She was made up of layers. Somewhere inside, deep under the crust of vanity, in the untampered-with essence, she would glow and feel humbled, thinking, this is just for me, he cut his hair for me. But there were other layers, bolder, more to the surface. Giggling. Wanting to catch hold of a friend. Guess what? You wouldn’t believe what this idiot did!

Find a weighted average of variables … The weights are estimated so that they result in the best separation between the groups.

After the class he came over and said very seriously, without a smile, ‘Ah’ve cut my hair.’

A part of her hollered with laughter, sang, you stupid boy, you stupid boy, I can see that, can’t I?

She said, ‘It looks nice.’ She said the wrong thing and her face felt hot and she made herself look away so that she would not know his reaction. It was true though, he did look nice, he looked decent now.

She should have said to Bryan, when they first held their coffee mugs in their hands and were searching for an empty table, ‘Let’s sit with Asafa and the others.’ Mistakes follow mistakes. Across the cafeteria, the Turkish girl saw them together and raised her perfect eyebrows; Badr met Shadia’s eyes and quickly looked away. Shadia looked at Bryan and he was different, different without the earring and the ponytail, transformed in some way. If he would put lemon juice on his spots … but it was none of her business. Maybe the boys who smashed Badr’s windows looked like Bryan, but with fiercer eyes, no glasses. She must push him away from her. She must make him dislike her.

He asked her where she came from and when she replied, he said, ‘Where’s that?’

‘Africa,’ with sarcasm. ‘Do you know where that is?’

His nose and cheeks under the rim of his glasses went red.

Good, she thought, good. He will leave me now in peace.

He said, ‘Ah know Sudan is in Africa. Ah meant where exactly in Africa.’

‘North-east, south of Egypt. Where are you from?’

‘Peterhead. It’s north of here. By the sea.’

It was hard to believe that there was anything north of Aberdeen. It seemed to her that they were on the northern-most corner of the world. She knew better now than to imagine sun-tanning and sandy beaches for his ‘by the sea’. More likely it was dismal skies and pale, bad-tempered people shivering on the rocky shore.

‘Your father works in Peterhead?’

‘Aye, he does.’

She had grown up listening to the proper English of the BBC World Service only to come to Britain and find people saying ‘yes’ like it was said back home in Arabic, aye.

‘What does he do, your father?’

He looked surprised, his blue eyes surprised, ‘Ma’ dad’s a joiner.’

Fareed hired people like that to work on the house. Ordered them about.

‘And your mother?’ she asked.