Farah Rocks Summer Break

by Susan Muaddi Darraj

  “And there’s a community yard sale on Saturday,” Mama says. “At the park.”

  Mama loves yard sales. It’s where we get a lot of our stuff, like Samir’s Tommy Turtle sneakers and my school backpack. We got the plates we’re eating off tonight at a yard sale.

  Lana wouldn’t be caught dead shopping at a yard sale, I think. Then I put Lana out of my mind. This has already been a bad day without having to think about her.

  But then I suddenly have an idea. I keep eating my food. The idea is just a blob in my mind at first. But as I continue my dinner, it grows legs and arms until it finally seems fully formed in my brain. Camp Crystals is in mid-August. Two months away.

  “How much does it cost to set up a table at the yard sale?” I ask.

  Mama squints at me. “I think you can get a space for just five dollars.”

  I have eight dollars in a box under my bed.

  “Can I get a table? To sell some stuff I don’t need anymore?” I ask.

  Mama nods slowly. “Sure. That’s actually a good idea. I have some things you can put on your table too. You could keep the money from whatever you sell.”

  “Really?” I was hoping she’d say that.

  “Well, if you’re going to do all the work,” she says, “you should keep all the money.”

  Baba takes a sip of water. “I have some stuff too, Farah,” he says. “I’ll go through my tools later tonight.”

  “And I’ll call the hall and reserve a table for you,” says Mama. “Are you saving money for something special? You want to buy a new book or something?”

  “I’m going to make enough money to go to Camp Crystals,” I declare.

  “You’re going to make six hundred dollars?” Mama asks, astonished.

  “No,” I correct her. “Six hundred and twenty-five dollars.”

  CHAPTER 4

  Sunday morning is when we go to church—or, as Baba calls it, shursh. I sit and listen to Father Alex talk about “treating others as you would want them to treat you.” Sounds logical enough.

  Lana Khoury is there with her mother. I imagine holding a sign up to Father that says, “Please speak louder so Lana can hear you.”

  Just because Lana and I are both Palestinian American girls who are in the same grade, people seem to think we should be best friends. Here’s why we aren’t: Lana thinks she is better than me. Actually, Lana thinks she is better than everyone who is currently alive on Earth.

  In first grade, she told everyone that I wear “cheap clothes.” Father Alex heard about it and talked to her mother. She had to apologize, but she just pretended to be sorry because Father was standing right there.

  Lana, of course, wears very expensive clothes—the kind with logos that I feel I’m supposed to recognize but don’t. She has short brown hair that she dyes with electric blue highlights. Mama would never let me do that.

  I wonder what Lana would think if she knew I get my clothes from yard sales. Or if she knew I was about to sell stuff at a yard sale? I picture her clapping her hands to her cheeks and screaming in horror, like she’s seen a monster coming to eat her fancy purse.

  Glancing back at her, I happen to catch her eye. She looks down at my shoes. I am wearing my plain black ballet flats. They are pretty beaten-up, even though I just rubbed some black shoe polish on them last night. In turn I look at her shoes—leather sandals with low heels. On the front, there is a large, round bronze logo of some kind. When I lift my gaze and look her in the eyes again, she smirks.

  I subtly point to Father Alex, then to my ear. Listen up, I’m signaling her.

  She glares at me.

  I smile back sweetly and face the front again.

  • • •

  “I mean, how much money do you think you’re going to make?” Allie asks me the morning of the yard sale. She looks doubtful, but because she’s my Official Best Friend, she is here to help anyway.

  We’re on the lawn of the Harbortown Community Center. My Girl Scout troop sometimes meets here, and Samir plays indoor soccer here. Surrounding us are dozens of tables and blankets spread along the sidewalks and on the grass.

  The parking lot is jammed with cars. Cars carrying potential customers. There is a line of cars along the street. They all have their turn signals on, trying to pull in. A man in a yellow vest is waving his hands, directing the traffic.

  Camp Crystals feels so close I can reach out and touch it.

  “Like, how much can you make by three p.m.?” Allie asks again.

  “Hopefully six hundred and twenty-five dollars,” I say.

  She picks up one of Samir’s old Tommy Turtle sweatshirts. He let me have it for the sale because it’s tight on him now. I’ve put a sticker on it that says 50 cents.

  “Do you think I have enough stuff to make that much?” I ask Allie.

  She looks around at my items and shrugs.

  Here are some of the things I have for sale today:

  Some of Mama’s old pots and pans, as well as her spatulas and muffin tin (she got a new one last month)

  Seven vases (I’m not sure why our family has so many in the first place)

  A bunch of Baba’s tools that he doesn’t use anymore, including two cordless drills

  Tons of books and clothes, including two of my Sunday church dresses

  An old dollhouse that I got at a yard sale myself and haven’t played with in a long time (although I did like having it in my room)

  A blender that Mama doesn’t use anymore since she got a food processor

  FOUR (yes, four) soccer balls, a baseball glove, and a lacrosse stick—all stuff that Enrique gave me to sell. He had to clean out his room and sports stuff before his big trip and said I could keep the money.

  A giant bin filled with racecars that belong to Allie’s brother, Timothy. Mrs. Liu is very happy he is “growing out of the racecar phase” and that she can have her basement back.

  “There’s some good stuff here!” I say.

  “Plus, I’m selling lemonade,” Samir chimes in from behind a small folding table. He’s set up a pitcher of water, a thermos filled with ice, and a can of powdered lemonade, as well as paper cups. “Fifty cents each!”

  “Good idea,” Allie says. “It’s going to be hot out today.”

  The organizer announces the beginning of the yard sale over a megaphone. “Don’t forget to buy some food to support the community center, and have fun looking for treasures!” she tells the huge crowd. Her words hit the crowd like a bowling ball, scattering them in different directions like pins.

  I watch as old ladies, young moms, groups of teenagers, and others pick through my stuff. My first sale is the Tommy Turtle sweatshirt, bought by a mom for her toddler. And then an older lady says she’ll buy a bunch of Mama’s pots and pans for twenty-five dollars, but only if I throw in the spatulas for free.

  I realize that yard sales include a lot of negotiating. I’ve seen my own mother do this. I agree, and she hands me twenty-five dollars, smiling.

  By ten, the crowds have thinned out. I have only forty-two dollars in my pocket. Samir has sold six cups of lemonade, for a grand total of three dollars. The can of lemonade mix cost $2.75.

  Allie borrowed her mom’s cell phone, and she calls home and asks to be picked up. “I’ll be right back,” she promises. Half an hour later, she returns with a box of her books and old clothes, as well as her pink wooden jewelry box.

  “I don’t want this stuff anyway,” she says, shrugging. She adds it to the pile we have spread out for sale.

  The jewelry box sells ten minutes later for four dollars. Then one of Baba’s drills sells for ten dollars.

  And that’s it. By noon, I am hungry, tired, and feeling lousy. I watch an old man look through my books, pick up a few, then put them all down and walk away.

  I feel desperate, like
someone is pulling Camp Crystals just out of my reach. It’s like that Greek myth of King Tantalus, who was starving and surrounded by tons of food he couldn’t grasp.

  “Sir,” I call after the old man. “Were you interested in these books?” I’m about to give him a good deal. Maybe four dollars for the whole stack.

  He shakes his head. “I thought about getting them for my granddaughter.…”

  “Well, I can offer them for—”

  “But then I realized I have no clue what she likes to read,” he says. With that, he shrugs and moves on.

  Camp Crystals collapses before my eyes like a big landslide.

  CHAPTER 5

  Toward the end of the day, some other people arrive at the yard sale, looking for deals. These are the vultures. I know them well. Sometimes Mama is one of them.

  Vultures are shoppers who know people would rather sell their stuff for super cheap than pack it up and take it all home again. So they hunt, swooping in and snatching up good deals.

  Well, I think, feeling tired and hot, I have one for them.

  “Everything is half-price!” I call out loudly.

  Suddenly ten people swarm our table.

  Samir picks up on my idea. “Lemonade is twenty-five cents!” he bellows.

  My dollhouse immediately sells for six dollars. The blender goes for three.

  By the time Mama comes to pick us up, I have eighty-six dollars in my pocket. Samir has nine dollars, and there’s only a small pile of items left over—mostly books.

  We drive Allie home. I’m annoyed that we didn’t even make a hundred dollars, especially after being there most of the day in the heat. Getting to Camp Crystals seems like it will be harder than I imagined.

  I offer Allie the money for her items, but she refuses.

  “Your goal is to go to camp, right?” she asks.

  “Yeah.”

  “My goal is to make sure you get there so I won’t be alone!” Allie says.

  Just then, the car makes a funny noise. It sounds like a person coughing. Gasping for air, to be more exact.

  Mama grips the steering wheel tightly as she pulls off the road into a parking lot. She parks the car and turns it off, and the noise stops.

  We are silent for a second.

  “Mama?” asks Samir.

  “Let me think,” Mama mutters.

  I watch her from the back seat. She seems really worried. She tries to start the car, but that noise starts right away. I’m so hot and tired that I snap, “Just call Baba!”

  She glares at me in the mirror. “Thank you, Farah. I wish I had thought of that myself. Thank goodness you’re here.”

  Holy hummus.

  For Mama to get sarcastic like that… well, it takes a lot to push her to that point. But I guess I helped her get there.

  She uses her phone to call Baba. I can hear it ring and ring. She tries a few more times. There’s no answer. When Baba’s at the quarry, he usually wears headphones to muffle the noise of the drills.

  Mama then calls Mr. Liu, who answers right away. After she explains, we hear him reassure her. “I’ll be right over,” he says.

  Allie’s dad is one of my favorite people. I’ll never forget when I was in kindergarten and he mixed baking soda and vinegar in a bowl in their kitchen. It foamed and caused a mini-eruption. “That’s an acid-base reaction,” he said, looking proud. I was hooked on science from that point. Mr. Liu is a scientist in real life too.

  In a few minutes, Mr. Liu arrives and hurries over to the car. “No worries, no worries,” he says calmly, propping the hood open. Standing over the engine, he pokes around for a few minutes. Mr. Liu has thick black hair, which he wears kind of long, so it flops into his eyes.

  Finally he says, sounding confused, “You’re out of oil.”

  “But Abdallah just filled it,” Mama says. “He checks it every few weeks.”

  “I know,” Mr. Liu says. “I thought he told me that just the other day. Well, it’s almost completely empty now.” He snaps his fingers. “I think I have some in my car. Hold on.”

  He gets a quart of engine oil and pours it slowly into the tube in our car’s engine. We’ve all climbed out of the car by now and are watching him.

  “You see,” he says to me, Samir, and Allie, “the engine has a lot of parts. The oil keeps them running smoothly. If you run out, or the oil gets dirty, it makes the engine work really hard. Too hard. And so it starts grinding.”

  “That’s the noise we keep hearing,” Mama says.

  “Yep!” He finishes pouring and twists on the cap. Then he asks Mama to start the car.

  It starts. No noise.

  “Hooway!” Samir shouts. Allie and I clap.

  “I will follow you home,” Mr. Liu says.

  We all pile into the car. Mr. Liu drives behind us until Mama pulls into our driveway.

  “Take it to a mechanic,” he tells Mama as Allie gets out of our car and climbs into his. “If Abdallah just filled it, there might be a leak somewhere.”

  “Thank you so much,” Mama says, looking exhausted.

  CHAPTER 6

  Samir insists that I take his nine dollars, so now I have a grand total of ninety-five dollars.

  I am still five hundred and thirty dollars away from my goal. I’m also tired and cranky.

  Even more, I’m annoyed with myself for thinking I could make all the money I needed at once.

  When Baba gets home from work, he has a good idea for me. “Offer to mow beoble’s lawns.”

  “Do you think anyone will hire me?” I ask.

  “Why not?” he says. “You’re good at it. You mow our lawn.”

  “I don’t know.…”

  “It’s summertime,” he adds with a wink. “Everyone’s grass is tall and growing fast.”

  “But they’ll hire me? I’m just a kid.”

  “Of course,” he says. “Because it means they don’t have to do it themselves.”

  • • •

  The next day is Sunday. Day Four of summer. Baba wakes up early to help me. He fills our lawnmower with gasoline.

  “Good luck!” he says cheerfully.

  I sigh. “Thanks, I guess.”

  Baba pats my shoulder. “I’m broud of you, by the way. For making a blan, and working for that blan.”

  So I set out to work toward my plan: mowing lawns to make money for Camp Crystals.

  Except that the people who have lawns live blocks away. We have a kind-of lawn (half is filled in with rocks and pebbles). Mama says our lawn is “the size of a grape leaf.”

  So I push the lawnmower toward Allie’s neighborhood, and I start knocking on people’s doors.

  “We have a lawn service,” says one lady.

  “Oh, thanks, but we own a riding lawnmower,” says another. “We cut our own grass in just fifteen minutes.”

  One older woman finally agrees to let me cut her lawn. “Okay, sure,” she says, her voice creaky. “Just let me know when you’ve finished.”

  “Great!”

  “Want some lemonade or something, hon?” she asks.

  “No, ma’am, but thank you,” I say, eager to start.

  I push the mower, making neat lines, back and forth, back and forth. It’s just ten in the morning, but the sun is getting hot. I’m glad Mama insisted I wear a hat and sunscreen.

  An hour later, just when I feel like the back of my neck is burning, I finish. I push the mower to the sidewalk and look at my work. The lawn looks trim and clean. Proud of its appearance, I knock on the woman’s door.

  “Well, thank you,” she says, stepping outside and glancing around. “I guess it really needed a cut, didn’t it?”

  “You’re welcome!”

  “You want that lemonade now?”

  “No, thanks.”

  “Okay. Well,
have a nice day, sweetie,” she says. “Thanks again.”

  Then she waves goodbye and shuts the door.

  Holy hummus.

  I just stand there for a second, unsure what to do. Did she forget? She is kind of old, I think. But my Teta Maha is old too, and her memory is like a laser.

  I knock again.

  The lady opens the door.

  “Umm… you forgot to pay me, ma’am?” I say politely. It comes out like a question.

  “Pay you?”

  “Yes.” I frown at her confusion. “It’s fifteen dollars,” I state clearly.

  “I thought you were just being neighborly,” she says, looking shocked. “You didn’t mention money.” Her eyebrows jam together at the top of her head. “What kind of racket is this?”

  Stunned, I don’t know what to say. I don’t even know what she means by racket. I picture myself as a giant tennis racket, slamming balls across a net.

  I watch as her confusion changes to something different. Now she just looks annoyed. She peers down at me through her glasses.

  “You should have said something first,” she says. She turns her back and then returns a second later. “Here’s ten dollars. That’s all I have. These kids today… the gall…”

  My neck is really burning now, and I’m also feeling irritated. Why would she assume it was a free service? And now I’m short by five dollars.

  I knock on a few more houses, and I get the same responses. They either have a professional service or they cut their own grass.

  One more person allows me to cut his lawn. I clearly tell him it will be fifteen dollars, and he agrees. I spend the next hour making neat lines in the grass until his lawn looks like a sheet of lined paper.

  He hands me the money and thanks me. “You can come back in two weeks, if you like,” he says kindly.

  “I’ll let you know,” I answer wearily.

  I trudge toward the sidewalk, where my lawnmower awaits me. At this point, the machine is out of gas. And so am I.

  I push it back home and store it in our small shed. Then I go inside, take a shower, and let Mama put aloe vera gel on my neck. I add the twenty-five dollars I earned in five hours to my stash. That brings my total to one hundred and twenty. I still need five hundred and five dollars.