New Boy by Nick Earls Page B

thought they’d be a good team to help you fit in.’
    â€˜I would like that. Thank you,’ Roy says, in an accent that’s mostly Kenyan, but not completely.
    He looks more like a visiting dignitary in a school uniform than a student. I’m sure he’s older than us.
    Step one on the Max school tour is taking the new arrival’s bag to the classroom, and we’re halfway there when Roy says, ‘I heard something from an Australian boy last week. Can you confirm it for me? Is my name an old man’s name here?’ He talks slowly, putting the words together before each sentence. In his head, he must still be translating into English.
    â€˜Pretty much,’ Max tells him, since he knows I’ve got no idea. ‘I’ve got a great uncle called Roy. He’s got to be seventy at least. But, you know, old names come back. Maybe you’ll be the one to bring “Roy” back.’
    Roy smiles. ‘This boy said, “You’ve got an old man’s name.” I thought he meant “Wek”. I don’t know why.’
    I want to say, ‘Because it’s part of being new.’ You’re so new, you don’t even think the right things and there’s nothing you can do about it. The kid says, ‘your name,’ assuming you’ll know he means the ‘Roy’ part, but you don’t. Every guess is a shot in the dark. Eventually it gets less dark.
    â€˜I’ve got an old cricketer’s name,’ I tell him. ‘An old South African cricketer’s name. Herschelle’s not a first name here at all.’
    Roy takes the steps up to our classroom two at a time, as if it’s the only way to take them.
    Max asks him how old he is and Roy says, ‘I don’t know for sure. We forgot that. When you are out on the tambarare . . .’ We must look confused. I can tell Roy’s trying to think of a word that will work here. ‘Tambarare – it’s flat land that goes on and on.’ He shows us with one of his hands, holding it up flat. ‘You can forget how old you are when you are out there for a long time, or in a camp. It rained a lot when I was born and it rains a lot in May at home in South Sudan, so we say I will be twelve in May.’
    â€˜What made you come here?’ Max asks him.
    Roy pushes his bag into a space on the top rack. I know he’s thinking about how to answer the question, and whether it’s about the leaving or about the coming. Max doesn’t realise that they’re two different things.
    â€˜To Brisbane?’ Roy says. ‘To Australia? Your government said we could come. We escaped from home to Kenya. We were in Kakuma camp, on a waiting list. Then countries choose you. Then you wait more. Then you come on a plane.’
    He smiles. I don’t think Max has any idea what Roy’s talking about. But I know that he’s talking about being a refugee. Helping Roy Wek fit in will take a lot more than just showing him where the toilets and library are.
    Roy takes the steps two at a time on the way down. The toilets are next on the Max Kennedy buddy tour, so we turn right at the bottom.
    â€˜My parents work in a plastic bottle factory. They clean up, I think. At home my mother was a teacher and my father was the mayor.’ He shrugs. ‘But there was a war. They say it is over now, but it is not safe for us.’ I can tell his head is full of details. He looks at the ground, at the playground lines marking out the boundaries for games.
    I wonder if he’ll ever talk to us about it. ‘It’s complicated,’ I say to Max.
    â€˜I didn’t know you’d speak English there,’ Max says. ‘But I’m learning that about Africa. More bits speak English than I realised.’
    Roy smiles again. The whole secret history of his country is in his head and there’s not one thought in there that Max should already know some of it. That he