Castaway by Joanne Van Os Page B

squiggles, and put her glasses on.
    ‘Why – does she use really big words or something?’said George. ‘You’re our teacher. Aren’t you supposed to know everything?’
    Jaz laughed at him. ‘You’re a ratbag, George. No, my grandmother is Iranian, and she writes to me in Persian. I can speak it, but I’m not that good at reading it. Look –’ and she held out the page for them to see. It was covered in a neat but completely strange set of markings that looked nothing like the letters of the English alphabet.
    ‘Wow, you can read this, Jazzy?’ Sam was amazed that the strange shapes made any sense at all. ‘I never knew you could speak Persian, or that you had an Iranian grandmother. Were you born there too?’
    ‘No,’ said Jaz. ‘My parents left Iran during the revolution. I was born in Melbourne. My name is actually Yasmin – I get Jaz for short. My dad was a doctor, but when he came to Australia, the only job he could get was being a cleaner. That’s why they wanted me to study medicine. They’re not very happy that I’ve taken time off to do something else for a while. I think my grandmother is writing to tell me to go back to school too.’ She bent her head over the letter, occasionally looking up a word in the dictionary.
    When she finished, she announced, ‘I think I’ll go into town after the muster. My grandmother asked me to send her something. I have to renew my driver’slicence too, so I might do a quick run in and out, seeing as we can’t do any schoolwork for a while.’
    As soon as Jaz had returned to her quarters, they went to Tess’s bedroom. Tess and Kalila were seated on the bed, and Kalila was brushing Tess’s long dark hair with a contented look on her face.
    ‘Kalila told me that her father cut her hair short and dressed her to look like a boy when they escaped,’ said Tess. ‘She used to have long hair like mine.’
    ‘Well, it sure worked,’ said George. ‘But he should have told her not to cry so much. Dead giveaway.’
    Aunty Lou had brought the last couple of days’ newspapers out with her when she dropped off Tess and Darcy, and now Sam carried them in to the bedroom. ‘We might be able to find the name of that lawyer you saw on tv, the one helping refugees.’ Kalila watched as they each searched through a newspaper.
    Sam found it first and read the article aloud:
    Mr Spiros O’Reilly, QC, acting on behalf of the refugees who landed in Darwin last week, argued that they be given political asylum until their refugee status is confirmed. ‘These people are escaping political persecution, and are exercising their rights under international humanitarian law,’ said Mr O’Reilly.‘They should be treated with dignity and respect, and not like criminals.’
    A spokesman for the Department of Foreign Affairs said that according to Australian law all people who arrive illegally by boat are to be interned offshore while waiting for their cases to be dealt with. Until they can be transported to the detention centre at Nauru, the refugees are being held at Port Hedland detention centre.
    There was a photograph of people staring through a fence topped with rolls of barbed wire.
    Then Darcy read out a piece he’d found:
    Several experts have warned of the trauma of keeping children in detention camps for long periods of time. Professor Karen Swann said yesterday it was very likely that severe psychological damage was experienced by children who were detained for more than a few weeks. She said it was unspeakable that some children had been detained at Australian detention centres for over 18 months. They were already ex – exhib – exhibiting signs of severe mental stress, and would probably never fully recover from the effects.
    ‘Whoa! That’s scary.’
    Involuntarily, they all looked at Kalila, imagining her in a prison waiting to be sent back to where she’d come from. Kalila looked back at them gravely.
    ‘I think we have to talk to this lawyer,’ said