Coach Matt points to a website address at the bottom of the flyer. “Jalaal can help you sign up, but if you or your parents have any questions, let me know.”
He claps me on the shoulder before striding away to talk to another kid. I stand there for a minute more, trying to imagine how I’ll tell Baba that I didn’t make the team.
“Bilal, you coming?” Akash is waiting for me, his bag slung over his shoulder.
I gather my equipment and we catch up to Henry. I am about to tell the guys what Coach Matt said when I see the developmental team flyer clutched in Henry’s hand.
Henry shakes his head. “I can’t believe I didn’t make the team.” He glares at Jordan from across the field.
“It’s not fair,” Akash says, kicking a patch of dirt.
Henry spits. “I should’ve known. She’s Coach Matt’s niece.”
Akash narrows his eyes. “Yeah, nepotism.”
Henry says what I’m thinking: “Nepa-what?”
“Nepotism. Meaning her uncle’s the head coach, so she made the team.”
I stand there shaking my head like I can’t believe Jordan is a Cardinal instead of Henry.
But the truth is, I can believe it.
Even so, I decide I won’t tell Baba about Jordan at all. Maybe by the time he gets here and sees me play, I’ll be the one pitching for the Cardinals instead of her.
Twelve
I am not hungry for breakfast on my first day of school. I pick chunks of tomato from my omelet, slip them under my toast, and push bits of egg around my plate. During my Fajr prayer this morning, I prayed that a monsoon would close school today.
“School bus in ten minutes!” Auntie calls from upstairs.
I guess that prayer won’t be answered today.
I take my plate to the sink and rinse it, stuffing my whole omelet down the garbage disposal.
For the tenth time since last night, I check my backpack. It’s stuffed with notebooks and pencils and highlighters and markers and a bunch of other things I have never needed for school before, like plastic zip bags and disinfectant wipes. A letter came last week saying that Mrs. Wu will be my teacher, which is good. But Akash and Henry have a different teacher, which is not good; I won’t have anyone to ask what I am supposed to do with zip bags and disinfectant wipes.
Auntie whooshes down the stairs, the hem of her jade shalwar kameez fluttering behind her. “Off we go!” She claps her hands.
I file out the door behind Auntie, Hira, and Ammi, who pushes Humza in his stroller. My sister runs to catch up to Lizzie, swinging her new American backpack over her shoulder.
As soon as we join the crowd of kids and parents, a little girl in a soccer T-shirt squeals, “Here comes the bus!” A very tall boy herds the little kids into line. When he turns, I see that he’s wearing a neon-yellow belt diagonally across his chest, complete with a silver badge.
The other parents snap photos with their phones, and so do Ammi and Auntie.
“Smile!” Ammi calls, and I feel like melting into the sidewalk. If my Karachi classmates were here, we’d make silly faces or strike funny poses. It’s just not as fun by yourself. I only smile for real when my mother says, “We’ll send this one to Baba.”
Jordan stands last in line, right behind me. She whisperyells, “Mom! I’m too old for this. Honestly.”
I don’t turn, but I hear her mother whisper back, “Come on, honey—just one photo. We’ll email it to your dad.”
I don’t know if Jordan smiles or not, but her mom takes a picture anyway and steps back with the other parents.
I turn to ask Jordan about her dad. Her arms are crossed and she kicks a pebble into the grass behind her. Maybe I’ll ask about her dad another time.
The bus is crowded, with three to a seat. It smells like exhaust fumes and vinyl seats. As we shuffle down the aisle, I spot Henry, Akash, and another kid sitting together. Akash sits near the aisle and high-fives me as I walk past. I wish there were space for me. Hira and Lizzie sit with another kid, and I grab the very last empty seat at the back.
As soon as I sit down, Jordan slides next to me.
“Hey.” She pulls off her backpack and sets it on her lap.
“Hello.” I set my backpack on my lap, too.
Akash catches my eye. He grins, then turns back and leans in to say something to Henry and the other boy. They all burst into laughter.
I sink down into my seat. It’s not my fault I’m sitting with a girl, and it’s not Jordan’s fault she’s sitting with me.
Either Jordan is oblivious to Henry’s glares or she doesn’t care. “So are you nervous?”
“A little bit, yes.” And not just about school. I glance over at the guys. “You are nervous?” I ask.
“Nah.” Jordan shrugs. “I’ve done this before.” She unzips and zips the front pocket of her backpack.
I wish Henry would stop looking back here. I can’t shake the feeling that the three of them are talking about me. And maybe Jordan. Probably both of us.
“Well?” Jordan asks.
I blink. Did she just ask me a question?
Jordan opens her mouth as if she is going to repeat whatever she said, but then she glances over at the guys, who are still snickering. She scowls, hugs her backpack tighter, then unzips it and pulls out a book. She opens to a bookmarked page and starts reading. When I try to look at the words on the bumpy bus, my stomach turns over.
I lean against the window, watching neat rows of houses roll by. In Karachi, Baba always drove me to school, and it was one of my favorite times of the day.The clatter of voices bouncing off the school bus walls is nothing like the quiet hum of Baba’s car. The bus doesn’t make any more stops after mine, and we’re pulling up in front of the school before I am ready.
Jordan hops up from the seat as the bus lurches to a stop. By the time the brakes squeak and sigh and the door swings open, she’s already four people ahead of me in line. Henry and Akash file off the bus right in front of her, without looking back. When I finally step onto the sidewalk, only Akash is waiting for me.
I want to thank him for waiting and to ask why Henry looked so mad at me, but it is too loud and too crowded, and anyway I think I already know. But it is not my fault that Jordan made the Cardinals instead of Henry or that Jordan sat next to me on the only empty seat on the bus.
I try to keep up with Akash as he weaves his way through the throng of kids and into the cafeteria. Most kids are seated at long tables, talking to friends. Others gather near the walls, laughing and fist-bumping and friendship-punching.
Akash and I finally find Henry standing near the back of the cafeteria with a group of boys. Akash introduces me to the others, but he says their names so fast I don’t catch most of them.
Although I am standing with these boys, I am not part of their group. They talk and joke around me, but I don’t understand everything they say. I see Jordan standing with her book, leaning against the white tile wall. She is alone; I am with a group of kids. But I am the one who feels lonely.
There’s Hira chatting with Lizzie and two other little girls. I look away; I am not that desperate for company.
It feels like forever before a tone sounds over the loudspeaker and everyone starts herding themselves out of the double doors. I quickly lose sight of Akash. I head for the stairs and make my way to room twenty-five.
Mrs. Wu greets me at the door, and I am surprised to see I am the first one here. I was never the first one to class back home. Mudassar and I always waited until the last possible moment before rushing through the door and sliding into our seats. My new classmates spill into the room a few seconds after me.
“Welcome, boys and girls!” Mrs. Wu says. “Please read the morning message and settle in.”
A projector lights up a whiteboard with a message:
Good Morning and Welcome to Fifth Grade!
1. Unpack your backpack.
2. Put your supplies inside your desk.
3. Place your backpack in
your cubby.
4. Begin the icebreaker on your desk.
I pull my supplies from my backpack one by one, buying time until I can figure out what a cubby is. One girl dumps her school supplies onto her desk and brings her empty backpack to some open cupboards. I head back, too, and find a hook for my backpack next to my name.
Now for the icebreaker. I don’t know what that is, but there is a piece of paper on my desk with sixteen squares and some writing. Each square has a question like What is your favorite subject? or How many siblings do you have?
I take a breath and nod. I know enough English to do this. I fill in my answers until I get to the “favorite sport” box. I start to write baseball, but then I wonder if Mrs. Wu has heard of cricket. Maybe she will know it is a game and not a bug. I write it down. For my favorite subject, I write “English” so Mrs. Wu will know I have studied English, and maybe I won’t have to do the ESL class. My favorite food is jalebi. Thinking about the warm, crispy sweetness of the saffron orange spirals makes me wish I’d finished my breakfast. I blink and look back at my paper. Favorite vacation spot? Margalla Hills National Park at the foot of the mountains in Islamabad. Favorite summer memory? Talking to Baba on Skype.
I finally put down my pencil and look up to find Jordan sitting across from me, moving her pencil across her paper. I’d been so focused on my answers that I hadn’t even realized she’d come in. I feel sorry for not talking to her very much on the bus. I think about saying something to her now, but I don’t want to get in trouble with the teacher on the very first day of school.
Mrs. Wu taps something on her laptop, and the image on the whiteboard changes from the morning work directions to a video of two kids sitting behind a big desk.
“Goooood morning, Panthers, and welcome to the first day of school!” they say in unison. They explain that this is the Good Morning Panthers news show, or GMP for short. Then they tell us to rise for something I don’t understand. Everyone puts down their pencils, stands, and recites the same words all at the same time. They are about five seconds into these words when I realize everyone has a hand on their chest, so I do the same.
Then we sit back down and have something called a minute of silence, which I don’t understand because we already had several minutes of silence before, while we were filling out the paper with the sixteen boxes.
The kids on TV tell us to have a great day, and then the screen goes to a picture of a fierce cat with long teeth and the words Panther Pride.
Mrs. Wu turns off the projector. “Okay, class, finish up your last answers, then we’ll gather on the carpet for our first morning meeting of the year.”
Kids wander over to the rug and sit cross-legged around the edge. In the center of the rug is a world map, with flags lining the perimeter. I look for the flag of Pakistan with its white star and crescent moon against a dark green background, but I do not see it. I pick a spot next to a boy with hair the color of a lemon.
Mrs. Wu reads the morning message and explains that the paper with the sixteen boxes is called an icebreaker. I am still not sure why, since I don’t see how a piece of paper could break ice. Mrs. Wu then shows us how to do something called a morning greeting, which goes like this: you introduce yourself; you give a high five to the person on your left; that person says good morning to you; and you say it back.Then the person highfives the next person, and so on, all the way around the circle.
I don’t know how I will ever remember all of these names. I wonder if anyone else knows how to speak Urdu.
Then it’s time for the icebreaker paper. Mrs. Wu tells us we are supposed to walk around with our paper and pencil and find someone whose answer matches one of ours. If we do, then we sign our name in the other person’s box. I frown at my paper. No one’s answers will match mine, except maybe the one about having a sister and a brother.
There is only one thing to do—change my answers. I could change cricket to baseball, but what about the vacation spot? I don’t know where Americans go on vacation. And favorite summer memory? I could make something up—like going to the pool.
When everyone stands and starts to talk, I head back to my desk. Leaning over my paper, I flip my pencil to the eraser side, but Mrs. Wu calls out, “No changing answers, people! The object isn’t to find a match for all the boxes—it’s to get to know each other!”
It’s obvious most kids already know each other anyway, because I hear things like, “Dylan—sign my box for favorite sport,” when the kid called Dylan hasn’t even seen the other kid’s paper. The only person I know in this class is Jordan, but she’s already exchanging papers with another girl who nods at something Jordan wrote.
Someone taps my shoulder, and I turn to find a tall boy with green eyes peering at me through his glasses. “Hey, what’s your favorite sport?” he says.
I hold my paper to my chest. “What is yours?”
“Basketball.” He points to his T-shirt, which has something about a tournament written across it. “We won our division last season.”
I peek at my paper like I can’t remember what I put down. “I did not write basketball,” I say.
“Oh, okay.” The boy shrugs. “What else you got?”
He turns his paper so I can scan his answers. I point to where he wrote that he has one brother and one sister.
“This one,” I say.
We exchange papers, and he signs his name in the How many siblings do you have? box. I do the same on his paper, scrawling my name quickly so we can switch back before he sees my other answers.
When I have my paper, I look at his name: José. I’m not sure how to pronounce it. He studies my signature. “What’s your name?”
“Bilal,” I say, vowing to write more clearly on the next person’s paper. Although I probably won’t find anyone whose answers match mine.
José nods. “Cool,” he declares, and walks away.
As I suspected, I don’t meet anyone else besides José who has the same answers I do. Jordan comes up to me, her paper filled with signatures.
I am so grateful to see a familiar face that I decide right then to apologize for not listening to her on the bus. But before I can open my mouth, she says, “What do you have left?”
She peers at my paper. “Fifteen?” Her voice gets the attention of a bunch of kids standing near us. They look over, then go back to talking and laughing and signing their names.
“Let me see that.” Jordan grabs my paper. Before I can tell her I didn’t write down baseball for my favorite sport, she’s signing her name in one of my boxes—I can’t see which one. She thrusts her paper at me, pointing to the box in the lower left-hand corner. “You can sign here.”
I take her paper, and my eyes find the box she’s pointing to—the only one without a signature: Favorite summer memory. Underneath, she’s written, “Skype with my dad.”
I look up at her, but she seems to be focused on something outside the window, one fist resting on her hip. I sign my name in the box and give her paper back.
“Where is your father?” I ask before my brain can stop me from being rude.
Still looking out the window, she answers, “Afghanistan.” She turns and points her chin at my paper. “What about your dad?”
“At home. In Pakistan, I mean.”
She frowns. “What’s he doing there?”
I wish I knew, exactly. All I know is that my best friend’s father and Baba are no longer friends, and Baba can’t leave work until he finishes whatever it is that he needs to finish. But I can’t say any of that, so instead I say, “He is waiting for his traveling visa.” Because this is true, too. Before she can ask another question, I ask, “Why your father is in Afghanistan?”
“He’s deployed.”
I don’t know that word, but whatever it means, she doesn’t look very happy about it.
Jordan folds her arms. “He’s in the army. Third time over there.”
I don’t know what to say to that.This is the first time I have been away from
Baba, and it seems like forever ago since I saw him last. I cannot imagine having him back only to leave again, and again, and again.
Mrs. Wu calls us back to the carpet with our papers, and now we have to go around the circle and share one thing we learned about someone in the class.
“Who would like to go first?” Mrs. Wu asks.
I raise my hand. It is better to go now before someone takes my two answers.
“Bilal, what would you like to share?”
Jordan’s head snaps up. I see her barely shake her head—a movement so small I don’t think anyone else notices. I nod once to tell her I won’t talk about her father to anyone.
My eyes scan the kids in the circle until I find José’s spiky black hair. I still don’t know how to say his name, so I point to him and say, “He likes basketball.”
Mrs. Wu nods. “Do you play on a team, José?”
So that’s how you say his name—ho-ZAY.
Mrs. Wu thanks me and moves on. I learn from the others that Americans like pizza, hamburgers, and chicken nuggets. They like to vacation at places called the beach, Disney World, and Kings Dominion. I also learn that no one else’s favorite subject is English; they say either science, social studies (I am not sure what this means), math, or something called language arts—maybe that is where we will do English and some other languages, along with art. Some people say their favorite subject is just art, without the language part. Lots of people say PE, and I don’t know what that is, either. Everyone laughs when someone says recess, and I make a note in my brain to ask Jalaal about all of these things.
I start to tune out after a while because this much English hurts my head. The only thing these people know about me is that I have one sister and one brother. Jordan knows about Baba and baseball, of course. Which means the one person here I have something in common with is a girl. A girl my baseball friends want nothing to do with.
I miss Mudassar.
Thirteen
After the icebreaker, Mrs. Wu tells us to stand in a giant circle around the classroom. She stands in the circle with us, holding a foam ball as big as a melon.
A Long Pitch Home Page 8
