Taking Off
Chapter 24
Chapter 24
After a couple of weeks on the course, Katie had settled into her new rhythm. She had successfully completed her first assignment, spending the whole week-end on it, and was getting to grasp with all the subjects. At home, her dining table had become a desk. At school, she got along well with Amanda, the only other girl on the course, and with Tariq.
The three of them teamed up in all lab classes and they completed each other. Tariq always understood the different implications of a given exercise, Amanda came up with ingenious solutions and Katie could step back and analyse the progress and the potential of the current experiment. They always achieved the required goal, they never ran out of ideas to try and they never lost too much time on the bad ones. They often finished early and on one such Thursday, Tariq suggested a trip to the pub. Katie declined the offer, explaining that she had a lot of coursework from the previous day to catch up with.
“Not even for one cheeky drink? You’re lame,” Tariq said.
“Drinking isn’t so cool you know,” Katie said.
“Don’t make me laugh, you sound like my grandfather now. It is zin-fool!” Tariq accompanied his impersonation with a pointed finger lacing through the air and Katie and Amanda looked at each other and shrugged. He dropped his arm on his lap. “I swear, it’s funny when he does it.”
“You shouldn’t make fun of your family like that,” Katie said.
“What the hell do you know about that? I bet that as far as you go back, your family is British.”
“So?”
“You don’t know how it feels to be British but have family who barely speak English, even though they’ve lived here half their lives.” Tariq punched the back of the empty seat next to him.
“It’s more difficult for them.”
“What’s difficult about it? I’ve never lived in Pakistan but I speak Punjabi much better than they speak English.”
“People have different abilities with languages.”
“When I was a kid, I turned up at school with the worst accent ever, because of my mother. How embarrassing do you think it was? I thought I spoke English but nobody could understand me.”
“I’m sorry, I didn’t know that. You sound so British, I assumed your parents spoke English very well.”
“They don’t. That’s why I speak Punjabi with them now, much easier to communicate.”
“OK, OK, you win. But I can’t go to the pub because I’m skint.”
“So am I! I didn’t get thirty grand from BOET, did I?”
“Granted, but I still don’t know how I’m going to pay for the rest of it.”
“Have you tried your council?” Amanda asked. “As you’re older, they might have some special scheme you can apply for, some adult learning stuff.”
“I’ll try that, yeah. See if they have a few pennies for a grandma who want to fly a plane.”
They all laughed and Tariq dropped the pub suggestion.
