Chapter 2: Help Wanted

I wake up and for about three seconds I don’t know where I am.

Then I do. The kitchen counter. The boxes. The grey carpet under my cheek. Light coming through the window — not nice light, not morning-sun light, just flat September light that makes everything look worse than it did in the dark. At least in the dark you can pretend a room is bigger than it is. In the daylight the walls close in and you can see every scuff and stain, and that crack above the door that’s been there since we moved in.

The flat feels different in the morning. Cold and empty, which I suppose is almost true.

I sit up. My back hurts. The carpet is not a mattress — my body’s made that very clear.

Mum’s already gone. Her shift starts at six. There’s a cup of tea on the counter, gone cold, with a note tucked under it in her handwriting:

Khana fridge mein hai. School mat bhoolna beta. Mum x

Food’s in the fridge. Don’t forget school. I didn’t even have to think about it — the Urdu just translates itself in my head. Yus would need me to read it to him. He always does.

I fold it and put it in my pocket.

My phone’s on the floor next to me, face down where I left it. I pick it up. The Indeed tab is still open. The supermarket job, shelf stacking, six-forty an hour. I saved the link at half two in the morning like it meant something. In the daylight it still means something, I think. Just — yeah.

I close the tab.

Yus stumbles out of his room in his boxers and school shirt, eyes half closed, hair everywhere.

‘Why’s it so cold?’

‘Because we haven’t figured out the heating yet.’

‘I’m freezing.’

‘Put a jumper on.’

He stands in the doorway and looks at me sitting in a sleeping bag on the floor surrounded by boxes, and his face does something. I don’t know what. Maybe nothing. Then he’s back to being Yus.

‘Is there cereal?’

‘Check the box by the fridge.’

He rummages. Finds cornflakes. Pours them into a mug because we haven’t found the bowls yet. Eats them dry, standing up, because the table is buried under bin bags.

I watch him and I think: accha, so this is us now. Cornflakes in a mug. No table. Cold tea and notes in Urdu and a sleeping bag on a kitchen floor.

I get dressed behind the kitchen counter, which is as much privacy as I’ve got. I find my school bag under a box of Nani’s saucepans — the massive biryani ones. They got here before she did.

I put my blazer on. I look at the flat one more time — the boxes and bags, the sleeping bag I haven’t rolled up, the cold tea, the note.

Inshallah the sofa bed turns up before Nani does.

Outside, the cat is on the wall by the bins. Supervising. I nod at it like we’re colleagues. It doesn’t nod back. Fair enough.

The sofa bed turns up on Saturday. Off Freecycle. Smells faintly of dog but Mum said beggars and choosers.

By Tuesday I’ve applied for three jobs.

Lying on the sofa bed, I go through Indeed on my phone, screen brightness down because Mum’s asleep through the wall.

The first is a cafe in town. I write a paragraph about myself that sounds like a stranger wrote it. Hardworking. Punctual. A real people person. I’ve never called myself a people person in my life. The second is a clothes shop in the Broadway centre — “experience preferred,” so I put “willing to learn” and hope that counts. The third is the supermarket up the road. “Team members” for various shifts. No experience necessary.

I send all three and put my phone face down on my chest.

Inshallah one of them calls back.

The cafe doesn’t.

I check my email four times a day for three days. Nothing. Not even a “thanks for applying, but no.” Just silence. Which is worse, actually, because at least a rejection is an answer. Silence is just you, refreshing your inbox, feeling like an idiot for writing “people person.”

The clothes shop emails me back on Thursday. They want me to come in for a trial shift. Saturday, 10 to 2. I’m buzzing for about thirty seconds until I read the rest. Unpaid.

I stare at the word. Unpaid.

Four hours. In an actual shop, serving actual customers, for literally nothing.

I screenshot it and send it to Sienna.

is this normal

She replies in about ten seconds.

omg no thats so bad
can they even do that??

I Google it. The answer is complicated. If they’ve got me doing real work — on the till, folding clothes, helping customers — they’re supposed to pay me. But there’s a grey area. “Observing.” “Seeing if you fit in.” And the grey area is where they get you, basically. Because who’s going to say something? Not me. Not any sixteen-year-old who actually needs the job.

I type a reply to the shop. Proper polite. Thanking someone for offering you nothing. I write “I’d love to come in on Saturday” and then delete “love” because who loves unpaid work, and then I put it back because what else do you say.

I say thank you. I say I’ll be there Saturday.

Then I delete the draft. I don’t send it.

I keep thinking I should, but I don’t. Something about it. Like, I could probably explain what’s wrong with it if Sienna asked, but saying it to someone in a shop, to their face? And Mum would just go quiet and then say, ‘There’ll be something else, beta.’

The supermarket emails me on Friday. Interview Monday after school.

‘You could just do tutoring.’

Sienna says this on Saturday. We’re in her room — her actual room, with the actual bed and the matching cushions and the desk with the ring light. She’s painting her nails a colour called “Cinnamon Toast” which looks nothing like cinnamon or toast.

‘Tutoring,’ I say.

‘Yeah. Like, Year 7 maths or whatever. My cousin does it. She charges fifteen quid an hour.’

Fifteen quid an hour. That’s more than double what the supermarket would pay me. For a second I let myself imagine it — three hours a week, forty-five quid, easy money, nice and clean, no uniform, no stacking shelves at half six in the morning.

‘How does she find people?’

‘She put a card up in the leisure centre. And she’s on one of those tutor apps. She says most of her clients are mums who want their kids to pass SATs.’

‘Right.’

‘You’re good at maths, Maya. You’d be really good at it.’

She means well. She actually, genuinely means well. But tutoring means a laptop and a quiet room and building up clients from nothing and — it’s not a job. It’s a project. And I need something that starts paying me next week, not something I have to figure out first.

‘Yeah, maybe,’ I say. ‘I’ll look into it.’

I won’t look into it. She probably knows that. She goes back to her nails.

Sienna doesn’t need a job. She works at her dad’s office sometimes during holidays — filing, answering phones — and he pays her in cash and drives her home. For her it’s just extra money. Not the same thing at all, but I can’t explain how it’s different without sounding like I’m having a go, so I don’t.

I pick up the bottle of Cinnamon Toast and pretend to read the label.

‘This smells rank.’

‘It does not.’

‘It smells like a candle that’s given up on life.’

She throws a cushion at me. The cushion matches the curtains. Obviously.

Mum drives me to the interview on Monday. She doesn’t have a shift until the evening, so she takes Uncle Tariq’s car — he lets us borrow it when he’s not working — and waits in the car park.

‘You look fine,’ she says, before I get out. She straightens my collar. ‘Just be polite. Answer the questions. Don’t fiddle with your hair.’

‘Mum.’

‘I did a trial shift at Morrisons when I was seventeen.’ She says it to the windscreen, not to me. ‘They had me mopping the warehouse floor for four hours. I thought I’d done something wrong.’

I look at her. She’s already moving on.

‘And don’t say “like” every other word.’

‘I don’t say like every other word.’

‘You do.’

‘I literally don’t.’

She gives me a look. I get out.

The interview is not really an interview. It’s a room in the back of the store with a woman called Donna and a clipboard. She asks me why I want to work here. I say because I’m hardworking and I like the idea of being part of a team. I’ve been saying “part of a team” all week because I read it on a list of good interview answers and now it’s stuck in my head like a song.

She asks if I can work flexible hours.

‘Yeah. Definitely.’

‘Including early mornings? Six a.m. starts?’

‘Yeah, that’s fine.’ I pick at my thumbnail. What does a six a.m. start even mean for getting to school. Whether I’m even allowed to work that early. But the alternative is saying no, and saying no means not getting the job.

‘Great.’ She makes a tick on the clipboard. ‘We’ll be in touch this week.’

That’s it. Seven minutes. I notice I’ve got a hangnail on my thumb and I’ve been picking at it the whole time. There’s a tiny bit of blood. Professional.

I walk back to the car. Mum’s got the radio on, some phone-in about parking charges that she’s apparently been following the whole time I was in there.

‘How was it?’

‘Good, I think.’

‘What did they ask?’

‘Just… normal stuff. Whether I can work early mornings.’

‘And?’

‘I said yeah.’

Mum nods. She doesn’t say anything else. She drives us home. I notice she takes the long way, past the petrol station, and she checks the price board as we pass. She doesn’t stop. She just looks.

They email me on Wednesday. I’m in. Start date: next Monday.

I read the email in the bathroom at school because I don’t want anyone to see me grinning at my phone like I’ve won something. It’s a job at the supermarket. Shelf stacking and till work and probably mopping floors and getting told off by customers who can’t find the baked beans. But it’s a job. It’s mine. And right now, sitting on the closed toilet lid in this cubicle, it feels like the best news I’ve had in weeks.

I text Mum.

got the job

She replies with about fifteen exclamation marks and a prayer hands emoji.

I text Sienna.

im a working woman now
the supermarket init

YESSS
omg maya thats so good
when do u start

monday
terrified ngl

ur gonna smash it
employee of the month by christmas loool

I laugh. Quietly. In the bathroom cubicle. Then I put my phone away and go back to class.

Saturday morning. The letter.

It’s on the kitchen counter when I come in from the bathroom. Mum’s already gone — early shift. Nani is making chai. The whole flat smells of cardamom.

The letter is addressed to me. My actual name, in a window envelope, from HMRC.

I don’t get post. I’m sixteen. The only things addressed to me are dentist appointments and the occasional birthday card from Aunty Rukhsana in Luton.

I open it. It’s my National Insurance number.

It’s just a string of letters and numbers on a card-sized bit of paper. Apparently I’m supposed to keep it safe for the rest of my life.

I read the letter that comes with it. “Your National Insurance number is used to record your National Insurance contributions and any benefits you claim.” I read it twice. I understand all the words separately. Together, not so much.

‘Kya hai?’ Nani asks. What is it.

‘National Insurance number. For my job.’

She nods like this means something to her. Maybe it does. She’s been working since she got here — cleaning, helping at the community centre, doing alterations from the flat. Mum once told me Nani’s never claimed a single benefit, even the ones she’d be entitled to if her visa was different. She just works.

I take a photo of the number on my phone. I put the letter in the drawer with the tenancy agreement and Mum’s payslips and — was it Nani’s appointment letter in there too? Or did that go in the other drawer. Whatever. The drawer with all the paper we’re supposed to keep and never look at.

Monday. First day.

Donna meets me at the staff entrance round the back. Name badge, green polo shirt that’s too big, lanyard. She walks me through the shop floor so fast I’m basically jogging. The whole thing takes about four minutes and I retain maybe half of it.

‘You’ll be on tills and replenishment to start. Any questions?’

I have about forty questions. I don’t ask any of them.

She takes me to the office. Stack of forms on a desk.

‘Right, paperwork. Shouldn’t take long.’

It takes ages.

Name, address, date of birth — the easy stuff. Then emergency contact and next of kin, which I have to think about because is it the same person? I put Mum for both. Bank details — I write down the sort code and account number from my NatWest account. Nine quid in it. Grand. National Insurance number — I pull up the photo on my phone and copy it onto the form, digit by digit, like I’m defusing a bomb.

Then there’s the contract.

It’s three pages. Single spaced. Small font. I skim it the way you skim terms and conditions — eyes moving, not much landing. Theek hai. Just sign it and go.

The words I notice: “zero hours.” “No guarantee of minimum hours.” “Shifts allocated on a weekly basis at the company’s discretion.” “The employee is not obliged to accept shifts offered.” “The company is not obliged to offer shifts.”

I sign it. Of course I sign it. What am I going to do, negotiate? I’m sixteen, I’ve got no experience, and there are probably fifty other people who applied for this job and didn’t even get an interview.

Then there’s the starter checklist. Three options — A, B, or C — paragraphs of words like “taxable Jobseeker’s Allowance” and “occupational pension.” I read option A. I read it again. I read the first line of B, which is almost the same but slightly different in a way I can’t pin down.

I tick A. First job. But I’ve got no idea why they’re even asking, or what would happen if I’d ticked the wrong one.

Donna collects the forms. ‘All done. Your shifts for this week will come through by Sunday evening. We use the app.’ She taps her phone. ‘Download it tonight.’

‘Right. Yeah. Will do.’

‘Any questions?’

‘No. I’m good.’

I have questions. But asking them means admitting it.

Sunday evening. I’m lying down, phone in hand, waiting.

Donna said the shifts come through on the app. I’d given up pretending I wasn’t refreshing every ten minutes.

At half seven, a notification.

New rota published for w/c 6 October

I tap it open.

Tuesday: 5pm-9pm
Thursday: 4pm-8pm
Saturday: 7am-12pm

Thirteen hours. That’s it. Thirteen hours for the whole week.

I count it up. Thirteen times six-forty. Eighty-three quid twenty.

Eighty-three quid. For a week. Before whatever they take off.

I stare at the numbers. Sienna’s cousin gets fifteen quid an hour. Fifteen. And Mum — Mum’s on the same kind of contract at the care home. Same Sunday-night wait. Hers has been going on for years and I never really thought about what that meant.

“No guarantee of minimum hours.” That’s what the contract said. I signed it. I read those words and signed it anyway. Thirteen hours. Right.

Next week could be different. Could be twenty hours. Could be five. Won’t know until Sunday. That’s just how it works now.

Eighty-three quid twenty.

I open the Notes app and try to work it out. If I average twelve hours a week — which might be optimistic — that’s about seventy-seven quid a week. Three hundred and seven a month. Except some weeks might be four hours and some might be eighteen and I can’t actually plan anything because none of it’s guaranteed.

Mum pokes her head through the door.

‘Did you get your shifts?’

‘Yeah. Thirteen hours.’

She nods. Her face does the thing — that face she does when she’s not going to react. She used to do it when the care home texted her the same kind of rota. Sometimes four shifts, sometimes two, once literally zero.

‘That’s a start,’ she says.

‘Yeah.’

She hesitates.

‘Don’t stay up too late.’

‘I won’t.’

She closes the door. I hear her footsteps, the bathroom tap, her bedroom door. The flat goes quiet.

Tuesday. First real shift.

I get there twenty minutes early because Mum said arriving on time is arriving late. A lad is sitting in the break room eating a sandwich and looking at his phone. He’s older than me. Maybe twenty-one, twenty-two. He glances up.

‘New?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Thought so. The shirt’s still got the fold lines.’ He nods at my polo. He’s right — it’s creased in neat rectangles from the packaging. ‘I’m Darius.’

‘Maya.’

‘First job?’

‘That obvious?’

He half-smiles. ‘Give it a week. The creases come out. So does the enthusiasm.’

I put my bag in the locker and lock it. Darius finishes his sandwich, lobs the wrapper at the bin. It goes in. He heads out to the shop floor. I follow.

Four hours of beeping tills and bags and customers who don’t look at me. By nine o’clock my feet hurt in places I didn’t know feet had places and my hands smell like carrier bags. Yaar, this is what earning six-forty an hour feels like.

Nani’s left roti wrapped in foil on the counter. I eat standing up. Cold roti and warm daal, scooping it with my fingers because I can’t be bothered to find a spoon.

I sit on the sofa bed. I open the banking app on my phone.

Nine pounds and fourteen pence.

By next Friday, after my first three shifts, there’ll be eighty-three quid and twenty pence going in. Minus whatever they take off. Whatever “deductions” means.

On the bus to school Monday morning I pull my phone out and type one-handed, other hand on the rail:

how much should 16 year old get paid uk

The first result says six pounds forty. The under-18 National Minimum Wage.

I scroll down. There’s a table. Age bands. Different rates for different ages. I’m at the bottom.

Under 18: £6.40
18-20: £8.60
21 and over: £11.44

Darius is twenty-two. He does the same job I do. He gets eleven forty-four an hour. I get six-forty.

I punch it into the calculator.

Thirteen hours at his rate: a hundred and forty-eight quid seventy-two.

Thirteen hours at mine: eighty-three quid twenty.

Sixty-five quid less. For doing the same job. Because I’m sixteen.

I know there’s probably a reason. Doesn’t make sense on a packed bus at quarter to nine when your feet still ache and you did the exact same job as the lad who gets nearly double.

I lock my phone. Shove it in my pocket. The bus brakes hard and I nearly go into the woman in front of me.

Thursday’s shift is four to eight. Saturday is seven to twelve. Then I wait for Sunday again.

The first payslip comes in two weeks. Eighty-three twenty. Thirteen hours times six-forty. Simple enough.

Except I keep thinking about “deductions.” That word on the contract. Nobody explained what gets taken off or why, and I didn’t ask, because I never ask, and now I’m standing on a bus full of strangers wondering if eighty-three twenty is even what I’ll actually get.