After I started to speak I also walked again for the first time. I hadn’t felt any problem with my arms or legs in bed apart from my left hand which was stiff because the bullet had ended up by my shoulder so I didn’t realise I couldn’t walk properly. My first few steps were such hard work it felt like I’d run a hundred kilometres. The doctors told me I would be fine; I just needed lots of physiotherapy to get my muscles working again.
One day another Fiona came, Fiona Alexander, who told me she was in charge of the hospital press office. I thought this was funny. I couldn’t imagine Swat Central Hospital having a press office. Until she came I had no idea of the attention I’d attracted. When I was flown from Pakistan there was supposed to be a news blackout, but photographs were leaked from Pakistan of me leaving and saying I was going to the UK, and the media soon found out my destination was Birmingham. A Sky News helicopter was soon circling above, and as many as 250 journalists came to the hospital from as far away as Australia and Japan. Fiona Alexander had spent twenty years as a journalist herself, and had been editor of the Birmingham Post, so she knew exactly how to feed them material and stop them trying to get in. The hospital started giving daily news briefings on my condition.
People just turned up wanting to see me – government ministers, diplomats, politicians, even an envoy from the Archbishop of Canterbury. Most brought bouquets, some of them exquisitely beautiful. One day Fiona Alexander brought me a bag of cards and toys and pictures. It was Eid ul-Azha, ‘Big Eid’, our main religious holiday, so I thought maybe some Muslims had sent them. Then I saw the postage dates, from 10 October, 11 October, days before, and I realised it was nothing to do with Eid. They were from people all over the world wishing me a speedy recovery, many of them schoolchildren. I was astonished and Fiona laughed. ‘You haven’t seen anything yet.’ She told me there were sacks and sacks more, about 8,000 cards in total, many just addressed, ‘Malala, Birmingham Hospital’. One was even addressed, ‘The Girl Shot in the Head, Birmingham’, yet it had got there. There were offers to adopt me as if I had no family and even a marriage proposal.
Rehanna told me that thousands and millions of people and children around the world had supported me and prayed for me. Then I realised that people had saved my life. I had been spared for a reason. People had sent other presents too. There were boxes and boxes of chocolates and teddy bears of every shape and size. Most precious of all perhaps was the parcel that came from Benazir Bhutto’s children Bilawal and Bakhtawar. Inside were two shawls that had belonged to their late mother. I buried my nose in them to try and smell her perfume. Later I found a long black hair on one of them, which made it even more special.
I realised what the Taliban had done was make my campaign global. While I was lying in that bed waiting to take my first steps in a new world, Gordon Brown, the UN special envoy for education and former prime minister of Britain, had launched a petition under the slogan ‘I am Malala’ to demand no child be denied schooling by 2015. There were messages from heads of state and ministers and movie stars and one from the granddaughter of Sir Olaf Caroe, the last British governor of our province. She said she was ashamed at not being able to read and write Pashto although her grandfather had been fluent. Beyoncé had written me a card and posted a photo of it on Facebook, Selena Gomez had tweeted about me and Madonna had dedicated a song. There was even a message from my favourite actress and social activist, Angelina Jolie – I couldn’t wait to tell Moniba.
I didn’t realise then I wouldn’t be going home.
24
‘They have snatched her smile’
THE DAY MY parents flew to Birmingham I was moved out of intensive care and into room 4, ward 519, which had windows so I could look out and see England for the first time. ‘Where are the mountains?’ I asked. It was misty and rainy so I thought maybe they were hidden. I didn’t know then that this was a land of little sun. All I could see were houses and streets. The houses were red brick and all looked exactly the same. Everything looked very calm and organised, and it was odd to see people’s lives going on as if nothing had happened.