by N. H. Senzai
“My mom freaked out,” interrupted her friend. “She has family in New York and was trying to call them all morning.”
They gave each other anxious looks as Fadi paused. What is going on? he thought, a prickle of unease creeping down his spine. He hurried on to homeroom and took his seat. He had unfinished math homework to take care of.
Homeroom passed as usual, with Mr. Torres coming in late, wearing an orange-and-white striped sweater. “Good morning, guys,” he said.
The room was unusually quiet as students took their seats. Mr. Torres stood at the board, looking a bit dazed. Moreso than usual. He opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. He shook his head while running his hand through his rumpled hair and reached for the day’s announcements. Fadi exchanged a questioning look with Patty, who was passing notes to her girlfriends. He shrugged at everyone’s weird behavior. All he could think of was going to photo club at the end of the day.
As Fadi exited language arts later that afternoon, he passed by the water fountains and spotted Felix shoving a small sixth-grader out of line to take a drink. Fadi hurried on, toward the cafeteria for lunch.
“You gonna buy me lunch today, rich boy,” he heard Felix call out after him.
Pretending he hadn’t heard, Fadi avoided the cafeteria, planning to hide out in the library. He passed the teachers’ lounge and slowed down. The door was slightly open, and he could see Mr. Torres’s loud sweater.
“I can’t believe it,” said Mr. Torres. “This was no accident. Two planes hit the Twin Towers and another crashed into the Pentagon.”
“Oh, my God,” came a woman’s worried voice.
Fadi stopped, waiting to hear more. The door to the lounge opened and Principal Hornstein hurried out, smoothing the wisps of gray hair around his head. He gave Fadi a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, and hurried toward his office.
By the time Fadi headed toward the art studio after school, he’d pieced together what had happened through fragmented conversations he’d heard throughout the day. Terrorists had crashed planes into two skyscrapers in New York and at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C.
Around a dozen kids were sitting in the art studio when he entered. Anh was there and smiled when she saw Fadi.
“Hey,” she said. “You made it.”
“Yeah,” said Fadi. “I made it.”
“So sorry I’m late,” said Ms. Bethune. “I received some news. My brother works at the Pentagon, you see …” She stopped for a moment, a blank look on her face.
“I heard kids talking about the planes,” blurted an Indian boy. Then he snapped his mouth shut. His face looked a little green.
“Yes, Ravi,” said Ms. Bethune, straightening her spine. “I’m afraid there’s been an attack.… Planes crashed into the Pentagon this morning, and well, my brother called to tell us he was okay.”
“Oh.” Ravi gulped as the other students looked at one another.
“I’m sure you will discuss it with your parents when you get home,” said Ms. Bethune. “I’m going to cancel photo club today, but I’ll take your membership dues.”
Fadi unzipped his backpack to remove his money. His hand brushed the honey tin, and he paused. The familiar square shape filled his palm, and he gently squeezed it before letting go. He pulled out the envelope and handed it to Ms. Bethune, who was passing around sheets of paper. Fadi’s heart raced as he read the title: “Take Your Best Shot Contest Guidelines.”
“Take these and read them at home,” instructed Ms. Bethune. “If you want to enter the contest, you need to give me your pictures by October eleventh. I need to send them to Société Géographique by the twelfth. Next week we can discuss what you might want to photograph, and I’ll give you guys rolls of film. The following Tuesday we’ll start learning how to use the darkroom.”
“Cool,” murmured Ravi.
Fadi skimmed over the page and saw that the results of the competition would be announced December first, and the awards ceremony would take place in San Francisco the following week or so. He looked at the grand prize. The digital camera held no meaning for him. He wanted those two tickets to India. To do that he had to come up with something so original and awesome that it stood out from the rest of the entries. The rules said you could take pictures of anything; you could be as creative as you wanted to. But what would win the competition?
BY THE END OF THE DAY, Fadi knew that the world as he knew it would never be the same again. He, along with Noor and his parents, sat around their tiny television, glued to the screen. Stark, horrific images flickered in the darkened room, bursts of orange, gold, black, and smoky gray.
“This is terrible, just terrible,” whispered Zafoona. She sat on the faded brown recliner, wrapped in her shawl. Her eyes were rooted to the two majestic buildings on the screen. As flames exploded outward, the massive steel and glass structures faltered and Zafoona closed her eyes and turned away.
Noor leaned forward to flip the channel, but everywhere she clicked there was repeated footage of a plane, flying low, crashing into the second tower of the World Trade Center. “How can such solid buildings collapse?” she whispered. Gingerly her fingers touched the screen, as if trying to feel whether it was real.
“Leave it on this channel, Noor jaan,” said Habib.
The host of CNN had assembled a panel of terrorism experts to share their theories on who could have carried out such a well-planned attack. It was nearly ten o’clock, time for Habib to head out for the airport, but he couldn’t seem to leave his seat.
Zafoona’s eyes snapped open. “This is a horrific deed.… So many innocent people are dead.”
“Who did it?” Fadi wondered out loud. He leaned back against the recliner and folded his arms against his chest.
Zafoona reached down and brushed his overlong bangs away from his eyes. Her eyes cleared. “Whoever did this has no value for human life, and whatever statement they’re trying to make is lost by their evil actions.”
“Yes,” said Habib. “This is an act against Allah and all of humanity. And there will be retribution.”
Fadi heard the darkness in his father’s words, and it worried him. He reached for his mother’s hand and felt her fingers tighten around his.
The next day Fadi stood with his father in a grocery shop in Little Kabul, watching long, flat sheets of freshly baked bread, nearly as tall as he was, emerge from the oven. They were fifth in line, waiting their turn to pick up bread for dinner. Fadi’s nose tingled as he inhaled the pleasant smell of yeast and spices while glancing at Habib. His father’s face was troubled. Habib had called Professor Sahib that morning and found out that the men they’d hired hadn’t found a speck of information on Mariam or the family she’d disappeared with. Five hundred dollars down the drain, thought Fadi glumly.
Shrugging off the feeling of disappointment, Fadi turned around to inspect the back of the store. Usually the store hummed with noise as people chatted, laughed, and exchanged jokes with the tiny white-haired owner who sat at his usual spot, next to the register. Today everything was eerily quiet. Fadi scanned the dry fruits aisle and spotted Masood, one of the two Afghan boys from his math class. Masood stood next to a table piled with cakes and cookies. As if feeling Fadi’s eyes on him, he looked up, and his eyes met Fadi’s. He nodded in acknowledgment.
Fadi returned the gesture. Maybe I should go talk to him. But he couldn’t, since Habib had stepped away to pick up some canned beans, and he had to save their spot in line. Reluctantly Fadi turned his attention to a group of men huddled near the butcher’s counter, dour expressions on their faces.
“Did you hear the news?” muttered one. An old scar ran down the right side of his face, giving his cheek an odd, puckered look, like he’d swallowed a lemon.
“No. What happened?” another man asked.
Fadi saw his father’s attention turn toward the men as he returned to join him in line. Intrigued, Fadi’s ears perked up.
“They’re reporting that the ninete
en terrorists were affiliated with Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda,” said the scarred man.
Fadi saw the woman at the head of the line turn pale. She took her bread, grabbed her little boy, and hurried over to the cashier.
“This is going to spell disaster for Afghanistan,” said a third man.
Fadi stiffened. This is not good. Osama bin Laden is in Afghanistan.
“Once Osama was a hero.” A man in a leather jacket sighed. “He helped defeat the Soviets.”
“I know!” interrupted the scarred man. “We all have wounds from that war. But now Osama has turned against the United States.”
“Well, the Taliban have offered Osama panah, so he’s not leaving Afghanistan anytime soon,” said the butcher.
He’s right, thought Fadi. According to the Pukhtunwali code of panah, or asylum, if a person asks for protection against his enemies, the person, in this case Osama, would be safeguarded at all costs.
“This spells big trouble,” said the butcher. He handed the scarred man a packet of meat. “It is not good that outside elements, like al-Qaeda, are ruining Afghanistan.”
“They are working with those villains the Taliban,” grumbled an older man with a cane. “We need to get rid of them both.”
Fadi saw his father frown. Others in the store stopped what they were doing and looked toward the butcher.
A tall man with narrowed blue eyes paused as he was exiting the door. His large hands gripped the bags in his hands and he turned toward the men. “The Taliban you are cursing are the ones who brought order to the country,” he said.
“They are religious zealots,” responded the older man. “They have made Afghanistan the laughingstock of the world. Now they are working with Osama.”
The blue-eyed man took a step forward, his fists clenched. “Once the Soviets left, the country was overrun by warlords. Do you want to return to that? Seventy percent of Kabul was destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of Afghans were killed. That includes every ethnic group—the blood of Pukhtuns, Tajiks, Hazaras, and Uzbeks filled the streets. The Northern Alliance is made up of the same warlords and will bring disaster to Afghanistan.”
The man with the cane stiffened. “Well, the Taliban are doing the same now.”
The blue-eyed man took another step forward, his lips pursed in a tight line.
“Brothers, stop!” shouted a voice next to Fadi.
Fadi jumped, blinking in surprise. It was his father.
“We cannot go on fighting among ourselves!” said Habib. His strong, deep voice rumbled through the store.
Fadi cringed, wanting to dive behind the ten-pound rice bags. All eyes in the store were on them.
“No one is perfect. We have all made mistakes—Pukhtuns, Tajiks, and others,” continued Habib. “We need to come together as Afghans now, for the sake of our country.” He turned to the blue-eyed man. “You are right, Brother. The Taliban brought order to the country when it was needed.” Then he turned to the group of men. “Before the Taliban came, the Tajiks, Uzbeks, and others were destroying the country. But now the Taliban are doing the same. They are working with Osama bin Laden, who is using Afghanistan for his own agenda.”
“He’s right,” muttered an old woman. Her hair covered by a white scarf, she stood next to the nut bins.
The men next to the butcher harrumphed and walked away, while the blue-eyed man swung his bags around and left the store.
“There will be trouble in Afghanistan,” prophesied the old woman. Then, as if nothing had happened, she went back to inspecting pistachios, sold by the pound.
A sense of foreboding drifted over Fadi. Things are going to get worse. I just know it.
“LOOK! IT’S OSAMA,” shouted a familiar rough voice.
Fadi stepped out of the boys’ bathroom and froze like a rabbit hearing a hawk. The door squeaked shut behind him. He gazed down the hall, looking for the source of the voice. But the hall was bare, with only a few stragglers rushing to class before the bell rang.
“Why aren’t you with your towel-headed friends?” growled the voice again.
Fadi inched away from the bathroom. He looked past the water fountain and noticed that the door to the janitor’s closet was ajar. Before he could run, two figures emerged from the dark interior.
Felix stepped out to stand next to Ike. “Yeah, we don’t want you camel jockeys around here.”
Fadi’s stomach clenched as he surveyed the nearly empty hall. The last student gave him a pitying look and slipped into his classroom.
“What?” said Ike, twisting his lips. “Cat got your tongue?”
“No. A camel got his tongue,” Felix said, and sniggered. He balled his right hand into a fist and hit it against his left palm. An expensive gold watch hung loosely on his wrist.
“I don’t want trouble,” squeaked Fadi, edging backward. He stopped. If he went back into the bathroom, he’d be trapped.
“‘I don’t want trouble,’” mimicked Ike in a high-pitched voice. “You asked for trouble when your terrorists attacked us.”
“Let’s show him some American-style justice,” muttered Felix.
Fadi gulped. He eyed the hall to the right, toward his math class. It was too far away. The closest door led to a seventh-grade classroom. He could make it if he darted quickly past the boys and ran fast. He was about to bolt forward when Principal Hornstein stepped out from around the corner. His old checkered tie hung loose around his neck, as if he’d been pulling at it.
He looked quizzically from Fadi to Ike and Felix. “Any problem here, boys?”
“No. We just needed to take a leak,” said Ike, as if everything were normal.
“And you?” asked Principal Hornstein, turning toward Fadi.
Fadi’s throat was dry, his tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. He looked at Ike and Felix, who were standing like innocent choirboys. “No,” he finally mumbled. “No problem.”
“Good,” said Principal Hornstein. “You two go to the bathroom, but make it snappy.”
As Ike and Felix swaggered into the bathroom, Principal Hornstein turned to Fadi with a contemplative look in his eye. “Is everything all right, son?”
Fadi nodded a little too fast. Keep it cool. “Yeah, everything is fine,” he said.
“Well, if you have any trouble, or need to talk to someone, you know where my office is.”
Fadi nodded and scurried to math class.
A few minutes later Ike and Felix wandered in behind him.
“You’re late!” said Mrs. Palmer in exasperation. Her curly red hair swirled in a halo around her head as she scribbled on the blackboard.
“Principal Hornstein said we could go to the bathroom,” said Ike with an insolent smile.
Mrs. Palmer paused for a moment and sighed. “Okay. Sit down.”
Ike gave Fadi a pointed look and slumped into his seat.
Fadi opened his backpack and pulled out his notebook just as Mrs. Palmer put down her chalk and turned back to the class.
“Okay, class. Close your textbooks. It’s time for a pop quiz!” she announced.
The students groaned. Along with the others Fadi took out a sheet of paper with shaking fingers. Hunched over the desk, he settled down to sort out improper fractions. He could feel Ike’s and Felix’s eyes boring into his back. He was going to have to be super careful to avoid them. The consequences were too painful to think about.
Fadi and Anh were in the studio, waiting for Ms. Bethune to show up for art class. Anh leaned across the table toward Fadi and pulled a stack of printouts from her binder. “I did some research,” she said.
“What kind of research?” asked Fadi. His mind was still on his run-in with Ike and Felix earlier in the day. He felt like a mouse being hunted by sharp-clawed cats. It wasn’t a good feeling.
“Research about the competition,” said Anh.
“Oh,” said Fadi, picking up the scent of her watermelon-flavored lip balm. Nice, he thought, then blinked in embarrassment.
“Ar
e you all right?” asked Anh.
“Yeah, I’m fine,” said Fadi. He looked at her and wondered for a moment if he should tell her about Ike and Felix. But she can’t help really, so why bother?
“Okay. Well, my dad always tells me to be one step ahead of the game,” she said, looking pleased with herself. “Yesterday I went online and dug up information on the Take Your Best Shot competition …” She trailed off with a smile.
“And … ,” said Fadi, waving his hand.
“And I found the names of the four judges.”
“Isn’t that kind of like cheating or something?”
“Nope,” she said, tossing back her hair. “It’s public information since it’s listed on the competition’s website, under rules and regulations.”
“Oh,” said Fadi, impressed.
“Once I got the names, I dug up more information about them.”
Fadi leaned over the table, shielding the sheets from the group of kids that had wandered in. One of them was Ravi, from photo club.
“Here’s the first judge, Millicent Chao,” she whispered. She flipped through the printouts. “She’s the director of the Exploratorium.”
Fadi looked down at the smiling face of a middle-aged woman in a pink pantsuit. Her lengthy bio was attached. As Fadi skimmed the paragraphs, he learned that Millicent Chao was a graduate of Stanford University and had double majored in architecture and East Asian history. She was married and had a daughter who was a dancer with the San Francisco Ballet. She enjoyed taking apart clocks and putting them back together again, cooking experiments, and horticulture, especially growing bonsai trees.
The second page was the home page of San Francisco City Councilman Henry Watson. He was fluent in Spanish and Portuguese and owned a Brazilian restaurant in the Castro. He liked to read, surf, and travel, especially to South America. Next was Lauren Reed. She was the regional manager for Kodak film, and there wasn’t much information about her, or even a picture.
The last judge was Clive Murray, a photojournalist from the Société Géographique. He was a world-renowned “image maker” and had won countless awards. Anh had stapled a bunch of sheets about him together, including a bunch of his pictures. Fadi read that Clive’s trademark photography style was “capturing the essence of human diversity, cultures, struggles, and joy.” He had worked in every corner of the earth. He had covered a lot of conflicts—including the Iran-Iraq war and the crises in Cambodia, Rwanda, and the Congo—and he had followed the plight of refugees in Sudan, Iran, India, and Pakistan.
