Harjit Singh sat on the bench by the carousel at the airport, waiting for his suitcase to arrive. He was tired and cold and wasn’t used to this weather. In Amritsar, where he came from in India, it was thirty-seven degrees! In Paris, it was just fourteen degrees.

His father called out to him: ‘Hurry up, Harjit! The driver can't wait for much longer just for you!’

Harjit was a little upset. He didn't want to come to Paris. He wanted to stay in India with his friends, but because his father had received a job offer in France, they had to leave India and make a new start.

Still waiting by the carousel for his luggage, Harjit suddenly felt like he was being stared at. He looked around and saw a boy who must have been ten years old – the same age as Harjit. The boy was staring at his turban, which upset him and made him feel self-conscious. Angrily, Harjit stepped up onto the carousel and saw a big bag that looked similar to his own. He snatched the bag, even though he wasn’t entirely sure it was his. All he knew was that he wanted to get out of the airport and away from inquisitive eyes.

*

As they drove to their new apartment, Harjit glared out of the car window and took note of how different everything looked compared to back home. It was cleaner. There were lots of beautiful big buildings with gold painted on them and statues on top. The sky was very grey and the ground was wet with rain. He saw lots of people sitting outside of shops drinking coffee and talking. When the car stopped at a set of traffic lights, Harjit rolled down the window so that he could listen. ‘They talk very strange,’ he thought to himself, but he knew that this was all part of the experience. ‘You will benefit from this,’ his papa said as they set off from India. ‘So many of your friends would die for the chance to travel to Europe. You should not be scared. It is an adventure!’

As the car rolled on, Harjit realised that there was a strange sort of silence on the road. ‘The cars are not beeping their horns at each other in Paris,’ he thought. ‘There are a lot of cars but they're all moving in neat lines, all in separate lines. The cars aren’t getting stuck at all; they just keep moving. It is not at all like this in India!’