Boy Overboard

Hearing passengers at the front of the boat scream, Jamal turns to see another boat approaching. He imagines that it’s his parents’ boat. However, the men standing on deck are pirates brandishing automatic weapons. As the vessel comes alongside their boat and some of the pirates jump onboard, Jamal waits for the sailors to fight them off; to his horror, they welcome them with “big grins.” The smugglers, including the sailor with yellow overalls and the big bucket of valuables, shake hands with the pirates and then cross over to their boat, abandoning the refugees. It looks as if they have planned this. Worse, before leaving, the armed men move among the huddled passengers, seizing girls and young women who are there without their parents. Quickly, Jamal disguises Bibi and Rashida as boys, covering their hair with knotted clothing and smearing Rashida’s makeup so that it looks like dirt stains. To play the part of boys, he gets them to bounce the soccer ball back and forth using their knees. When a pirate tries to give the ball a big kick, Jamal impulsively nudges it out of the way, causing the pirate to fall on his backside. As the other pirates roar with laughter, the bruised one gets up and kicks Jamal savagely in the hip. Omar holds Bibi down so that she can’t attack the pirate. The armed men drag their female prisoners onto their boat, leaving the ramshackle refugee boat, manned by a few, frightened sailors, at the mercy of the sea.

Jamal is deep in a dream of playing soccer for the Australian team Dubbo Abattoirs United in a big stadium when Bibi’s scream awakens him. A storm is raging: The boat tosses under a black sky, and a “huge dark foam-spewing wave” is about to crash onto them (146).

Using vegetable cans, Jamal and Bibi, along with other passengers, frantically bail water out of the boat. In the chaos of the storm, Jamal has lost track of Omar and Rashida; only the head scarf tying their belts together has kept him from losing Bibi. The water in the boat is now up to Bibi’s chest, and Jamal has to keep rallying her to bail with all her strength, telling her that “it’s working.” In actuality, the water is “winning,” getting deeper all the time from the constant waves. They and the other passengers and sailors are hungry, thirsty, cold, and exhausted, but they don’t stop bailing. Jamal thinks of his baker ancestors, “countless generations” of them, who got up before dawn every night to knead dough for the oven, breaking their backs to make loaf after loaf. Other passengers gape at Bibi as she rapidly bails water, amazed at her endurance and not understanding that “her father’s a baker” (148).

While bailing, Jamal hears frenzied screaming from the deck above and braces for another catastrophe. Then, to his relief, he hears Rashida’s voice, shouting at him to come up and see. Too exhausted to climb the ladder, Jamal and Bibi are pushed up nonetheless by the motion of the crowd. A huge warship towers over the boat, with immense guns, rockets, and machine guns aimed at them. The terrified refugees are holding up babies and children, begging the men on the ship not to shoot. With a rush of joy, Jamal recognizes the ship’s flag as the same worn by the blond doctor at the camp. He shouts to the others that it’s an Australian warship, come to rescue them.

An Australian Navy officer, hoisted aloft by a cable, carries Jamal and Bibi onto the warship; to calm them, he tells them, in their language, to hold onto his ears, which are large. This officer, whose name is Andrew, checks up on the kids later in their cabin, where Bibi is recovering from her fever. He brings them an extra serving of the “traditional” Australian food that Jamal has come to love: fish fingers, chips (French fries), and peas. He tells Jamal that they’ve sent a plane to look for his parents’ boat and that his warship will soon join the search. He apologizes for the delay in rescuing him and the other refugees from their sinking boat, which he says was due to “paperwork.” He also says that Jamal’s bruise where the pirate kicked him will need to be X-rayed once they reach shore. Rashida, he says, is on an IV drip for dehydration but will be fine. Omar, however, has not yet been found among the refugees. However, after Andrew leaves, Omar, holding Jamal’s soccer ball, ducks into the cabin and asks if they’ve saved him some food.

Jamal and the others are being ferried in a crowded rubber boat from the warship to a body of land that he thinks is Australia. It is green and beautiful, he says, aside from the floating garbage, the peeling buildings, and the “droopy” palm trees. Some of the passengers are weeping with joy, but he is devastated that his parents’ boat is not in the harbor. Rashida reassures him that it might have docked at a different part of Australia. After disembarking, he and Bibi search through the crowded jetty, but Mum and Dad are not there. They are not alone in their disappointment: Half the people on their boat, including Omar, have friends or relatives on the missing one. Andrew tells Jamal that their loved ones will soon turn up. Excited to be in Australia at last, Jamal feels like “running and shouting and scoring about fifty goals” (158). Andrew leads him, Bibi, Rashida, and Omar to their new “home,” a “dusty compound” with two enormous tents, one for men and boys and the other for women and girls. However, the four of them refuse to be separated, and Andrew says that they can stay together until their parents arrive. Elated, Jamal wants to explore a bit and see the movie theaters and shopping centers that the blond doctor told him about. Andrew gives him a “strange look,” which Jamal interprets as a reproach for his selfishness in wanting to sightsee before his parents, and Omar’s parents, arrive. Jamal thinks fondly about how thoughtful Australians are.

At Andrew’s suggestion, the kids and some other refugees play soccer against a team of Australians while waiting for news of the other boat. Omar, looking especially “gloomy,” starts to tell Jamal about rumors he’s heard about the camp, but Jamal, focusing on the game, refuses to listen. He, Rashida, and Bibi weave past the Australian defenders with the ball, and Jamal scores a goal. Flinging his arms up in triumph, he is shocked that the other refugees don’t cheer; instead, some are wailing and sobbing. News has finally come about the other boat: It has sunk.

Andrew is away on his warship, so Jamal runs up to a group of Navy men and begs them to send out a rescue boat to look for survivors, screaming that his father can’t swim. Realizing that they don’t speak his language, he uses a stick to draw a picture in the dirt, but the men just stare or smirk. Jamal explodes at them, saying that he thought Australia was a caring place; one of the men tells him that they are not in Australia. With Jamal’s stick, the man draws a picture of a small island, far from Australia, and gestures around.

Rashida tries to lure Jamal out of the gloom of his tent, where he lies in anguish, crying and hugging Bibi. He does not answer her and refuses the food she has brought. He wants nothing anymore, not even Australia—only Mum and Dad. Rashida tells him that the warship searched for hours but found only three young survivors from the other boat. Jamal wishes that they had never sold their ancestors’ sacred candlestick or left Afghanistan. Any jail or refugee camp back home, he thinks, would be better than this if his parents could be alive. Rashida hands him his soccer ball, which struck barbed wire after his goal and is now flat, but it means nothing to him. Rashida says that he still has her, which makes him feel a “tiny” bit better. However, the thought that Australia is so close makes him cry harder.

After Bibi falls asleep, Jamal goes out on the football pitch and tries, painfully, to plan their future. Omar approaches him, sounding sad and “uncertain,” and Jamal invites him to sit down, knowing that his parents were lost on the boat as well. However, Omar confesses to him that his parents died when he was two. To get on the plane and the refugee boat, he attached himself to a large family of strangers, and everyone thought he was with them. Silently, Jamal thinks about this; he admires Omar for his nerve. For a minute or two, he daydreams that he and Bibi might make a career out of comforting losing soccer teams with the much-worse story of their own lives. Then, Omar confesses something else: He knows nothing about his parents, only that his ancestors were thieves and that one of them had his hands chopped off as punishment. Jamal reflects that Omar, who tried to steal his soccer ball but then saved it from the harbor and also helped save Bibi and Rashida from the pirates, is much more than just a thief. He tells Omar that his own ancestors were desert warriors and bakers. He himself, he says, is “a bit of both” (172).

After three days on the island, Jamal is awakened from dreams about his parents by his sister’s shouts. Her voice is “almost happy,” calming his initial fears, and he lets Bibi drag him out of the tent. The warship is back, disgorging dozens of refugees, which confuses Jamal, who thought that only three survivors had been found. Dizzy with amazement, he sees Omar hugging a big family: the one he pretended to belong to while traveling. Other refugees, however, are heartbroken that their own loved ones are not among these survivors. Suddenly, Jamal finds himself “paralyzed with relief and joy” (175): His parents are standing there on the dock. Mum says that the warship missed them the first time but eventually found them.

Between sobs of joy, Jamal breaks the bad news to Mum and Dad that they’re not in Australia but on a refugee island, but they already know. Mum says that the only thing she cares about is that they’re together again. She and Dad hug Rashida and Omar after hearing about how they helped their kids survive. Jamal tells his parents about his and Bibi’s plans to become world-famous soccer stars and use their fame to found a new government in Afghanistan. Mum and Dad tearfully look at each other, and Jamal thinks that he has made them happy with his news.

Andrew, returned from his warship, apologizes to Jamal for not telling him the truth right away about the refugee island. As for why they brought them there, Andrew miserably says that the Australian government has changed its immigration policy due to a recent election. The winners, he explains, campaigned on an anti-immigration platform, and it worked. Jamal’s head spins as he absorbs the painful fact that many Australians don’t want people like himself living among them. Not all Australians, he realizes, are as kind and generous as Andrew. As he struggles with this, Andrew hands him his soccer ball, which he has mended. Trying to flip it onto his knee with his foot, Jamal accidentally smashes it through the office window. Andrew pays no attention to this, focusing on Jamal, who he says needs medical attention for his hip; unfortunately, the island has no X-ray machine. Tearfully, Andrew says that he feels terrible about his country’s treatment of Jamal and the others. Feeling empathy for Andrew’s grief and dismay, which mirror his own, Jamal pats him on the arm and says that he’s grateful for him. Then, he tells Andrew the “secret” of soccer: “Never give up, […] even when things are looking hopeless” (181). Thinking of other Australians, many of whom are as kind as Andrew, he tells him that things will be “OK.” Outside, he sees Mum, Dad, and Bibi walking on the littered beach, and they look so happy that his heart swells. This may not really be Australia, but it feels like it to him.