? How tall are they now?_ Khalid suddenly wonders. Do they want him back? Aren't their lives better without him? He wasn't that nice to them before. Would they be pleased to see him again? "They'll have to wait until you're brought home, Khalid. But they know you're on your way. Everyone does. You can use my phone to talk to them when we land."
"I was looking forward to seeing my mates and that," Khalid says as the seat-belt sign flashes on and the plane begins its descent. "It won't be long, I promise," Harry reassures him. Home. England. This is England. As he looks out of the window to watch the plane coming in, endless gray clouds burst with hard, cold rain and Khalid feels an overpowering sense of peace just gazing at the lush green fields, busy roads and small houses below. But the moment they land a plain-clothed policeman in a navy suit boards the plane and walks towards him. "Just a formality," Harry whispers as the man bends over Khalid to quietly tell him, "I am placing you under arrest under the Prevention of Terrorism Act." A policeman quickly handcuffs him before they move on to do the same to the other man who has been released. "This happened with the last three men who came back. Nothing to worry about," Harry says. "I'll see you later." But Khalid's stomach turns over—what with all the food, the sight of England after two years away and being so close to home, and now this.
Within minutes, he's led to the doors of a black van that's driven on to the plane through the open back. A driving wind forces heavy rain up the cold tunnel, chilling Khalid to the bone. The other prisoner begins shivering uncontrollably as they're ushered on to the van's hard seats and the doors slam shut. "What a pisser, eh? After all that shite we've been through, we end up freezing to death in the back of a bloody police van. My name's Ashwin Al-Asmari and I'm from Birmingham. The guy on the plane said we have to go through this because the Americans are watching us. So what? Let 'em have an eyeful, I say." "Quiet in the back, please!" one of the policemen shouts. Ashwin pulls a face and starts coughing. "You were that guy—the one who was coughing all night in Camp Delta," Khalid whispers. "They wouldn't give me my right medication. Said I was pretending to have asthma. I practically died in there." "Quiet down!" the policeman demands. It's the last Khalid sees of Ashwin after they are led quickly from the van through pouring rain into a long, gray building. A drooping cobweb catches Khalid's eye as it swings from the door in a cold draught of English spring air that smells crisp and fresh and suddenly full of hope.
Ashwin's taken to one room, Khalid to another one farther down the corridor. A room larger than his living room at home, with a proper-size single bed in the corner. A pile of new old-man clothes and a new Qur'an, newspapers, crisps, water. Not quite as good as a hotel room but a hundred times more comfortable than the cell he's been used to. The police escort smiles. "You might want to dry off—take a shower and get changed," he says. "Your lawyer will be here soon. Would you like a hot drink? We have everything." "Yeah, tea. No, wait, hot chocolate please, with two sugars." Khalid's relieved to see the back of him. Two minutes later, he's staring at his face from all sides in the bathroom mirror. Eyeing his body from all angles. Surprised to see he doesn't look anything like he thought he did. His face seems gentler than he remembers it. Sadder. His chin _is_ bigger than it was, he's sure of that. And his shoulders are rounder than they were. His neck seems to poke forward and definitely isn't as straight as it used to be either. But apart from that he decides he's still basically good-looking, even though he's grown so much taller. Standing with his back to the door, he tries to measure his height with a hand over his head, then looks back with surprise at the distance it is from the floor.
"Yeah, that's way over six feet," Khalid says out loud. "Probably six feet three." After luxuriating under waterfalls of steaming-hot water, then changing into clean clothes, Khalid begins to feel almost human. By the time there's a knock on the door, he's ready to face the world. But when Harry bursts in grinning, offering him a flash silver mobile, and says, "Your dad's on the phone!" Khalid freezes in shock. "Dad! Dad!" Khalid grabs the mobile. Holding it close, he turns away from Harry as Dad's soft, gentle voice passes through him in a wave of longed-for pure pleasure. "I'm fine. I've just had a lovely shower, Dad." Sitting on the bed, Khalid sinks into his voice, into the warmth of his home in Rochdale, with the sound of his sisters kicking up a fuss in the background. "I know, Dad. They didn't tell me either. It's a shock for me too. Are you OK? Dad, don't cry. You'll make me cry. Yeah, put Mum on. Me too, Mum. Don't. Now everyone's crying. Hi, Aadab. No, I know you're not going to cry. You're too grown up, yeah, course. You sound a lot older. Hareema's your new best friend? She sounds nice. Gul, I love you too. What new bike?"
Over the next twenty-four hours, Khalid is fingerprinted and questioned briefly by two men he assumes are the police. "Name? Address? What date did you travel to Karachi in Pakistan? Where did you go while you were there?" All the usual stuff, but this time there's no mention of a demonstration, or a computer game, or accomplices, or anything else. Plus they write down the answers. When they ask Khalid to explain his abduction, they act like they are listening and write that down too. The whole thing feels like a conversation to Khalid and not like an interrogation. Several times Khalid speaks to his family, mostly just saying, "Yes, I'm fine. No honestly, I'm all right. It'll be OK." While they do most of the talking, telling him about the efforts made by the people of Rochdale, charities like Reprieve, the Islamic Human Rights Commission, Guantanamo Human Rights Campaign, Amnesty International, and many other groups who have been working hard to get him released. The next morning a policeman escorts Khalid along the corridor to another room with comfy armchairs, a small kitchen and a gray table.
"Take a seat," he says, as if it's a place the soldiers use at break times to read the papers and relax. Khalid glances at the coffee machine bubbling on the worktop beside the sink. For a moment the sight of the beige froth fascinates him and the policeman smiles. "Would you like some?" "Er . . ." Khalid hesitates as the door opens and another man rushes in who looks like an office worker in gray trousers and white shirt, a pile of blue folders under his arm. "Sorry to keep you waiting. I'm Professor Wolfson. My job is to help you settle back into normal life as soon as possible." "When can I go home?" Khalid asks. "Tomorrow probably," says Professor Wolfson, smiling. "Let's see now. Yes." He drops the blue folders on the coffee table and looks Khalid straight in the eye. "Good. I think we'll have one to start." He gestures to the policeman, who moves towards the kitchen area. Khalid quickly nods an answer to the question in his raised eyebrows. "Hardly any milk please." "After an ordeal like yours," the professor says, "most people experience a number of problems. We'll talk about them one by one and see how we get on, shall we?"
"Yeah, sure." Khalid thinks this will be easy, and hearing he's likely to be going home tomorrow makes him anxious to please the nice professor and get this over with as soon as possible. "Even simple things like the sound of people talking at once might prove hard to deal with at first," he begins. "Yeah, I get that. It might feel weird." Khalid pulls a face as he sips the mug of almost black coffee, shocked by the bitterness of the taste. Did he really used to drink it like this? Urgh! "Not just weird," the professor says. "You might experience a physical reaction and feel faint. Want to run away from the noise of their voices. Just remember that every reaction you have to anything is absolutely normal and is to be expected in this type of situation." "I don't think I'll wanna run away!" Khalid reckons the professor's overreacting slightly. I mean, he doesn't look that crazy, does he? "You might shrink from ordinary affection from your family simply because you're not used to it. A hand on a shoulder might feel threatening all of a sudden."
"Yeah, I can maybe see that," Khalid admits. But bit by bit, as Professor Wolfson talks him through a typical day at home and how he might react to ordinary things like going out on his own to the shops for the first time, Khalid realizes he's going to have a lot to deal with when he gets back. Sparking the sudden memory of his trip to Nasir's grocery shop all that time ago without a worry in the world. Unaware of passing cars, of people, of anything much but the thoughts inside his head. Remembering cutting through the cul-de-sac on his way to the park. "What if I suddenly bump into someone I don't know? Will it scare me?" Khalid's suddenly frightened he won't be able to cope with anything. Not his parents. His friends. Being out on his own. "It might do, but you can prepare yourself for that by thinking about it beforehand," the professor says patiently, and slowly talks him through every eventuality. Khalid's still worrying about things when he's led out to another exercise yard where two policemen stand waiting on either side of the locked gate. This time the exercise yard is a huge, windswept, rain-drenched field, marked by high metal fences that are impossible to see through.
It takes Khalid quite a while to walk round the edge with his hands in his pockets; his white sneakers make a squelching sound as he marches as fast as he can. Quickening his step after the first full circuit to include a sudden fast header, then the kick of an imaginary ball. Then a jump and a run to become the speediest footballer on the field, racing down the line faster and faster to score an amazing goal. Followed by a leap in the air, fists punching the sky, head shaking, Khalid lets out a spine-tingling "YES! YES!" He's going home. 28 HOME Many things are on Khalid's mind as Harry's old Fiat turns into Oswestry Road. For a start, the sound of heavy traffic in the distance is much louder than he remembers. A red Mini Cooper races past with four teenagers inside. One of whom he vaguely recognizes. Martin Weeks? Nah, it can't be him. His curly black hair was never that wild, or was it? The worrying thought bangs into Khalid suddenly that he might not recognize any of his mates. How much have they changed over the last two years? Will they still want to be his friend or will they hate him? Do any of them believe he's guilty? Or will they pretend everything's cool but talk about him behind his back as if he's a terrorist? The thought of them behaving like that makes him feel slightly sick. A tight feeling spreads down his throat at the idea of coping without them.
As the car pulls up outside his house, Khalid's surprised to see Mac's garden next door is full of new orange and yellow flowers that are growing over the adjoining low wall. There's a new metal gate and his beige curtains are neatly tied back, white nets shaking enough to suggest Mac's whole family are watching Khalid arrive—which makes him smile. He waves at the window, knowing they can see. Knowing Mac won't ever treat him differently from the way he's always done. He's not that kind of bloke. "There's no side to Mac," Dad always says. Khalid's house looks exactly the same. The same narrow concrete path with patches of grass growing over it. The same white-painted front door with two empty bottles of milk on the step. A new pink bike left on its side. His homecoming—an event he's imagined for so long—is here at last. But a weird feeling of remoteness descends on Khalid, a strange detachment from what he knows is about to happen. A few of the neighbors rush out to stand at their gates and watch as Khalid and Harry go up the short path. Within seconds the door swings open and Aadab . . . no, an older Gul races up the path first and jumps into Khalid's arms. Followed by a much taller and lankier Aadab, glossy hair almost down to her waist. Then Mum in a smart navy skirt and long-sleeved white blouse, with her arms open wide, cries unashamedly as she walks towards him, but Aadab and Gul are in the way and she stops when they meet on the path. Mum reaches for his shoulders, weeping, but doesn't hug Khalid because as a family they don't do public displays of affection, which is why Dad's standing awkwardly back. Pretending to keep the door from slamming shut as he proudly watches Khalid walk up the path at last. Everyone begins talking at once. Smiling and nodding with quivering lips and damp eyes. The neighbors avidly watching their every move.
Lowering his head, hand over his mouth, Harry follows Khalid inside. Everyone chatters at once as the door closes on the whole family, who are crammed together in an emotional heap in the narrow hall. Aadab and Gul tug at his jeans for attention. "I can't breathe," Khalid says, disentangling Mum's wet face from his neck. Unused to being touched in a way that isn't violent for the past two years, he feels smothered. Trapped. Claustrophobic all of a sudden. "Let him be for a little while." Dad takes Khalid's elbow and leads him into the kitchen, brown leather shoes squeaking. But even that small gesture feels strange to Khalid, who fights it by saying, "Thanks, Dad. New shoes?" "Yes. I bought them especially to welcome you home, but the color isn't quite right with these trousers. What do you think?" "I think they're the best shoes you've ever had, Dad." Khalid's eyes well up. "They don't match properly. I should have taken them back. But compared to the state of your muddy sneakers, Khalid, they are very good."
Then Khalid does something he hasn't done for quite a few years. He takes Dad's round, smiling face in his hands and kisses him right on the nose. For a moment Dad looks shocked, but then he laughs. "Always you found my nose funny," he says. "I still do." Khalid grins. Once tea and the big, sugary welcome-home cake have been demolished, Harry prepares to leave. "Here, you nearly forgot this, Khalid." He hands him the white plastic bag he left Guantanamo with and it falls open to reveal the Qur'an, the letter, the postcard and papers, the few things he'd owned in that terrible place. And for a moment he's back there on the bed, head in his hands, waiting for the dinner trolley to come down the row, and he trembles—the kitchen moves away from him . . . "Khalid," Dad calls. "Khalid." "Eh?" He blinks for a moment, suddenly aware he's gripping the table. No, he's here, at home. The ache inside dies and a feeling of hope takes its place. They all scrape back their chairs and follow Harry out to see him off. At the door, Khalid shakes Harry's hand and nods in the same way he does. At that moment the neighbors start running down their paths again to have a good look and everyone waves and waves until Harry's car disappears from sight down the long road.
Khalid is the first to turn back inside to stare at the heap of mail from well-wishers addressed to him that is stacked in neat piles on the hall floor. He's about to open one of the cards when he's shocked to hear his name come from the crackling TV in the living room. The news is on and his face is spread large across the screen. The family crowd round to cheer when the newsreader says he's returned home to Rochdale. It's all a bit much for Khalid, who feels an urgent need to get away from everyone and climbs over the sofa to make his escape. "No, leave him," Dad tells Aadab, who darts to block the door. A sulky expression crosses her face. "We've been waiting ages for him to come back—he has to talk to us some more." "I said let him go. Khalid's tired out now, can't you see?" "Yeah, tired." Khalid nods, quickly making his excuses. He only begins to feel more like himself when he sits on the pale blue duvet of his strangely chunky-feeling bed. The Rochdale Football Club league table from 2002 is still stuck to the wall opposite. His football boots are on the red carpet beside the white chest of drawers, blue cap on top where he left it. Feeling weirdly absent from this house, this room, he suddenly thinks of Tariq and the remaining 600 men locked in Guantanamo Bay while he sits here in comfort, the bedroom door wide open for him to walk through whenever he likes. The kitchen's full of cake, biscuits, Cheddar cheese, crisps and orange juice he can get whenever he wants. Khalid's mouth waters at the thought of real home-made curry for dinner later and the taste of nicely cooked rice and naan bread, even though his stomach is full to bursting from so much cake.
A car whizzes past the window. The sun casts a shadow across the neat and tidy room before sinking behind a distant row of houses. It's not until the smell of boiling rice drifts up from the kitchen that Khalid finally accepts he's home to stay. A thought both wonderful and unbelievable at the same time. Then there's all the people knocking on the door, day and night. The local imams, Muslim leaders, journalists, friends and neighbors—even the guy who owns the restaurant where Dad works. Their constant voices, welcomes and polite inquiries cause exhaustion and pounding headaches for Khalid. "Please, Dad, tell them I've had enough! I don't know what to say to them." But Dad's too polite, though sometimes he keeps them on the doorstep for so long they get bored and leave. Some days are harder to get through than others, because Khalid's finding it difficult to sleep. He keeps waking up to pictures of high razor wire and the sound of screaming, and gets up to pace the bedroom. The window and door are always wide open, but he's afraid to look up in case he's back there, hurting. And all the time he's trying to pluck up courage to go and see his mates and he's desperate to bump into Niamh and see her pretty face again. Khalid's sad that none of them have come round, until he remembers they always meet at the park or the shops. Not since primary school has anyone knocked for him, and anyway, they usually meet at Nico's house, because his mum and dad are always out. Deep down he knows they're waiting for him to make the first move and that's what scares him the most.
It takes two more days before Khalid finds the nerve to get up in the middle of the night and go downstairs. He's been avoiding going downstairs at night and, feeling slightly chilly, he pulls on a black hoodie over the white T-shirt and red boxers he's slept in, listening for a moment to the sound of Dad snoring in the room next door. The only sound in the kitchen is the hum of the fridge and for a long time Khalid stands at the door, staring at the dense, black square on the table in the corner, wondering if he has the nerve to turn the computer on. With one click and ping, the screen splutters into action, lighting up faster than Khalid remembers. Hitting the search engine to bring up his e-mails, he's shocked to find several hundred people have sent him a message. But the name he wants to see—Niamh—isn't there. "Come round when you're up to it, mate," Nico says. "I tried to see you yesterday but there was a nutter blocking your gate asking me my name, so I scarpered." "Hey, bad man, you's cool," Holgy says.
Glancing down the list, Khalid sees there are a few nasty ones from kids he knows mixed in with the nice messages. "You don't deserve to come home, you terrorist bastard. I hope you rot in hell." Khalid tenses suddenly. His stomach muscles tighten, his throat turns dry and a wave of nausea comes over him. An imaginary mirror rises in his mind to reflect back the picture of a gloomy cupboard, with Khalid jumping up from playing _Bomber One_ to go to the loo. Heading back with a smile on his face, his jeans half zipped, then the sound of someone in the hall . . . the sound he thought might be Dad. But men in black walk him backwards, force him into the kitchen, where they wave a gun at his face. "NO!" Khalid yells, falling out of the chair, head in his hands with the sound of feet rushing towards him. "Son. Son." Warm hands clasp his shoulder and bring Khalid into warm arms and the soft cotton smell of Dad. Standing there in his beige pajamas, Dad weeps along with him. Holding him close like a baby.
"They—those men . . ." Khalid sobs. "They came from nowhere. They beat me up and threw me in a truck. They just took me." "I know, son. I know." After a while, when Khalid quiets down, they talk and talk about the prison, what happened, about football and girls and his hopes and dreams, until the morning light peeps through the kitchen window and the deathly fear that's been keeping him awake leaves him for a bit. Late afternoon the next day, Khalid's out of the house in baggy black jeans with a new mobile in his pocket. Settling the queasy feeling inside with a hand on his stomach, he checks he's up to it before turning right, then second left. Cutting through the cul-de-sac to the park, he imagines Nico and the rest of them are already there and a few of the steroid heads are beating each other to a pulp beside the tennis courts. Maybe Niamh and her friends are down by the far gate smoking their cigarettes and sharing a couple of those disgusting alcopops that girls seem to like. Running as fast as he can past the kids on the swings, Khalid races towards the benches under the oak trees, then stops suddenly to see the bushes have all been cut back. The broken benches have been replaced with brand-new green ones. All the bird poo, flattened Pringles tubes and beer cans have gone. Even some of the oak branches have sadly been lopped off, opening their secret place to the wide sky and noisy road behind.
A couple of schoolkids he vaguely recognizes, who've grown uglier and ruder than Khalid remembers, saunter past smoking cigarettes. It's not until they're way past him that one calls out, "Thought you were dead, Kal, mate." "Better not bomb anything round here or yer soon will be," his mate says, laughing. Without answering, Khalid hurries in the opposite direction, out of the park gate towards Nico's house. Finding himself unable to cross the busy road, he stands for a moment, suddenly hypnotized by the sight and sound of cars rumbling past. A whooshing sensation flows through his head as he sees the traffic lights change from red and amber to green, then amber to red again. And the roar of buses and lorries thundering past his face, spitting dirt over his new sneakers, while the sickly smell of deep-frying fish leaks from the chip shop behind him. He can't breathe. He's going to faint. "Is that you, Kal? Hiya, mate. HIYA!" Wide-eyed and suddenly there in front of him, Holgy pulls him away from the traffic and he's grinning and grinning. Taller than Khalid now, he's got a crazy line of hair round his chin, joining up to crazy sideburns.
"How you doing, Kal? Your face is everywhere. I keep saying, 'I know him, he's an old mate of mine.'" "I'm a bit all over the place." Khalid lowers his eyes, shaking. Trying his best not to faint. "Well, you would be, wouldn't you?" Holgy sighs and presses the button to cross the road. "What you up to, then?" Khalid breathes out. "I'm down the sixth-form college. They let you dress how you like," Holgy says brightly. "You ought to come and scope it out." "But I haven't got any GCSEs, have I, Holgy?" Khalid says. "So what? There's two old ladies there doing A-levels and they haven't got any GCSEs either. Anyhows, you've got a pretty good excuse, eh, Kal? By the way, me name's Eshan now. No one, like, calls me Holgy any more. I'm too old for that hologram rubbish now." "Sure, Eshan, no problem." Khalid nods, feeling a little better. _I sometimes felt like a hologram inside that prison_ , he thinks. They cross the road together and Eshan fills him in on everyone. "Mikael's moved to Australia with his family. He got eleven GCSEs, eight As—did best of the lot of us. Like we didn't know that was gonna happen, eh?"
"And Tony?" Khalid asks. "Tony Banda left school once he were sixteen for his apprenticeship with British Gas. He was made up—it was all he ever wanted, remember?" "No." Khalid doesn't remember that at all. "Well, it's true. He stopped playing football when he broke his leg, and after you went missing, the team fell apart," Eshan says. "And, you won't believe this, he's still going out with Lexy." "Really? Lucky bloke! How about Nico?" Khalid says, not daring to ask him about Niamh. "Nico's still at school. His mam wouldn't let him go to sixth-form college, said he'd never do any work if he got there. She's probably right. He did about as well as me—seven GCSEs, mostly As and Cs—not bad, not brilliant. But then we didn't exactly push ourselves, did we?" Arriving outside Nico's terraced house, Eshan says, "Good to see you again, Kal. Come over any time. We missed you, mate. It wasn't the same after you disappeared." "What about, er . . .? Have you seen—um . . . No, never mind. See ya later, yeah?"
"Bye." Eshan walks backwards down the road, doing crazy rapping gestures with his fingers, shouting, "East is East!" Khalid stands for ages outside Nico's door before walking up the path to knock for him, but there's no one in and he sets out for home sad and disappointed. Wondering if he ought to go via the road leading to the school on the off chance he might bump into Mr. Tagg. Then he can find out what forms he needs to apply for college or whether you have to be an old lady to get in without any exam certificates. But when Khalid arrives home there's a surprise waiting for him. As if he's read his mind, Mr. Tagg's in the kitchen talking to Dad and puffing a cigarette out of the window. "Welcome home, Khalid." The scruffy, wild-haired history teacher in jeans, red shirt and brown leather jacket stubs the cigarette out on the chipped blue plate Dad's given him. "Thanks." Khalid looks at his teacher standing there by the sink, nodding and smiling, genuinely pleased to see him, and becomes embarrassed, self-conscious and shy—suddenly fifteen again with no idea what to say.
"I kept the letter you sent me." Taking a worn page of scribbled writing from his jeans pocket, Mr. Tagg hands it to him and Khalid's eyes dart down the page, shocked to see the letter had actually reached him, immediately recognizing the words and sentences from that day in his tiny cell. The strange sensation of reading it again speeds him back to the darkness and distress that caused him to write it. When at last Khalid glances away from the crumpled page, he catches the concerned look on Dad's face and pulls himself together by faking a huge smile. "Thanks. I was thinking of asking you about sixth-form college," Khalid says with a gulp. "I want to get my exams." "I'll be more than happy to help," Mr. Tagg says, nodding. "Great. I suppose it won't be easy, though," Khalid guesses. "I'll have a word with the principal. Can't see why there would be a problem. Unforeseen circumstances and all that." "Yeah. OK, well . . . er, thanks!" Now Khalid's really smiling. "And thank you very much on behalf of my family, Mr. Tagg," Dad chimes in.
Sitting back down to finish his large mug of tea, Mr. Tagg looks thoughtful for a second. "My pleasure. There's only one thing I ask, Khalid. Will you come and help me do an assembly on that awful place you've been? There's a lot of anti-Muslim feeling building at the moment and we want to keep the school and Rochdale free from that kind of sentiment." "Yeah. Why not?" Khalid grins. "I'm up for it." "We hate terrorists as much as you do," Dad agrees. It's not until two days later that Khalid catches up with Nico, who's running to get through the school gates before the bell goes, rap music spilling from his earpieces. Khalid can't quite make out the words but Nico's clearly enjoying the strong bass beat. "Hey!" Khalid jumps in front of him. Overwhelmed by the wideness of Nico's shocked smile as he rips the plugs from his ears, tries to lift his old mate Khalid in the air. But Khalid's too tall for him now and they both crack up. "Kal. Kal. Kal." Nico makes do with bouncing him round for all to see. "Mam said to stay away until you'd settled back in. How's it been, me old matey?" Finally he lets him go.
"You're about to find out—I'm doing the assembly with Mr. Tagg this morning!" Khalid laughs. "Aw no, his assemblies go on for hours. Do you have to?" Nico sighs, grinning from ear to ear. 29 ASSEMBLY "And now, this fine young man, Khalid Ahmed, who's been to hell and back in the last two years, has agreed to read out the letter he sent me from his cell in Guantanamo Bay. It was the only one among the many letters he wrote to me that arrived here for me to read. As you know, Guantanamo Bay is situated on the south-east corner of the island of Cuba . . ." A group of teachers behind him shift in their chairs. Some with drooping, tired faces and untidy hair look half asleep, while others with eager eyes and polished shoes lean forward to listen. Finally, Mr. Tagg stops talking and nods for Khalid to get up from the seat at the side of the stage, which causes him to stop fiddling with his shirt cuffs and break out in a nervous sweat. Scraping his chair back, Khalid looks down at the sea of faces watching him walk towards the microphone, the letter in his hand. Breathing heavily, heart thumping faster the closer he gets, Khalid becomes irritated with himself for shaking so much as he grabs the microphone. Seeing most of the kids he used to play football with all looking up at him now as if he's a hero, thinking because they know him they understand what he's been through, Khalid is suddenly put off. And all the time he's scanning the crowd for Niamh's pretty face, longing for it to jump out at him. To see her is all he wants now, her brown, wavy hair flicking up from her neck. The memory of her smile hypnotizes Khalid for a second, blanking his mind completely. Now, two long years later, someone who looks a bit like her is smiling up at him from the front row and he knows she means nothing by it because she isn't Niamh.
Mr. Tagg rushes to the microphone to cover for him while Khalid's heart and mind are lost in the memory of Niamh's pretty face—an image that has helped him make it to this point. "Ahem. One. Two. Yes, it's fine. Go ahead, Khalid. Go on, lad. Speak." Then Nico, in the back row, suddenly cheers. Everyone turns to look at him, which makes Khalid laugh and gives him a moment's pause before he starts. "Dear Mr. Tagg," Khalid begins shyly, voice trembling. "I thought I'd let you know why I didn't finish my history coursework." A raucous laugh rises from the hall resulting in a sudden burst of confidence. The second the noise dies down, Khalid clears his throat and lays into the letter again. "It's a bit of a long story and beggars can't be choosers, as the man said. I asked my dad to fill you in about all the lies they've made up about me here so I won't go into that now. But I know one thing—even if I am an evil person that doesn't mean someone has the right to try and drown me by hanging me upside down and pouring water down my nose. They've beaten me. They've kicked me. They've bolted me to the floor like an animal. They've kept me awake night after night. Almost burst my eardrums with loud music. Some are suffering worse things than me, they've been badly damaged in so many ways you don't want to know, and my cousin Tariq is here too. They've put the finger on me for no reason is what I'm saying and I'll never understand why."
A rumble of murmuring and spate of shuffling fill the hall as kids twist in their seats to catch every word. Shock, horror, disbelief passes over their surprised faces while Khalid takes a quick breath before continuing. "Hurt is hurt. Harm is harm. Bullying is bullying. What everyone wants is the same thing—kindness. I'd like to see more kindness when I get out of here, because I'm sick of hearing about bombs and seeing pictures of people dying and terrorists doing this and that. I'm just a kid who wants to get A-levels and go to uni and make something of himself. I don't want to hang around waiting for someone to give me anything, but I do want to see the snow blowing over Rochdale again and get a game of footy going down the park with my mates. That's something I dream about every day locked up in Guantanamo. I hope you can help me get started again one day, that's if they ever let me go. "I know one day, Mr. Tagg, you will ask me what I've learned. Well, if I could advise anyone out there, I'd say the only way to prevent violence is to stop being violent, stop thinking nasty thoughts about other people. Stop hurting other people. Stop lying and cheating. How come the world doesn't get that? One day I'd like to go to Mount Snowdon in Wales or to the Lake District or out walking in one of those pretty villages with nice stone cottages in the Dales. I'd love to have that freedom. But you know what? I haven't got the nerve to go there because people might stare at me and the woman in the shop will maybe get her husband to serve me because she's scared.
"There're woods and streams and fields and nice places in England my family have never seen because people are so suspicious of anyone who looks different. When people do that, I shrink up, trying not to look like a wacko. I hide my face by pretending to find a shop or pavement that's interesting. "I'm writing this because I would never have the nerve to say this stuff to your face. Yeah, and sorry about not having spell-check and that to do this properly. Bet you a million pounds this won't get to you at the school anyway. By the way, you ought really to stop smoking. I've seen you light up two cigarettes before you get to the main road. "I've been a regular blatherer, I know. Sorry. I just want to get back and stop in my house, eat some decent food and see my mates. I suppose the main thing I've learned is that hatred changes nothing. It just adds to the hatred that's already there. The person who's hated has the choice to ignore it, while the hater is always overtaken by his violent feelings. So who's the loser? It's the person who hurts every time, who lies and cheats, and I'm never going to be like that, because then I'll have learned nothing.
"Yours sincerely, "Khalid Ahmed (10G) (from two years ago)" The minute he finishes, the hall erupts with cheering and clapping. Nico starts whistling, then shouting, "Close down GUAN-TAN-AMO!" And then another burst of cheering, clapping, whistling and foot-stomping breaks out. Rocking the school hall until everyone joins in. Even a few of the staff. "Close down GUAN-TAN-AMO!" The sound hits the roof, bouncing off the walls as Khalid returns to his seat. Shaking. Mr. Tagg anxiously flaps his hands to calm them, while proudly nodding at his former student. "Well read, Khalid. Well done. Thank you!" But his voice is drowned out by another burst of stamping feet. "Words aren't enough," Khalid whispers. Tired of everyone getting high on their own righteousness. Refusing to allow his heart to swell in case he starts sinking. In case he starts forgetting how to let go. Something no one else in the room will ever understand. How can he be blown away by the sound of their chanting? Their words are too far outside the hell he suffered.
Leaving the stage with Mr. Tagg's arm round his shoulder, Khalid catches sight of a pretty girl smiling at him. A picture that lights up his mind for many days to come. Hour by hour, Khalid jumps back into ordinary sounds. The crackling TV. Humming washing machine. Aadab singing. Chit-chat in the kitchen. Back into ordinary colors: green socks, red cars, Mum's purple cardigan on the chair. Back into light and shade from the living-room windows and lamps that turn on and off. Mobile phones. Ordinary pleasures like a fridge full of food. And ice trays. Taps with water available at any time. Shops with chocolate and lottery tickets. And every dinnertime the kitchen smells of fresh food made with love. Khalid walks through Rochdale not as he used to do—like someone who belongs there, head high, hoodie hanging off his shoulders—but like a dignified shy young man in black jeans and blue T-shirt who looks at the pavement more than he should. Nervous he'll trip over or bump into someone or, even worse, get shouted at.
Today Khalid takes the time to stare at the new laundromat that occupies the space where Nasir's greengrocer's shop used to be. He digs his hands in his pockets, sparking the memory of standing there wet through after helping that female jogger get her phone back from the steroid heads. How Nasir had offered to give him his old fleece jacket and warned him about what was happening in Pakistan. Where is he, Nasir? Now, instead of cabbages and grapefruits and the sound of rain on a green canvas roof, all Khalid can hear is the swish of soapy washing machines. He watches a blue plastic basket of clothes being filled by a factory woman in white overalls who waves at him suddenly, then waddles to the door. "Thought it were you, lad. Recognized you from telly and the _Rochdale Evening News_. They want shooting, that lot, after what they did. You don't look owt like a terrorist, any fool can see that. Bloody 'ellfire." "Thanks." Khalid shuffles from foot to foot. "Don't suppose you know what happened to the bloke who used to have the greengrocer's here?"
"Yeah, lad, I do." She grins. "It were a while ago someone put a petrol bomb through his letter-box and almost burned the place down. Lucky the bloke and his family were out. They were at the hospital because the wife's friend was ill. He moved out the area soon after. Some say they went back to Pakistan. Poor devils." Khalid nods and walks away, deeply saddened. Nasir's kind face stays at the front of his mind as he heads down to the high street to see what else has changed, before pausing at the newsagent's on the corner to buy some chocolate. Khalid takes his place in the queue behind a teenage girl with long hair and a pierced eyebrow. Dressed in short skirt and thigh-high boots, she throws three magazines on the counter. Adding chewing gum and a packet of Pontefract cakes as an afterthought. "Just a minute, I've got the exact money here—somewhere." Scrabbling noisily in her deep leather bag, she brings up a handful of coins and a bent cigarette. Fascinated by the tattoo of a chain around her arm, Khalid doesn't at first notice the sudden whiff of sweet perfume behind him.
"Hiya, Kal. Didn't you see me?" Niamh taps him on the shoulder. "I was in the pet shop next door looking at the parakeets when you went past." Stunned, Khalid freezes. All the color drains from his face. Wearing white cut-offs and a yellow sparkly jumper, Niamh looks nothing like she used to. Her hair's cut short in a bob and she's overdone the gold eyeshadow a bit. He remembers her face quite differently. She's pretty but not in the amazing way he thought she was. Now she's too skinny and he'd never noticed how fake her smile was before. "You were great in assembly," Niamh says. "Wasn't it cool when everyone started shouting? I was like, hey, Kal deserves this. Gilly was like, 'But he must have done something bad, otherwise why did he end up there?'" Khalid gazes at her face. At her pale green eyes. At her fluttering eyelashes and smudged mascara. At the pink lips he's dreamed of kissing over and over again. "You OK, Kal?" she asks. Khalid trembles. "I, um. I was . . ." Stuffing the magazines into her expanding leather bag, the tattooed girl gawps at him, then Niamh, before hurrying past.
"What do you want, lad?" the newsagent asks, staring at Khalid's tranced-out face as if there's a strong possibility he's going to remain frozen like that, blocking up the counter forever. In the end, Niamh takes his arm. "Come on, Kal, let's get out of here." Together they cross the road, with the foul smell of exhaust fumes in his face. "Anyway, as I was saying, we all tore into Gilly because she said that about you." Niamh smiles. "And I went off her soon after, because she tried to snog my boyfriend. Can you believe it? Some friend she turned out to be." Boyfriend? Did she say boyfriend? Khalid's arm shoots forward. He grabs a black railing to steady himself. The roar of cars dies away. A deadly hush falls on him. "I think you need to sit down." Niamh frowns. "There's a bench over there." At that moment an empty black bin bag catches a puff of wind and blows past them down the street. Cars roar past once more and Khalid remembers he's here at home in Rochdale. Not dreaming. Niamh takes his elbow and leads him to the bench outside the pharmacy.
"Sit down. What's on your mind, Kal? You look ill all of a sudden," she says. "Nothing," Khalid says. But then something deep inside him remembers all the hours he spent wishing he'd said things to Niamh when he had the chance. And now he does. But the words won't come. "What is it? You can tell me," Niamh says. "Well, s'ppose I was thinking, yeah?" Khalid starts. "And . . ." Niamh nods. "Go on." "Well, er . . . I guess I, yes, I always liked your buttercup painting and, er, I like you. Always have done." He can feel his face blushing slightly, but he doesn't care. He's said it now. "Aw, thanks. I really like you too, Kal, so that's great, isn't it?" Not taking the hint at all. "If I wasn't going out with Josh Parker, I'd so def be into you. So I would." The hammer blow to his heart lands so hard and fast, Khalid doubles up in pain, coughing. "You _are_ in a bad way." She grabs his arm. "Do you want me to go in the pharmacy and get something?" "No. I just got a tickle in my throat. No problem." Clutching his chest, Khalid points to the sports shop. "I'm going in there. Need another cap. Worn this one to death to hide my hair growing out."
"Let's see . . ." Niamh watches him hesitate for a moment before revealing his crazily stumpy black hair. "It's not so bad, Kal." "Too right. Thanks. Later." He jumps up to duck quickly inside the shop's glass doors and, holding a palm up to make sure she doesn't follow, waves her away. Khalid walks over to a rack of red and black caps, shaking his head with disbelief. Niamh's going out with that total idiot Josh Parker? The guy who lost them the league match against Burnley because he can't even kick a ball straight? How can she like him? Didn't his sister, Jacinda, tell the whole class he twists her arm so badly she says anything to make him stop? Anyone going out with that loser needs to get their head examined. Fast. About to try on a cool black cap because the spotty shop assistant is watching his every move, Khalid loses track of himself—of the shop, the cap in his hand and the gormless assistant. An overpowering weakness forces Khalid to perch on the edge of the gray display board before he passes out. Lifting his right hand, he tries to click his fingers. Click them in front of his eyes. But he's shaking all over. His hand won't keep still and he can't breathe. A streak of sunshine on the edge of a gold kit bag catches his eye and two plump jinn dart out from the flickering light with big smiles and sugar-white teeth. Khalid's throat tightens and sweat pours from him. He's in such a state of panic he doesn't notice Nadim and Sabeeh, his old friends from primary school, on their way home from the mosque. Khalid doesn't see Nadim running his eyes over the new half-zip shirts and black-and-white sneakers in the window, then suddenly stare in more closely and beckon his mate to take a look at Khalid, trembling and shivering. Two shop assistants standing warily close by.
Moving as one through the glass doors to get to him, "Khalid!" Nadim and Sabeeh shout. "We'll look after him," Sabeeh says, nodding to the shop guys, while Nadim bends low to gently take Khalid's shaking hands from his damp forehead. Shocked by the fear in his wild popping eyes, he pats his shoulder. "Hey, Khalid. You're OK, mate. We'll take you home." But Khalid doesn't answer. He can barely walk straight. 30 GUL Today sunshine streams through the open kitchen window. The sound of heavy traffic can be heard zooming down Oswestry Road because the short cut to town has been closed due to roadworks. Not that Khalid minds. Resting an elbow on the kitchen table, he's chewing a blue pen and wondering what else to tell Tariq after scrawling two pages of news that he doubts he'll ever see. He's already told him about reading his letter to Mr. Tagg in front of the whole school and the amazing reaction of all the kids. Plus how he's continually stopped by people he doesn't know and everyone expects him to say something, anything, to account for his time in Guantanamo Bay. He's running out of ideas.
Surely they must realize he would rather forget about the place and talk about Rochdale's latest win. Fed up with the thought that the subject will never go away, which hits Khalid harder each time he sits down to write to his cousin. He quickly rushes through the description of the lame bunch of kids from yesterday. "There's that terrorist who tried to blow up London," one of them shouted, sending a shiver of fear and rage up Khalid's spine. If only everything would calm down, he might be able to get on with his life. Get through another day without having a panic attack and being overcome by despair at the years he's missed out on. Then seeing Niamh. Learning she's going out with Josh Parker of all people. No wonder Khalid needed help getting home that day. He'd built her up into some perfect beauty who loved him—who was going to fall into his arms the moment she saw him. Out of desperation mostly. And she'll never know how just the thought of her kept him going. Still keeps him going, though not in the same way as before. Now when he pictures her face, he sees her as she actually is: a nice girl, not a pin-up fantasy or some kind of savior at all. Someone whose eyes and smile used to light up many lonely hours, and he'll always be thankful to her for that.
Looking around the kitchen for inspiration at the polished knives in the correct slots of the wooden knife holder. At the blue striped dishcloth folded neatly on the metal drainer. Bar of pink soap in the new see-through plastic dish. Everything in the kitchen makes Khalid smile. Mum, in her favorite navy-blue dress, stops sprinkling nutmeg, salt and pepper on the plate of chicken breasts to smile back. Opposite him, Gul, with glossy hair fanning over her shoulders, arms everywhere, draws a picture of someone else's street. Khalid writes to Tariq about her racing to finish coloring the birds in the sky before the dinner plates and cutlery clatter down and how stumps of wax crayons are rolling like marbles across the table. Snap-snapping to the floor as she wildly shades the horse in the field brown, the grass green, the houses the same yellow as the summer sun. The sound of falling crayons brings back the powerful noise of clacking food trays and the picture of Tariq staring at the air conditioner. Alone. Bent double on the bed, hoping for the sound of footsteps that might bring him someone to talk to while he waits for the call to prayer to sound across the block. Another brutal twenty-four hours of nothingness stretching out in front of him without any idea when it'll end. Without anything to look forward to now that Khalid's not there.
"Gul, can I have that drawing to send to Tariq?" Khalid asks. "I've run out of things to say and you know he once had a sister called Radhwa the same age as you." "I remember." Gul smiles. "But he can't have my picture." "Did he ever mention Radhwa to you?" Mum turns to face him suddenly. "No. Never. But he always liked hearing about Aadab and Gul." "Such a shame." Mum shakes her head. "I can't help wondering what part Tariq played in this whole mess." "MUM! You don't even know him or anyone he used to chat with. He just invented a silly game that someone decided was dangerous. He's stuck there right now, as innocent as I was." "I understand everything, you know that, Khalid. I feel sad for Tariq. For what happened. But those things he said about your father, they can't be forgiven." "Mum, don't judge him unless you know all the facts, OK? I made that mistake," Khalid says. But seeing he's made her feel guilty, he attempts to cheer her up. "Any chance you can make fluffy chips to have with the curry?'
Her face softens into a smile. "Yes. Plenty of potatoes in the cupboard, son. How happy it makes me saying "son" to you. Yes. My son is here with us once more." "Don't get soppy again. You promised you wouldn't." "Soppy? Me? Not me, son. Never." Khalid grins as his attention turns to the swirl of orange smoke Gul's adding to her picture. "Gul, don't wreck it with that horrible orange color." "Why not?" A silly grin is plastered across her face. "I don't like the color, that's all." Khalid frowns at Gul. Concerned because Mum's hiding her tears by looking for something in the highest cupboard and he doesn't want Gul to see her crying. _There's not much more I can tell you, cuz_ , Khalid writes quickly. _I don't think that feeling of total misery will ever really go away. Soon, I promise, you'll get home. But whenever I start to think of that prison, I stop and remind myself how kind most people are in the world. Did I tell you Mac, my nice neighbor, is going to teach me to drive his car? For free. How cool is that?_
The front door clicks. Khalid listens for his dad to pause in the hall to hang up his brown zip jacket. He comes in, his face full of warmth and happiness when he sees Khalid. "Hi, Dad, did you see that poster for the oriental rug sale on Saturday up the road?" Khalid asks. Before answering, Dad smiles and quietly slips off his brown shoes to reveal ribbed gray socks, then empties his pocket of nutmeg cake wrapped in wrinkly tin foil on to the kitchen table. "Yes, it starts at ten in the morning and goes on the whole day." He scrapes the chair back and sits down. "Well, we're going. Don't look so surprised. Just think of it as a little act of kindness on my part." "Oh, I will, I will." Dad laughs. Mum, Aadab and Gul join in too. There's nowhere in the world Khalid would rather be than right here . . . Spying his dad's new shoes on the floor reminds him of something. "Dad, give us your shoes. You've got dirt all over them. A right mess they are." He darts to the cupboard under the sink to take out the cardboard box.
His dad stares at him, amused, as Khalid unfolds a sheet of newspaper on the floor and sits cross-legged. He lays the cloth and brushes neatly side by side on the paper, just as he's seen his dad do so many times. Carefully, he opens the tin of dark-brown Kiwi polish and pats at it with the brush. Then, fist in the shoe, he spreads the polish evenly, working it into the leather one section at a time. Focusing hard on polishing the rims of the sole, before starting on the toe to patiently bring up the shine. In the middle of all this hard work he breathes in the lovely smell of sizzling chicken cooked with toasted almonds and couscous, and a small fire lights up not only in Khalid's eyes and stomach, but also in his heart. Dad looks on with approval and Khalid knows this small act of kindness means more to him than he could ever imagine. Then, for that moment, as he sits on the kitchen floor cleaning Dad's shoes, some of the sadness in Khalid's heart lifts and the past collapses into a little burst of happiness. The kind of happiness that a loving family brings.
Afterword The fact that has struck me hardest about Guantanamo Bay is the number of juveniles who were brought there, as many as sixty in a total population of some 780. And not just "juveniles"—but kids. These kids include Mohammed el Gharani from Chad, one of Reprieve's clients, who had never even been to Afghanistan until the US paid a bounty to his captors and took him there. US Intelligence thought Mohammed was in his mid-twenties: despite years of interrogation, it had not been discovered that he was only fourteen years old and had gone to Pakistan simply to learn about computers. US District Judge Richard Leon later determined that he was innocent of any wrongdoing, and he was released after more than seven years in captivity. Mohammed was innocent and should have been in school. Yet he learned the lessons of adolescence in a maximum security prison, in cells with those reputed to be the most dangerous of terrorists.Sadly, it's happening elsewhere. Now a similar situation is occurring in the US detention center in Bagram Air Force base in Afghanistan, where a kid called Hamidullah was himself just 14 when he was first detained. At Reprieve, we're working to defend his rights and the rights of other prisoners. As a nation, we cannot expect the world to embrace democracy and the rule of law unless we respect it ourselves.
—Clive Stafford Smith Founder and Director, Reprieve March 7, 2011 _For more about Reprieve's work regarding_ _Guantanamo Bay, please visitwww.reprieve.org.uk._ GUANTANAMO BAY TIMELINE * 2001 September 11, 2001 > Operatives of Al-Qaeda, an international terrorist group, attack the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. October 7, 2001 > The war in Afghanistan begins. The US military targets the Taliban, the ruling militia in Afghanistan, which refuses to hand over Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden. December 2001 > Osama bin Laden escapes from Afghanistan. 2002 January 11, 2002 > Twenty suspected terrorists are detained at Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay. They are the first detainees to arrive. January 17, 2002 > The US military allows the Red Cross to establish permanent residence at the Guantanamo Bay prison. January 18, 2002 > President George W. Bush declares that Guantanamo Bay detainees are not protected under the Geneva Conventions, which require that certain rights are given to prisoners of war. February 27, 2002
> Detainees go on a hunger strike to protest a rule against wearing turbans, which are a common part of Muslim religious life and are often used during prayer. April 25, 2002 > Camp Delta is built to house 410 prisoners. 2003 April 23, 2003 > The US military admits that children sixteen and younger, many of whom have been held for a year, are among the detainees. Three boys from Afghanistan, ages thirteen to fifteen, are among the inmates and are held in a dedicated juvenile facility; they are released in 2004. May 9, 2003 > Guantanamo Bay prison reaches 680 detainees, the most it has held at one time. October 9, 2003 > The Red Cross says there is "deterioration in the psychological health of a large number of detainees." 2004 October 16, 2004 > According to the _New York Times_ , detainee abuse is more pervasive than the Pentagon has let on. 2006 February 15, 2006 > A report from the United Nations recommends the closure of Guantanamo Bay prison. May 28, 2006 > According to London lawyers, dozens of children as young as fourteen years old have been sent to Guantanamo Bay prison, and they estimate that more than sixty detainees were under eighteen when they were captured.
June 29, 2006 > The US Supreme Court rules Guantanamo Bay detainees are protected under the Geneva Conventions. 2007 February 7, 2007 > According to a Pentagon inquiry, there is no evidence of abuse at the Guantanamo Bay prison. 2009 January 14, 2009 > A senior Bush administration official releases a public statement detailing the torture of one of the Guantanamo Bay detainees. January 22, 2009 > President Barack Obama issues executive orders to close Guantanamo Bay within one year, to ban CIA interrogation techniques that might be considered torture, and to review the prison's detention policies. 2011 January 22, 2011 > Two years after President Obama's executive order to close Guantanamo Bay, the prison remains open with 174 prisoners. Many have called for its closure, including General Colin Powell, General David Petraeus, and General Wesley Clark of the US armed forces; former FBI Director William Sessions; and Defense Secretary Robert Gates. April 25, 2011 > Leaked classified documents reveal that more than a hundred detainees at Guantanamo have been innocent or low- risk inmates, including cases where officials were aware of their status.
May 1, 2011 > Osama bin Laden is killed by US forces in Abbottabad, Pakistan, during a covert operation authorized by President Obama. May 3, 2011 > When asked whether the information leading to Bin Laden was obtained by waterboarding, a controversial interrogation technique, Deputy National Security Advisor John Brennan replies, "Not to my knowledge." *For sources, please see last page. Guantanamo Boy Synopsis and Discussion Questions by Michael Robinson, award-winning high school social studies teacher SYNOPSIS The book begins six months after the events of 9/11 in Rochdale, a large city near Manchester, England. Khalid is an average fifteen-year-old student at Rochdale High who enjoys hanging out with his friends, watching and playing soccer, and playing video games on the family computer. His father is originally from Pakistan, and his mother is from Turkey. The family is Muslim, but his mother does not wear the Islamic veil, and the family only occasionally says Friday prayers. The family goes on a vacation to Pakistan to visit and help Khalid's father's sisters move to a better house. Once there, Khalid's father goes missing, and Khalid goes to search for him. While looking for his father on the streets of Karachi, Khalid becomes part of a street demonstration. Unable to find his father, Khalid returns home, where shortly thereafter several men storm into the house and take Khalid prisoner.
Over the course of the next two years, Khalid is taken from Pakistan to Afghanistan and finally to Guantanamo Bay. He is questioned relentlessly about being involved in terrorism and undergoes tremendous mental and physical torture. With the help of his family, community, and his lawyer, Khalid is released from Guantanamo Bay shortly after his seventeenth birthday and allowed to go home to England where he is finally free to live his life. This is a story of injustice, survival, and courage. Khalid was your typical average boy in almost every way, but after surviving two years of imprisonment, torture, conditions of near insanity, and severe loneliness, Khalid shows how the human spirit can overcome and survive the worst situations imaginable, proving he is anything but average. THEME DISCUSSION Use the following questions and prompts relating to the overall themes in _Guantanamo Boy_ as a basis for discussion of the book. Family How does one's family influence the choices that one makes? Discuss how one relies on his/her family for help, support, and guidance.
Prison and Punishment What is the purpose of a prison? Discuss if the punishments found in the book are effective and appropriate. Discuss if torture should be used to obtain information from someone. Terrorism Define terrorism and a terrorist act. Discuss what types of terrorist acts have occurred in the United States and other countries around the world. Discuss how countries should respond to terrorist acts against its people. Governments What is the role of a government? How do governments protect and provide security for their people? Discuss how a country can balance a person's rights and still provide the security that is needed. Religion Define religion and discuss the role it plays in society. How do religions affect a person's way of living? Discuss how the world's two largest religions (Christianity and Islam) are similar and different. What about other religions, such as Judaism, Hinduism, and Buddhism? CHAPTER DISCUSSION QUESTIONS AND PROMPTS The following pages contain discussion questions and prompts using direct quotes from each of the book's thirty chapters.
Chapter 1: Game p. 4: _"Six months after 9/11 and the world is getting madder by the day," [Khalid's father] says from suddenly behind him._ > How did the world change, especially in the United States, after 9/11? p. 4–5: Khalid's father to Khalid: _"Things will get worse before they get better," Dad says. "A man came into the restaurant today, pointed his finger at the waiter and said, "You better watch your step round here, mate.' Can you believe it? The boy hasn't done anything wrong. Nothing except wear the shalwar kameez. That's it."_ > What is a shalwar kameez? > Discuss the meaning of racial profiling and how it applies in this example. p. 11: Khalid on his mother: _Mum has never worn the veil and neither did her mother in Turkey, where she was brought up._ > What is the veil? > Why would Muslim women wear the veil? Why would they not wear it? Chapter 2: Blood's Thicker Than Water p. 25-26: _Khalid reads the message written in large black words on his flapping white T-shirt:_ SMALL-MINDED FLAG-WAVING XENOPHOBE _. Eh? Khalid stops for a second to wonder at the meaning of the word "xenophobe."_
> What is xenophobia? Give an example. p. 28: Nasir to Khalid: _"I'm thinking you must be careful, lad. My wife's family have plenty of friends who live there and they say the Americans are paying people big bucks to report anyone suspicious to them."_ > What is the danger in paying for information? Chapter 3: Karachi p. 40: _[Khalid] logs on to his e-mail and discovers that Tariq's game—Bomber One—is ready. A whizz-kid friend of his in Lahore has helped to finish the program and download it. Tariq's sent him instructions on how to set up his profile so they can all play together soon._ > Discuss what type of game _Bomber One is. What kinds of computer and video games are popular? Explain._ Chapter 4: Missing p. 47: _Khalid finds himself part of a demonstration in Karachi: The throng of men is growing by the second. Khalid stops. Turns to go back and find another route to avoid this chaos. But he gets caught in a sudden wave of men surging from a side alley. Pulling him forward in a lawless mass of anger that reminds him of getting caught in the rivers of fans coming out of Old Trafford after Manchester United have lost a game._
> Why was it dangerous for Khalid to become involved in the demonstration? p. 50: _Jim shakes his head. "Everybody from a Muslim country is seen as a threat to the USA right now."_ > Discuss why Jim makes the statement above. p. 52: _"Will you have to marry a Muslim girl?" Niamh asked. "I can marry who I like," [Khalid had] said. Not wanting to get into this. Thinking, Should I tell her if she isn't a Muslim she can convert? Loads do._ > Discuss why it would be important for a Muslim to marry a person who is also Muslim? > How does this quote relate to other religions such as Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, etc.? Chapter 5: Easter p. 62: _Blocking the hallway is a gang of fierce-looking men dressed in dark shalwar kameez . . . Confused by the image, [Khalid] staggers, bumping backwards into the wall. Arms up to stop them getting nearer. Too shocked and terrified to react as they shoulder him to the kitchen and close the door before pushing him to his knees and waving a gun at him as if he's a violent criminal. Then vice-like hands clamp his mouth tight until they plaster it with duct tape. No chance to wonder what the hell is going on, let alone scream out loud._
> Discuss what Khalid may be thinking as this terrifying abduction is taking place. p. 63: _Paralyzed by fear, Khalid wonders desperately where they are taking him. Who are they? Why him? What for? Questions he can't even speak out loud._ > Discuss what we know about Khalid and the events of the day that may have contributed to his being kidnapped. > Discuss the following statement: Khalid was innocent. How can this happen to an innocent person? Chapter 6: Power p. 67: _"This is Karachi, not England," [Khalid's interrogator] says. "You don't have any legal rights here. Tell us what you know and you can go home."_ > What rights does Khalid not have while he is in Pakistan? > Discuss what human rights have been violated. p. 76: _"Do I look like a terrorist?" [Khalid] says aloud, totally confused by the whole thing. His thoughts scatter to consider every possibility._ > Discuss Khalid's question, "Do I look like a terrorist?" > What (if any) characteristics do terrorists have? Chapter 7: Bread p. 84: _Khalid stares into his invisible future and sees nothing worth living for . . ._
> Explain why Khalid has given up on his future. Chapter 8: Masud p. 91: Masud to Khalid: _"Americans looking everywhere, all time for Bin Laden . . ."_ > Who is Bin Laden? What is he responsible for? > Discuss why Americans are looking for Bin Laden. p. 92: Masud to Khalid: _"They accuse me of being enemy combatant."_ > Define enemy combatant. > Why is this term used? p. 94: _The one thing [Khalid] wishes he could change right now is the religion he was born into._ > Discuss why Khalid would want to change his religion. Chapter 9: To Kandahar p. 95: _[Khalid] curls into a ball on the floor and cries. He'd always thought of himself as strong . . ._ > Discuss if anyone would be able to be "strong" if they had to go through what Khalid goes through. Chapter 10: Processing p. 101: Khalid reacts to the shaving of the prisoners' beards: _It ignites a terrible anger in Khalid, who knows the shaving of the man's beard—an important part of his Muslim identity—is the final insult for him._ > Discuss why a man's beard would be an important part of his Muslim identity.
p. 104–5: _[Khalid is mad] at the Americans for seeing them as just that: Muslims. Dangerous foreigners whom they can't even tell apart. Angry too at the Muslim religion for getting him into this mess. He once heard a newsreader say it was the fastest-growing religion in the world. Khalid remembers wishing the media wouldn't say stuff like that. People don't want to hear those facts, and he doesn't particularly want to be lumped together with loads of people he doesn't know, Muslim or not. And Muslims aren't all the same, just like Christians aren't all the same. He's Khalid—himself, not a result of any religion. He hasn't even done anything with his life yet._ > What stereotypes exist about Muslims? > Explain how Muslims are not all the same. Chapter 11: Red Cross p. 120: A Red Cross worker approaches Khalid with a question: _"I'm with the Red Cross. Do you want to write a letter to anyone?" "A letter?" It's the first time Khalid's thought about it. "Just one letter? Can't I do more?" "However many you want!" The soldier opens the cell and hands Khalid three pieces of paper and a black pen. Plus a cup which holds a card with a number. His is 256._
> Why was a member of the Red Cross allowed to speak with Khalid? > Why is Khalid referred to by a number instead of by his name? > Define dehumanization. Is Khalid being referred to as a number an example of dehumanization? Chapter 12: Wade p. 129: Khalid's reaction when being allowed to see the sky: _Khalid gazes at the sky as if for the first time and the sudden, searing light makes him feel drunk as anything. It's so wonderful and perfect . . ._ > What ordinary things would you miss if they were taken from you? p. 132: Khalid on his solitary confinement: _It's a room Khalid gets to know well, because every single half-hour over the next three days the soldiers barge in to wake him. He fades in and out of the most disturbed sleep ever conceived as his mind wanders to thoughts and images he had no idea were even stored there._ > How is this an example of torture? > Is torture an effective way to find out important information from someone who does not want to cooperate? Chapter 13: Lights p. 139: _. . . If [Khalid] can close his brain down for a bit, then maybe he can forget? Perhaps if the guards stay away, he can fall into a long, timeless sleep instead of the half-hour here and there before another bitter wake-up . . ._
> Why did the guards not allow Khalid to sleep? p. 145: _Footsteps down the corridor sound inside a mind of shadows so dark, [Khalid] can hardly remember what day it is anymore . . ._ > How did Khalid survive the torture? Chapter 14: Water Tricks p. 150: _Eyes closed, [Khalid's captors'] hands pressing down on his shoulders, Khalid hears the jug being filled with water at high velocity. A cloth lands on his face. More hands hold it down, so that he breathes in the smell of gauze bandages, and at the same time a trickle of cold water pours through the cloth and down his nose and mouth._ > Explain if this is an example of torture. > What is the purpose of this type of interrogation? p. 152: _The suited man to Khalid: "This procedure will continue until you confess your part in the worldwide bombing campaign you planned with known accomplices," the man says firmly._ > Discuss why Khalid would confess to doing things he never did. > Do you think there would be people who might think Khalid is guilty even if they are aware of how the confession was obtained?
> Discuss the consequences of his signed confession. Chapter 15: Sleep p. 167: On torture: _"It's a stupid way of finding anything out. Whenever my brother twists my arm up my back, it hurts so bad I say anything he wants me to just to get him to stop. So what's the point in torturing someone if all you get is lies?"_ > Answer Khalid's question: "So what's the point in torturing someone if all you get is lies?" Chapter 16: Guantanamo p. 176: _Since he arrived in Guantanamo, Khalid hasn't really seen anyone. Just the food trolley man and the soldiers. The only sounds that keep him company day and night are terrifying screams from the other end of the building and then someone who coughs and coughs—he doesn't know which is worse. Plus the constant slamming of metal flaps gives him a headache, like a pneumatic drill in the side of his skull._ > Discuss what it would be like if you had to go months with almost no contact with other people. Chapter 17: Sweat p. 190: Masud to Khalid on his imprisonment: _"This I'm knowing for sure is against the law they set in Geneva. Certainly. No one here has received a trial. They cannot keep a child like you on your own. This is cruel torture."_
> What were the laws that were set at Geneva? > What has happened to Khalid that could be against the law? Chapter 18: Every Shred p. 197: _"I want a lawyer," Khalid says._ > Discuss why and how Khalid can be held for this amount of time without access to a lawyer. > Why has Khalid not had a trial? > Discuss the demands Khalid is making, and explain if these are valid demands. p. 198: An interrogator to Khalid: _"You will tell us what you know about al-Qaeda!" Bruce says menacingly. "If not now, then tomorrow or the next day. I hope you'll think about how your actions are harming innocent people."_ > Define irony. > Discuss how the statement made by Bruce is ironic. Chapter 19: The Jinn p. 204: _. . . Khalid hears the sounds of Ramadan start up again._ > What is Ramadan? > Discuss how fulfilling Ramadan is difficult for the Muslim prisoners. Chapter 20: Exercise p. 221: Ali to Khalid: _"Islam is not a medieval culture . . ."_ > Discuss how the culture of Islam is relevant in modern-times. > Why would someone assume that Islam is a "medieval culture"?
Chapter 21: Hair p. 232: Khalid after seeing his face in a mirror while getting his hair cut: _Was that really his face?_ > Describe how Khalid reacts to seeing his face. Chapter 22: News p. 241: [ _Khalid feels] deep-seated hatred and contempt . . . for his cousin._ > Explain why Khalid has feelings of hatred toward his cousin. > Are these feelings justified? Chapter 23: Lee-Andy p. 254: Tariq to Khalid: _"I said your father is a fund-raiser for extremists. I lied to stop them beating and driving me to insanity. Told them many lies about everyone. I'm asking for your forgiveness, cuz."_ > Discuss if Khalid should forgive Tariq for his lies against his father. Chapter 24: Harry p. 266: _"Hi, Khalid, I'm your new lawyer. Name's Harry Peterson."_ > Describe how Khalid might feel when he realizes that he finally has a lawyer. > Discuss who is supporting Khalid's release. p. 275: _From now on, Khalid wants to be seen as honest and sincere, brave, forgiving and kind, so he thinks hard. Knowing once his words are taken down, they're written in stone and he never wants to be caught out again._
> Discuss if Khalid has been brave since he was kidnapped. Chapter 25: Echoes p. 281: [ _The] religion [Khalid] once ignored and avoided because he thought it was uncool has become a major source of comfort, giving him something to turn to._ > Discuss how religion has become an important part of Khalid's life. > Discuss how and/or if religion can help people when they are in desperate situations. Chapter 26: Hot Shots p. 292: _"I'm going to sue you for all of this. Just so you know," Khalid says. "I think you'll find you were never arrested," Major Leeth tells him, smirking. "No, that's right, I was kidnapped, wasn't I? You suckers better apologize for torturing me."_ > Discuss what the major means when he tells Khalid that he was never arrested. > Discuss what type of compensation (if any) Khalid should receive for being kidnapped. p. 297: _But not only does Khalid find this Rochdale stuff hard to believe; it seems incredible that from now on people will think he's special, though not for anything positive, just for spending time in that prison._
> Explain why Khalid is not excited about being seen as special. Chapter 27: Touchdown p. 306: _"Your dad's on the phone!" Khalid freezes in shock. "Dad! Dad!" Khalid grabs the mobile. Holding it close, he turns away from Harry as Dad's soft, gentle voice passes through him in a wave of longed-for pure pleasure._ > Discuss what Khalid and his father would talk about on the phone after not seeing one another for two years. > What would you talk about with your family? p. 307: _"Sorry to keep you waiting. I'm Professor Wolfson. My job is to help you settle back into normal life as soon as possible."_ > Give examples of the difficulties Khalid might have adjusting to normal life. Chapter 28: Home p. 315: _Then there's all the people knocking on the door, day and night. The local imams, Muslim leaders, journalists, friends and neighbors—even the guy who owns the restaurant where Dad works. Their constant voices, welcomes, and polite inquiries cause exhaustion and pounding headaches for Khalid._ > Discuss how Khalid reacts to all of the attention.
> How would you react in his situation? p. 322: Mr. Tagg to Khalid: _"There's only one thing I ask, Khalid. Will you come and help me do an assembly on that awful place you've been? There's a lot of anti-Muslim feeling building at the moment and we want to keep the school and Rochdale free from that kind of sentiment."_ > Explain why it could be difficult for Khalid to tell about what happened to him while imprisoned. Chapter 29: Assembly p. 326: Khalid on preventing violence: " _. . . I'd say the only way to prevent violence is to stop being violent, stop thinking nasty thoughts about other people. Stop hurting other people. Stop lying and cheating. How come the world doesn't get that?"_ > Explain if you agree with what Khalid says about preventing violence. Chapter 30: Gul p. 338: Khalid's letter to Tariq: There's not much more I can tell you, cuz, _Khalid writes quickly._ I don't think that feeling of total misery will ever really go away. Soon, I promise, you'll get home. > Discuss the possibility of Khalid's cousin being released.
p. 340: _. . . Khalid's heart lifts and the past collapses into a little burst of happiness. The kind of happiness that a loving family brings._ > Discuss how this statement means more to Khalid at seventeen than it did when he was fifteen.SOURCES FOR TIMELINE www.cfr.org/publication/20018/us_war_in_afghanistan.html projects.washingtonpost.com/guantanamo/timeline/ www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4715995 www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2007/dec/19/politics.terrorism www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/apr/23/usa www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/apr/24/usa.afghanistan www.abc.net.au/am/content/2010/s2979501.htm news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3172617.stm www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/the-children-of-guantanamo-bay-480059.html news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20110425/ts_alt_afp/usattacksguantanamowikileaks_20110425091947 www.businessinsider.com/bin-laden-death-torture-waterboarding-obama-2011-5 About the Author Anna Perera was born in London to an Irish mother and Sri Lankan father. She worked as an English teacher in secondary schools in London before running a unit for excluded boys. She has an MA in children's writing and has had several children's books published in the UK.
Perera had never considered writing for teens until she attended a benefit for Reprieve, a human rights organization. There she learned about the plight of children held at Guantanamo Bay and was instantly compelled to write the novel _Guantanamo Boy._ The book was shortlisted for the Costa Children's Book Award and nominated for the Carnegie Medal in England. Her second book for teens, _The Glass Collector_ , is set in Cairo, Egypt. Though she has enjoyed creating books for younger readers, Perera says she feels completely at home writing YA novels and will continue to work in this genre long after her reading glasses are fitted with telescopic lenses. Since 1919, independent publisher Albert Whitman & Company has created some of the world's most loved children's books. Best known for the classic Boxcar Children® Mysteries series, its highly praised picture books, novels, and nonfiction titles succeed in delighting and reaching out to children and teens of all backgrounds and experiences. Albert Whimans's special-interest titles address subjects such as disease, bullying, and disabilities. All Albert Whitman books treat their readers in a caring and respectful manner, helping them to grow intellectually and emotionally.
FIND OUT MORE AT WWW.ALBERTWHITMAN.COM FOLLOW US: @AlbertWhitman and Facebook.com/AlbertWhitmanCompany Albert Whitman & Company is one of a select group of publishing partners of Open Road Integrated Media, Inc. Open Road Integrated Media is a digital publisher and multimedia content company. Open Road creates connections between authors and their audiences by marketing its ebooks through a new proprietary online platform, which uses premium video content and social media. Videos, Archival Documents, and New Releases Sign up for the Open Road Media newsletter and get news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up now at www.openroadmedia.com/newsletters FIND OUT MORE AT WWW.OPENROADMEDIA.COM FOLLOW US: @openroadmedia and Facebook.com/OpenRoadMedia </s>
Grill Smoke BBQ - Ben Tish CONTENTS Taming the flame Choosing and using your barbecue Wood and charcoal The not-so-mystifying art of smoking Barbecues and booze Breakfast, Brunch & Bread Tapas & Small Plates Large Plates Sides Desserts Basics Suppliers Index TAMING THE FLAME Setting out on this project was very exciting for us at Ember Yard, and we were determined to make it different (hopefully) from other barbecue books out there, and to show you how versatile barbecuing can be. Venturing beyond the ubiquitous pulled pork, brisket and wings – yes, these are there too – we've favoured lighter dishes, with more fish, vegetables and even desserts, all making the most of the barbecue's magic. My own passion for grilling over charcoal and wood is deep-seated, but it began in a typically British fashion. When I was growing up, the annual dusting down of the family barbecue and its utensils at the beginning of summer may have been predictable, but it was still full of expectation. Back then it was more about the ceremony of lighting the fire and the anticipation, rather than the actual results: dubious sausages and 70%-meat-content(!) burgers; perhaps some very well-done, leathery steak; and a nod to the vegetarians, with some corn-on-the-cob.
> Fast forward to the present. The ceremony is still as exciting as ever – something to do with our primal instinct to light a fire for cooking, the smell of smoke and the lick of flame almost hypnotizing. But now it's all about the flavour: the smoky, rich taste of food cooked over an open fire is one of life's true pleasures, and there's really nothing like it. Whether you're cooking herb-stuffed sea bream, a rare-breed Dexter rib steak, a whole chicken, or an anchovy-spiked leg of lamb, the charcoal and wood work their magic. Having travelled through many parts of Spain and Italy – including the Basque Country, Rioja, Tuscany and Piedmont – I've witnessed first-hand the true art of grilling. In these regions, cooking over an open flame is second nature, and many houses and restaurants have a grilling contraption out the back, or indeed in the actual kitchen. One of the best pieces of beef I've ever eaten was a Chianina T-bone grilled over the simplest of fires in Florence's Trattoria Sostanza, the meat expertly blackened and gently perfumed with smoke from hazel-wood charcoal. The two guys running the grill were captivating in their deftness and skill (not to mention their ability to hang a fag from their lips throughout), and completely in tune with the natural rhythm of the fire and smoke.
Traditional Basque grills especially fascinate me, with their distinctive operating wheel that precisely raises or lowers the grilling racks to allow food to be cooked quickly, slowly, or anything in between. Chef Victor Arguinzoniz of Asador Etxebarri, in the rolling hills of the Basque countryside, has turned grilling into a true artform. He is in control of the entire process, from chopping down the various trees for the wood, drying the logs and then burning them in a furnace to make the charcoal. Victor even designed his own custom Basque grill to meet his exacting requirements. Perhaps unsurprisingly, then, the food from Etxebarri is some of the best I've had. It's incredibly simple, just one or two elements on the plate, and that's it – but these elements all have a controlled, balanced and relevant smokiness to them that could only come from Victor's intuitive cooking and years of practice. Etxebarri is a unique experience, and one that can't really be replicated, not least because of its location – a backdrop of a grassy mountainside dotted with Basque sheep makes it an ethereal experience! However, much can be learnt from this approach, even by a novice: the importance of sourcing the best ingredients you can find, along with natural (chemical-free) charcoal and a fundamental understanding of how fire and smoke work...
Nowadays, excellent produce is available from artisan butchers, fishmongers, grocers and even some supermarkets, so there's no need to go down the dodgy sausage route any more – unless you really feel compelled to. And there's plenty of wonderful, slow-burning charcoal out there – we like to use single-species varieties of charcoal, such as oak, silver birch, hazel and apple. Their subtle flavours permeate the food without any overpowering acridity, and you can experiment by matching specific woods with different foods. Great fun. So, what to cook on? Times have changed, and the choice of barbecues is staggering! The masses have embraced the Weber, kettle-style barbecue and all the accessories that go with it, right down to the gloves and tongs. And very good they are too: the chimney starter is a genius idea, speeding up the whole lighting process and enabling you to top up the coals as you go. Then there's the Big Green Egg, which is very special but also very expensive, thanks to its NASA-designed insulation that lets you crank up the heat to ridiculously high temperatures. At Ember Yard – our grill restaurant in Berwick Street, Soho – we use a pimped-up Robata-style grill, as favoured by the Japanese. Our new one is a beast, with a wheel and hoist to raise it up and lower it down for different cooking styles, and it really is the business. But actually all you need is a sturdy, robust barbecue with a large surface area, and a lid so you can smoke food. Personally, I'm not a huge fan of the gas barbecue, but if you have one, by all means use it for these recipes; you'll just end up with different flavours.
> We want to encourage you to think of barbecuing and grilling as a year-round method of cooking – just an extension of the way you cook in your kitchen, using what's best and in season. Don't be afraid to light the coals on a cold winter's afternoon. Yes, it may be chilly, but wrap up warm and get cooking – you can always eat inside. Besides, the British summer is usually way too short to miss out on the fantastic smoky flavours and ceremony of cooking over charcoal and wood at other times of the year. Of course, stereotypically, barbecuing is seen as a male-dominated pastime, but we think otherwise. We hope the contents of this book will make the whole experience easy and fun for everyone to try. It's time to embrace the barbecue and grill! Move on from the ubiquitous summer barbecues and take it up a gear, whatever the weather. A practical note on using this book Nearly all these recipes involve using the barbecue one way or another. Some dishes, such as the larger sharing plates, are cooked entirely on the barbecue, while for others, just one or two elements might be barbecued.
Of course, it's not really practical to wheel out the barbecue, light and set it just to grill some strawberries for dessert (although I've been guilty of that before!), so I encourage you to use the barbecue for a full meal, or a few dishes, perhaps cooking something else in advance, to make the most of the effort involved. Some of the recipes are quick to prepare and cook, while others require more time for smoking, marinating or brining, followed by a longer cooking time. It's best to read a recipe through first and find out what suits the timeframe you have in mind. Personally, I love getting stuck into a couple of recipes over the weekend that require time and prep and make a fun project of it. While you can make many of these dishes using a stovetop chargrill pan in the kitchen, their soul comes from cooking them over the open flame – with charcoal, wood and smoke. CHOOSING AND USING YOUR BARBECUE Once upon a time, more than likely when the first summer sun had just popped out, I'd wheel out the rusting barbecue, brush away the cobwebs and burnt-sausage debris and load up the barbecue with briquettes I'd bought from the local garage. It didn't really occur to me that this piece of borderline scrap could enhance the flavour of food as it cooked and be used to create some sublime dishes.
> There's nothing remotely complicated here, but it's probably the most important section in this book, and I'd recommend you read it before you get started. This will really show you how to make the most of your barbecue and what you cook on it. Not wanting to complicate things, I decided to use two simple barbecues to cook everything in this book: one a round kettle-style barbecue with a 56cm (22in) cooking area; the other a rectangular drum-style barbecue with an 80 x 54cm (32 x 21in) cooking area. Each has a lid, top and bottom vents, a built-in thermometer and one level of grill; to control the heat, food is moved from one side to the other, rather than up and down. If your barbecue has an upper grill shelf, that can also be useful for resting meat or fish after cooking and for keeping food warm. One point worth mentioning is size: a larger barbecue can obviously hold bigger things; if you want to cook a whole fish and some vegetables, then a smaller one won't do. The dimensions of the barbecues mentioned above are big enough to cope with anything called for in these recipes – and if you've got two fired up at the same time, then the world's your oyster. For example, when I'm cooking a dinner party for a few friends, I'll have both barbecues going, so I can cook the different elements at the same time – rather like having two ovens and the stovetop working simultaneously.
Barbecues and accessories The barbecue you choose will depend on your preference, style and budget, but as long as it is sturdily built, and has a lid and vents, you are ready to roll. If your chosen barbecue doesn't have a built-in thermometer, you can easily buy one separately – and it's well worth it, especially for cooking larger items like joints of meat. I've mentioned Weber and the Big Green Egg. I also recommend the Drumbecue. Look up their websites for their ranges and stockists. If you're a barbecuing novice, start with some simple, functional kit. As you progress and get more into the art of cooking over charcoal and wood, you can add to your equipment and accessories as you see fit – there really is a whole world of equipment out there. Other kit I recommend without going mad (no combat-style barbecue attire required here!) are: • temperature probe , for checking when meat is done – especially chicken, which needs to be cooked through properly • two good, solid pairs of tongs , at least one pair with long handles
• poker , to stoke the fire • fish-grilling basket , for cooking larger, flat fish – highly recommended, as it's tricky to cook them without sticking otherwise • sturdy fish slice or spatula • barbecue brush , for basting and brushing marinades and oil onto food as it cooks • barbecue gloves – go for heatproof gloves, as opposed to the more cumbersome mitts • large and sturdy two-pronged fork • wire brush , for keeping the grill nice and clean I also like to have some short wooden planks to hand, such as you might cut from old floorboards. When soaked for a few hours, these are really good for sitting cakes and tarts on when you're baking over the coals; the damp wood acts as a perfect heat diffuser, so that the outside of whatever you're cooking doesn't get scorched. This pleasingly low-tech solution was discovered after much frustration and several burnt tarts while developing and testing the recipes for this book... Lighting your barbecue A charcoal chimney starter is by far the best, easiest and most economical way to light a barbecue, I think. Simply put a couple of firelighters in the centre of your barbecue and place the chimney on top. The 'chimney effect' will light the coals evenly all the way through the chimney, so they are ready to be tipped straight into your barbecue. The coals are ready for cooking when they are uniformly ashen grey. One load should be sufficient for a 56–60cm (22–23in) barbecue and will happily cook whatever you throw at it for around 2 hours. A chimney starter is also great for topping up the barbecue if you want to keep cooking for several hours; just re-light the chimney (separately from the barbecue), then use the fresh batch of coals to top up the barbecue, so you have continuous heat.
The alternative is the good old-fashioned and perfectly acceptable method of spreading a layer of charcoal in the desired area of the barbecue, dotting a few firelighters here and there and lighting them. This is then followed up with more chunks of charcoal on top. When the charcoal has turned ashen grey, you are ready to cook. Setting the barbecue for direct/indirect cooking Now is when you start to make a difference in terms of how and what you cook. Whether you are using a rectangular drum-style barbecue or a round kettle-style barbecue, the cooking area can be differentiated into two zones. If all you want to do is fast grilling, simply fill the base of your barbecue with charcoal, then light as described above. This is known as direct cooking , as you are cooking directly over the hot coals. Leaving a charcoal-free space of, say, a half or a third of the barbecue, allows for direct/indirect cooking. This enables you to grill or sear in the direct heat zone and then finish the cooking in the indirect heat zone, which is a slower-cooking, more oven-like environment. With indirect cooking – and some direct cooking – the lid of the barbecue needs to be closed, in order to capture the heat and smoke.
Larger cuts of meat that need long and slow cooking can also be started from scratch on the indirect heat zone where, over time, they will develop caramelization, rather like a roast chicken or leg of pork in a conventional oven. Some foods have a tendency to dry out during this lengthy cooking, however; to avoid this, sit a deep baking tray or roasting tin, or one of those disposable foil trays in the direct heat zone, next to whatever it is you're cooking, and fill it two-thirds-full with water. This will create steam and a moist environment, which will help the cooking process. I've mentioned this in the recipes where I think it's necessary. Direct Cooking Indirect Cooking Controlling the heat All charcoal barbecues have two vents: one at the top and one at the bottom or side. These should remain open during cooking for maximum heat, as they allow air to flow throughout the barbecue, which fuels the fire. If the barbecue is getting too hot and you want to moderate the heat, close the vents slightly to reduce the flow of air. Only fully close the vents when you want to smother the flames and kill the barbecue, or when you are cold-smoking. Controlling the heat in this way is something you'll master and get comfortable with over time and as your confidence increases.
Setting the barbecue for direct/indirect cooking gives you a range of cooking temperatures and zones, and with experience you'll soon understand how the various zones work – the hottest, of course, being in the middle of the direct heat zone, and the coolest at the perimeter of the indirect heat zone, with everything else in between. This range of temperatures is really useful when cooking more than one dish or multiple elements of a single dish. Using wood on the barbecue It's by no means essential to throw logs or wood chips on your barbecue. Charcoal alone will cook things just fine. The use of wood is all about adding flavour and smoke. Throughout the book, I've included suggestions for using wood chips or wood dust in the cold-smoker; or wood chips, lumps and even small logs on the barbecue, to hot-smoke food as it cooks. Ember cooking This is a great way of cooking fruit and vegetables with a high water content. Burying the wrapped food in the embers helps to intensify its flavours by reducing the moisture content, and the moisture in turn helps to prevent burning. Simply wrap your fruit or vegetables in foil and nestle the parcels in the embers after the fire has died down. Ensure the parcel is completely smothered with the hot coals to get the full effect and ensure it will cook evenly.
WOOD AND CHARCOAL > Wood and charcoal are the means through which the dishes are cooked, smoked and flavoured. So it's only appropriate to give some thought to sourcing the right wood and charcoal for what you are cooking – just as you would when choosing a piece of beef from the butchers, a glistening fresh bream from the fishmonger's slab or a beautifully ripe fresh fig. Wood It all starts with the wood (even the charcoal). When buying lump wood, make sure it's hardwood, as softwood tends to burn with an unpleasant, acrid note. The wood should be already seasoned or dried, meaning the moisture has evaporated and will be easy to burn. Wood chips and wood dust are a little more specialized, but are easy enough to find online. You'll probably buy your wood from the same place as your charcoal, so you should be able to find out what variety it is and where it's from. There's lots of fun to be had by experimenting with different kinds of wood, and my guide on the page opposite should help you on your way.
Charcoal So what is charcoal? Essentially, it's wood that has been turned into coal by a fairly complex distillation process. A bag of lump-wood charcoal will generally be made from a mix of oak, beech and ash that has been heated to a high temperature in a sealed environment. Starved of oxygen, the wood releases water and gases, resulting in a light, yet concentrated fuel that is better all-round than the compressed, chemically enhanced briquettes. Because no artificial starters are used in its production, the flavour of foods is enhanced, rather than masked by a chemical aftertaste; and the charcoal burns longer and brighter, making it more economical. With transparent and ethical sourcing, it is also kinder to the environment. Single-species wood and charcoal If you want to delve deeper, there are many varieties of single-species wood and charcoal out there to experiment with – these can impart impressive flavours when paired with different foods. Mark Parr at London Log Company has been slowly pioneering this movement in the UK over recent years, and is now the go-to charcoal and wood guru for progressive chefs and enthusiastic novices alike. All Mark's wood and charcoal is sourced and produced in the UK, and he has a fascinating and constantly evolving range of single-species charcoal that really does seem to give barbecued food a special clarity of flavour.
Below are some examples of what I've found works well, whether you're cold- or hot-smoking with hardwood or cooking directly over charcoal. This should be used as a rough guide and to inspire new combinations. Remember, smoking is not a science, it's an artform! OAK I've found oak to be a great all-rounder for cooking meat, fish and vegetables. It imparts a pronounced earthy/woody flavor, while still letting the main ingredients shine through. APPLE Apple wood is quite delicate, which makes it great for cooking white fish; the wood chips are great for cold-smoking too. Perhaps unsurprisingly, apple wood has a natural affinity with fatty pork, and we love to pair it with hot-smoked pork belly. BAY This produces a subtle floral flavour that's good with fish and vegetables. BEECH Another good all-rounder with a fragrant, almost musky smoke. BIRCH A mild wood with a delicate aroma that's perfect for cold-smoking fish. CHERRY Try this light, sweet smoke with duck, chicken and meaty fish. CHESTNUT A medium-strength, nutty-flavoured wood that's nice to use during the colder months.
HICKORY A classic barbecue wood that imparts a strong flavour. I'd only use this with more robust food, such as red meats and stronger-tasting fish. THE NOT-SO-MYSTIFYING ART OF SMOKING This book wouldn't be complete without some words on one of our very best friends at Ember Yard: smoke. The main reason we love cooking over a charcoal- or wood-fired barbecue is the chance to capture some of that ethereal smokiness in whatever we are cooking. Smoke and fire are intrinsically linked, of course, and a good understanding of both will elevate your cooking skills on the barbecue to a new level. Yes, you can simply grill over some charcoal, and that's fine, but the real essence of barbecuing lies in harnessing the natural flavours from burning wood and charcoal in this process. Throw a chunk of wood or some wood chips onto your barbecue, close the lid, and you will get some intense smoky flavours happening on top of the flavour from the charcoal. Essentially, that's all there is to it – but with a little know-how and understanding, you can turn your barbecue into something much more than the sum of its parts. Be warned – it's highly addictive once you get going.
Introducing foodstuffs to smoke is a centuries-old process: perhaps a side-effect of cooking over an open fire; the result of hanging meat to dry near campfires; or even a mistake. If a mistake, it was a fortunate one, for not only does the smoke impart a sublime flavour but it also acts as a natural preservative, which would have been incredibly important in the days before refrigeration. Later, the use of salt and brines prolonged shelf-life even further, as well as adding their own flavour. It's interesting that one of the earliest-known methods of cooking and preserving is now the height of fashion in gastronomic circles and you'll find smoke in just about everything from cocktails and ice creams to fruit and chocolate! Smoke comes from the burning of hardwoods and, to a lesser degree, charcoal (wood that's already had most of its natural gases burnt off, to make a highly concentrated fuel). When wood is burnt, water, natural gases and carbon are released, and the lignin in the wood breaks down to produce the sweet smoke associated with barbecues. When choosing your wood and charcoal, it's worth remembering that it's this smoke that will end up flavouring your food.
Smoking will never be an exact science, and there'll always be an element of trial and error – at least until you get more confident – but there's no reason you can't successfully smoke food at home. At the restaurant, we have purpose-built hot- and cold-smokers that consistently produce well-rounded smoked flavours, so we can be confident of what we serve our customers. Of course, at some point you might want to consider investing in (or even building) a smaller-scale specialist smoker – such as the ProQ cold-smoke generator: you simply fill the gadget with wood dust, light it and pop it in your barbecue, then it slowly releases cool smoke over a period of a few hours. Until then, if you have a barbecue with a lid, an empty tin and a temperature probe, you're all set. There are two main methods of smoking food: hot-smoking and cold-smoking. Hot-smoking Hot-smoking flavours the surface of the food while cooking it at the same time – but at temperatures of 52–80°C (125–175°F), the process will be long and slow. This suits some of the larger cuts of meat that contain enough fat to self-baste as they cook, such as lamb shoulder, pork belly or oxtail. Arguably, this kind of hot-smoking is the essence of barbecuing, and embodies all that is rich, delicious and unctuous about slow-cooked meats.
I recommend soaking wood chips or hardwood lumps in cold water before adding them to the hot coals: an hour will suffice for wood chips, and a few hours for lumps. What this does is stop the wood from incinerating and burning fiercely on impact; instead, it will start to smoke gently. Generally, I add wood chips when I'm cooking something relatively quickly, to add a short, sharp burst of smoke; and lumps of hardwood (about 8cm (3in) quarters) if I'm cooking something for longer, with the bigger pieces of wood slowly but surely doing their thing over time. I've indicated in the recipes when to add wood chips or hardwood lumps, but there are no hard-and-fast rules. Feel free to experiment by adding wood when and where you see fit. Just remember to wait until the flames have died down and the charcoal has achieved the all-important ashen-grey stage for optimum cooking. If you are using wood chips, sprinkle them directly onto the coals. If you are using lumps of hardwood, carefully nestle them into the coals, using long-handled tongs or a poker to carefully push a little of the perimeter ash around the wood to 'pen it in' – this helps the wood to smoke nicely and for longer.
Cold-smoking In this process, smoke penetrates the food without actually cooking it as the temperature doesn't exceed 30°C (86°F). We use this technique for introducing a subtle, smoky flavour to fish, vegetables and even liquids over a period of 1–2 hours. We also like to cold-smoke meat and meatier fish prior to cooking it on the grill. This gives two layers of smokiness on eating: an intrinsic background smokiness from the cold-smoking, then a more pronounced hit from the barbecuing process. For easy cold-smoking on your barbecue, all you need is a small perforated firebox (many barbecues come with these) or a clean empty can (from beans, tuna and so on), with the lid prised open. Use a screwdriver to – carefully! – poke a few holes in the lid, then half-fill the can or firebox with your choice of wood chips. Using long-handled tongs, carefully add a piece of very hot charcoal and then cover it with more wood chips. Close the lid of the can or firebox and sit it in one corner of your barbecue. Position a grill rack above it and place whatever you're smoking on the rack. Close the barbecue lid, making sure the top vent is closed, and leave for the time specified in the recipe – although it's always good to check the temperature inside the barbecue as a back-up.
After cold-smoking, always give food a resting time of at least 6 hours (or overnight) before eating it or cooking it further. This allows the smoky flavours to develop and balance out. This book has a good few recipes that involve cold-smoking but once you've mastered the process, experiment and see what works for you. Often, you'll find that ingredients that have been marinated, salted or brined (see Basics) tend to hold the smoke flavour better. BARBECUES AND BOOZE > It's time to explore some of the many alternative ways to enjoy booze with a barbecue. It doesn't have to be a beer-only affair, and there's certainly no need for barbecues to be male-dominated drinking sanctuaries. The sad stereotype of 'Barbecue Man' is etched into our psyches: with a T-shirt and striped apron stretched across his pot belly, his sunburnt arms hold tongs in one hand and a cold beer in the other. But it needn't be like this. We like to enjoy cocktails and wines while grilling and barbecuing. And it's great fun to use the barbecue and its cooking fuel (wood, smoke, charcoal) to create garnishes and infusions for cocktails, alcoholic or not.
Why not quickly chargrill citrus fruit peel to make a smoky, zesty garnish for a cocktail, G&T or otherwise? Or get adventurous and infuse your neglected (or perhaps not!) bottle of bourbon with some barbecue-smoked bacon rind, leave it to steep for a few days and then knock up a smoky, savoury twist on an Old Fashioned. If you're cold-smoking, try putting a tray of water into the barbecue to smoke for an hour, before freezing it to create smoked ice - this works wonders in a Bloody Mary or Manhattan. When cooking with hardwood, once it burns down to solid charcoal embers, carefully fish one out with long-handled tongs, set it aside to cool and use it to infuse spirits or liqueurs. Or drop a handful of twiggy herbs (thyme, rosemary, oregano or marjoram) onto your hot grill for a few seconds and use them to infuse liquids or olive oil. Using a mortar and pestle, grind some good, single-species charcoal to a powder, ready for sprinkling over cocktails. As for pairing wines, the basic rule of thumb is that fuller-bodied reds are more conducive to winter climes, larger cuts of red meat and game; in warmer months, lighter reds work better. So when barbecuing in the depths of winter, uncork a full-bodied red Rioja to accompany a large succulent grilled T-bone. In summer, lightly chill a medium-bodied red like Pinot Noir to accompany your red meat spread. When it comes to white wines, fuller-bodied and oak-aged varieties work well with full-flavoured, charred or smoked white meat and fish. Equally, light and zesty whites go down a treat with simply grilled fish, such as sardines with lemon and olive oil. If you're on a splurge, and have got a lobster on the grill, open a crisp, smoky white with mineral notes - we especially like wines of this type from the Campania region of southern Italy.
The basic message here is that when it comes to booze and barbecues, the guidelines are just a guide. The real fun comes from experimenting - and demolishing that stereotype once and for all. > I love weekend breakfasts at home. For me, this is a time for relaxation, family and the chance to cook something delicious. Make your weekend breakfast an occasion and start the day as you mean to go on. But would you really get the barbecue out for breakfast, I hear you ask. Well, why not? Once you've got your barbecue lit, popped the coffee on, maybe mixed a Bloody Mary, read the papers and got everything ready, the barbecue will be at optimum temperature and ready to roll. Just imagine cooking fennel-infused sausages, glistening, fatty pancetta and even frying golden-yolked eggs over the glowing heat of the charcoal, everything benefiting from the faint lick and wisp of smoke from the charcoal and wood... Cooking breakfast or brunch over a barbecue will make the weekend (or a weekday off) even more special. And it doesn't have to be summer. If it's nippy outside, just set the table inside and bring in the food (or get everyone to man-up and put on their thermals!), so you can still experience the amazing barbecue flavours.
We don't offer breakfast at Ember Yard, but we do serve brunch, and some of the dishes in this section have appeared on our brunch menu at some stage or in slightly different guises – our takes on the classic English breakfast have become legendary with hungover weekend Soho-ites and hungry local shoppers. Try charcoal-grilled pancetta with fried eggs and chorizo ketchup for starters, then add a potato, honey and thyme flatbread for good measure! There's also a selection of pizzette, or mini-pizzas, which we encourage you to try. Once you've got the knack, diversify and experiment as much as you like. Flatbreads work brilliantly cooked over charcoal, as their large surface area means they take on plenty of smoky goodness. Serve them straight from the grill, nice and hot, doused in a punchy, garlicky pesto or our signature smoked butter, which is easily mastered using the cold-smoking technique. The Turkish pide, blackberries and creamed sheep's cheese recipe is something I brought back with me from indulgent food-led holidays in Alaçatı, on Turkey's Aegean Coast, where the breakfasts are second to none. Blackberries slowly simmered and turned to jam over charcoal take on a smoky note, while the hot, grilled Turkish bread and the cool, creamy cheese bring everything together beautifully.
There are also some deliciously healthy options, with mackerel and sardines making an appearance. Rich in omega 3s, both of these oily fish barbecue beautifully, their skins blistering and their natural oils self-basting the flesh. As they cook, they give off a heady aroma evocative of summers spent by the sea in Portugal and Spain, or on the banks of the Bosphorus in Istanbul, where charcoal-grilled mackerel sandwiches are served to what seems like the entire population on their way to work. When it comes to flavour and nutrients, sardines and mackerel are truly the champions of fish – and even better, they are currently very sustainable. Finally, I couldn't skip giving a nod to the US (we are barbecuing, after all), with some light and fluffy buttermilk-based pancakes – here given a whole new dimension with the addition of some char and smoke... So, it's the weekend and you've some time on your hands: get the charcoal lit, toss on a few chunks of wood and let the barbecue take care of breakfast. It's a no-brainer.
> Baked eggs with chorizo, tomato, peppers and spinach> > This is a great one-pot job for a lazy breakfast or brunch. Cooking chorizo (or parrilla chorizo, as it's known in Spain) is best for this recipe. Only semi-cured, it needs to be cooked, releasing all its smoky-porky goodness and melting into the tomato sauce as it goes. Serve this with some toasted sourdough for dipping. Serves 4 1 large onion, finely chopped 2 large garlic cloves, finely chopped 1 large red (bell) pepper, deseeded and roughly chopped 150g (5½oz) spicy cooking chorizo, roughly chopped 700g (1lb 8oz) very ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped 1 large handful young spinach leaves 4 free-range eggs olive oil, for cooking sea salt and black pepper Light and set the barbecue for direct/indirect cooking. Place a medium-sized ovenproof frying pan or flameproof casserole on the grill in the direct heat zone. Add a lug of olive oil and cook the onion and garlic, without colouring, for 3–4 minutes. If the pan gets too hot, move it off the direct heat zone to control the temperature. Next add the pepper and chorizo and cook for 3–4 minutes until the chorizo has softened and released its paprika-rich juices.
Add the tomatoes and move the pan to the indirect heat zone. Close the lid and cook slowly (the temperature inside the barbecue should be about 200°C/400°F) for about 30–35 minutes, stirring occasionally, until reduced and thickened. Check the seasoning and adjust as needed, then stir in the spinach. Use the back of a spoon to make 4 hollows and crack in the eggs. Close the lid of the barbecue and cook for 4–5 minutes or until the egg whites are just set but the yolks are still runny. Season the eggs with salt and pepper. Serve immediately. > Pizzette bases> > Basically mini-pizzas, pizzette are a great size for brunch or as part of a feast. As long as you have a hot clean grill, the pizzette bases can be cooked directly on this before the toppings are added and the cooking finished at a lower temperature to the side. Who would have thought of barbecued pizza? Yet it works fantastically and you get the proper smoky flavours of a wood-fired oven. This recipe makes enough dough for 10 pizzette. Any leftover dough can be kept in the fridge, wrapped in cling film, for a few days.
Makes 10 You'll also need a lump of oak or beech wood 1 x 7g sachet (2¼ tsp) dried yeast 350ml (1½ cups) lukewarm water 500g (3 2/3 cups) white bread flour, sifted 100g (½ cup) semolina flour, sifted ½ tsp fine salt 1½ tsp caster (superfine) sugar 2 Tbsp olive oil Whisk the yeast into the lukewarm water to dissolve. In another bowl, combine the flours, salt, sugar and olive oil, then gradually stir in the yeast mixture until the dough starts to come together. On a floured surface, knead with your hands until you have a fairly smooth, elastic dough, then return the dough to the bowl, cover with a damp clean cloth and leave in a warm place for 30 minutes, or until doubled in size. Evenly divide the dough into 10 balls, then roll out on a lightly floured surface to form small pizzette. Set the barbecue for direct/indirect cooking and place the lump of wood in the indirect heat zone. Ensure the grill is nice and clean – and very hot – before starting to cook. Lightly oil the pizzette bases on both sides, then carefully place on the grill in the direct heat zone and cook for 2–3 minutes; they should start to puff up and bubble. Turn over and cook for a further 2 minutes before moving to the indirect heat zone. Add your choice of the toppings, then finish cooking as instructed.> Pizzette with tomato, aubergine, chilli and goat's cheese> > Soft, tangy goat's cheese and aubergine is a match made in heaven, and this Sicilian-inspired pizzette has a spicy tomato sauce to give it a real kick! It's best to make the tomato sauce in advance on the stovetop, so it has time to cool and thicken.
Serves 4 4 pizzette bases (see opposite), brushed with olive oil ½ small aubergine (eggplant), very finely sliced into discs 100g (3½ oz) semi-soft goat's cheese ½ red chilli, finely chopped 6 basil leaves extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling sea salt and black pepper For the tomato sauce ½ onion, finely chopped 1 garlic clove, finely chopped ½ teaspoon dried chilli flakes 400g (14oz) ripe tomatoes, roughly chopped olive oil, for cooking For the tomato sauce, place a saucepan over medium heat and sweat the onion, garlic and chilli flakes in a little olive oil for 3 minutes or until soft. Add the tomatoes and cook slowly for about 35 minutes to reduce and thicken. Season to taste. Spread the tomato sauce over the pizzette bases, leaving a small border all around the edges. Lay the aubergine slices on top, crumble on the goat's cheese and sprinkle over the fresh chilli. Season well, then cook for 5 minutes in the indirect heat zone with the lid closed until the aubergine is cooked and the cheese has started to melt.
Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and tear over the basil leaves before serving. > Pizzette with sprouting broccoli, smoked anchovies, egg and oregano> > More classic Italian flavours here. You should be able to buy fantastically sweet, oak-smoked anchovies from good delis and supermarkets, but, failing that, regular salted ones will suffice. Serves 4 150g (5½oz) sprouting broccoli, very finely sliced 4 pizzette bases (see opposite), brushed with olive oil 16 smoked or salted anchovies 4 free-range eggs 2 tsp oregano leaves extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling sea salt and black pepper Lay the broccoli on the pizzette bases, then divide the anchovies evenly between them. Crack an egg into the middle of each pizzette. Season well and cook in the indirect heat zone with the lid closed for 5–6 minutes until the broccoli is just tender and the egg whites are set but the yolks are still nice and runny. Serve drizzled with extra virgin olive oil and scattered with oregano leaves.> Pizzette with nduja, pecorino and fennel> > Nduja has become a very trendy ingredient of late; however, this fiery Calabrian sausage paste has been around for centuries. Delicious on pizza, it will certainly wake you up with its chilli kick! A young pecorino that's softer and creamier than the aged sort will work better here, as it will melt more evenly. Alternatively, a good, tasty, soft white cheese from the UK or US would also work well.
Serves 4 180g (6½oz) nduja 4pizzette bases, brushed with olive oil 80g (3oz) young pecorino, finely grated ¼ fennel bulb, very finely sliced, any fronds reserved extra virgin olive oil, for drizzling sea salt and black pepper Spread the nduja on the pizzette bases, leaving a small border around the edges, then sprinkle over the pecorino and top with the fennel. Season and cook in the indirect heat zone with the lid closed for 8 minutes until the cheese has melted and the fennel is lightly cooked. Drizzle with extra virgin olive oil and sprinkle over any fronds from the fennel bulb before serving.> Charcoal-grilled pancetta and sausage with fried morcilla sandwiches, eggs and chorizo ketchup> > Sometimes, a fried breakfast is the only thing that will hit the spot, and there's nothing better than a really good one. However, I'm often disappointed by lacklustre bacon and sausage, or by things I don't really want being on the plate. Everything on the plate should be of the best quality, and certainly not a filler. This has all the usual favourites, but with indulgent twists, including a fried bread and morcilla sandwich that's incredibly naughty. Enjoy responsibly and in moderation!