“Does that mean we can go now?” said a quiet voice. I suddenly realised that my brother had left my side. It took me a minute to come to my senses. I hardly ever heard my brother talking, but here he was speaking to my dad, not with much enthusiasm I must admit, but still. My brother was usually too deep in thought to speak to anyone.
“Yeah. Come on, lets get out of here” said my dad with a hint of a smile. Together, we made our way out through a lengthy corridor, where we passed the disgruntled woman who had pinched me earlier. We made eye contact. I gave her the dirtiest look I could muster. It was hard work as I was so worn-out, but it was worth it when I saw the stunned expression on her wrinkled face. I was so proud I even managed to mouth a rude word. Oh, the look on her face! I thought to myself that This place wasn’t that bad after all.
I couldn’t help but feel a little pleased after that incident, but all happiness was again quashed out of me when we reached the end of that long corridor, for just then, I saw the enormity of arrival hall and the masses of people standing there. It was so unnerving knowing that all of these people had their eyes on me. I manoeuvred myself so that I was behind my brother, but something pink caught my eye. Realising what I hadn’t done, I quickly stuffed the shame back into my suitcase. I’m quite sure I turned the same colour as my bra. Did this place actually have air conditioning?
My attention was once again diverted to the hundreds of people standing behind the glass. A few individuals were randomly waving at people coming out from behind us. I spotted a large, overweight woman waving and screaming frantically at someone in our direction she had clearly recognised.
“Leah,” I heard a sweet voice say. “Do they call that a beast?”
“What?”
“Well,” he replied, pointing to the screaming woman. “That is a hideous creature isn’t it?”
‘Hideous’ certainly did describe that person. “You should talk more often. I was wondering when the family gene would kick in.”
“You have bad taste.”
“What do you mean, ‘you have bad taste’?”
“Pink bra? Honestly. What are you, a flamingo?” He suddenly didn’t seem so sweet. Anyway, that bra had been on sale when I got it. It seemed a good idea at the time.
“I like you better when you don’t speak,” Right at that moment, my dad started moving towards the exit. He had spotted his family, and we were finally on our way out. Thank God. This was turning out to be a disastrous holiday and we hadn’t even left the airport.
It soon became clear that the exit was a small opening in the glass. It meant that we would have to walk through the huge wall of people. My dad took the trolley in one hand, and my brother’s arm in the other. Using the trolley as a way to clear the way ahead of them, my family managed to create a path and made their way through. It took about five seconds for the back of my brother’s leg to disappear completely and merge into the crowd ahead, along with the rest of his body, and also my dad. Voila, I was left to fend for myself. I could feel panic developing all over me, and before I knew what I was doing, I shut my eyes and walked straight into the maze of people.
That was a night I would never forget. The smell of sweat was absolutely incredible. So incredible in fact, I could almost taste it. I felt too sick to carry on walking. I opened my eyes and as soon as I did so, the amount of noise around me seemed to increase. It was simply impossible to see my dad or brother. I was lost, and I would just have to accept it. But I couldn’t just stand there, could I? I would have, but I couldn’t. The evil woman I had sworn at earlier was behind me and forcing her trolley forward so that the wheels dug into my feet. I turned back and saw the look of concentration on her face. It was then that she noticed me. A smile broadened across her face. She pushed her trolley even harder against my feet which almost caused me to fall. This was followed by another hard push, and then another which finally caused me to stumble forwards, head first and hit something strangely soft.
I could not see for about a minute because the soft, rubbery like thing obscured my vision. What was this thing? A hand gradually grabbed my head and pulled me back. My headscarf fell down yet again, but I didn’t notice as I was too busy looking at the thing I had fell into. It was fat. Yes, fat. I had bumped into the ‘hideous creature’ my brother had described. But what made it truly horrifying, the reason I stood there transfixed even with the disgruntled woman (who was now shouting at me again in another language because my scarf had fallen off for the second time) and her trolley digging into my feet was the thing that happened next. For I noticed that my dad was standing next to that overweight beast, tears of happiness streaming down his eyes. It hit me.
“Meet your aunt!” She let out a huge ear splitting howl.
“OH, my dear!” she screamed. “Look how much you’ve grown!” Ok. How can people not expect me to grow over seven years? I could tell this was going to be a great holiday. I want to go home, I thought, but home was all the way in England.
