When we woke the rain had stopped. Around us, the stream and campsite were still flooded, but the water only reached the tips of my boots when I went to collect sticks for a fire. Despite all the wood being soaked I managed to make Ayamin a lemon and sugar, and by just after midday the sun had begun to shine once more, drying out our tents.

While Ayamin and I hung a few of our clothes and blankets on the tent to dry we watched a gathering of refugee men disappear into the forest.

‘I wonder where they’re going?’ I said.

Ayamin turned to a kid who was carrying a load of sticks past our tent and asked him. When he was finished telling her she turned to me.

‘They’re searching for a way around.’

I nodded, a smile forming on my face.

‘Have they found anything?’ I asked the kid.

He seemed a little surprised at me speaking but told me they had just begun a few hours ago and he didn’t know.

As the boy disappeared, I turned to see Ayamin staring at me, a funny expression on her face.

‘What?’ I asked, folding a t-shirt on Winnie the Pooh’s nose.

‘Your Arabic is getting pretty good,’ she said.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Well, you managed to ask that kid if they’d found something without completely butchering the words.’

‘Wait what?’ I thought back, it hadn’t felt like I was speaking Arabic, ‘Are you sure?’

‘Positive,’ she laughed, ‘How do you think he understood you?’

While Ayamin disappeared back inside the tent, I stood frozen, still holding my shirt. I’m semi-good at a language, I thought. My eyebrows wrinkled a little and then slowly a smile slipped onto my face. Right through school I’d never excelled at much, my exam scores ranged from bad and very bad to did not attend because buying cigarettes was more important. Yet somehow, I’d managed to learn a language in just a few months.

The smile grew wider and… I felt proud.

We’d eaten the rest of the bread, and finished off the other half of a lemon when the men arrived back at camp. They moved as a group before dispersing into their tents.

I tried to ask what they’d found as they passed, but they just shook their heads. Standing next to me, Ayamin looked worried.

It was only the next night that we found out what was happening. We heard a tapping on the side of our tent, Ayamin unzipped the door, and in popped the head of the grandma whose site we’d helped build. In her hand, she held a small roll of campfire bread.

She handed it to Ayamin then beckoned her closer. The grandma whispered into Ayamin’s ear for a minute or two then looked at me, gave a wink, then disappeared from our tent.

Aya zipped up the door then leaned closed to me on the mattress, ‘So apparently they think you’re a North Macedonian spy.’

I frowned, ‘A spy? Why would I do that?’

She shrugged, ‘I don’t know…. You’re the spy, you tell me,’ I stared at Aya until she started laughing, ‘These people are just worried.’

‘So they won’t tell us how to get through?’

She shook her head, ‘Fortunately, you made friends with the right family, the grandma told me they’re leaving when dark falls tomorrow night.’

I grinned, ‘And we’ll just sneak along?’

‘Yep, we’ll just sneak along.’