Sadia

by Colleen Nelson

  Mr. Letner gave Josh a long look. “Out of curiosity, are you going to show this picture to your dad?”

  Josh glanced at the photo again and frowned. “I don’t know,” he sighed.

  Sometimes my parents embarrassed me when I played, shouting or cheering too loudly, but they never argued with a ref or called out the other players. And they never looked as irate as Josh’s dad.

  Josh went back to his seat, and Mr. Letner said, “We have time for one more. Who’s up?” Most kids had presented at least one photo. Mr. Letner scanned the room and his gaze fell on Mariam. She looked at her hands fidgeting under her desk. “Mariam, we haven’t seen any of your photos yet. Care to share?”

  She twisted her mouth like she was working up the courage to say yes. With a deep breath, she nodded and went to show Mr. Letner which photo to put on the Smartboard. Seeing her in front of the class, she looked petite, small-boned, and delicate. Her eyes flitted anxiously around the classroom. “This is a photo from my room.” The picture that came up was of a bulletin board. Mariam had tacked up pages ripped out of magazines, pictures printed off the internet, and scraps of fabric. Some were even drawings she’d done of outfits. “This is my inspiration board.” It was like a quilt of paper, covering every millimetre of the corkboard.

  “Inspiration for what?” Mr. Letner peered closer at the computer screen in front of him.

  “Designing. I want to be a fashion designer when I grow up.” The words came out in a rush and were news to me. Although it did make sense. Carmina nodded and I started to wonder if a love of fashion was the thing that connected them. I’d been assuming Mariam was turning away from me because I reminded her of her old self, but maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe she was moving to something that I didn’t know anything about. I sat back in my chair, feeling further from her than ever.

  “Cool,” Mr. Letner smiled at her. “How do you decide what makes it up on the board?” he asked.

  “Mostly I just choose pictures of outfits I like.” A lot of them were ads for high-end name brands.

  Mr. Letner pointed to a photo from a mosque. Taken from the back of the women’s section, it showed a sea of colourful head scarves. “Tell me about that one.”

  “O-oh,” Mariam stammered. “That one. I found it in a travel magazine. I put it up because I liked all the colours. It reminds me how beautiful prayers can be.”

  “Very cool,” Mr. Letner said.

  “There’s also sketches of outfits I’ve designed. Ones I want to sew.” She pointed a few out and waited for more questions.

  “Who taught you to sew?”

  “My mom. She sews her own clothes.” I thought about Mrs. Hassanin and the stylish outfits she wore to the mosque. I had no idea she’d made them herself. “I’m —” Mariam caught herself and looked at me. “I’m going to try and sew a new basketball uniform for Sadia. One that’s more comfortable.”

  I grinned with surprise. A small, determined smile spread across her face. From the corner of my eye, I saw Carmina smiling, too.

  “Very cool,” Mr. Letner said again. “This is turning into a passion project!” he said excitedly.

  “A what?” Avery asked.

  “A passion project, something you do on your own time.”

  “So, a hobby?” Zak said. There was a touch of cynicism in his voice, but Mr. Letner didn’t let it deter him.

  “No, more than a hobby. A passion project is something you work on because you want to, not because you have to.” He looked at Allan. “When you showed us the photo of your brother, it got me thinking.… Maybe you could invent something to help him? That would be a passion project.”

  All eyes went to Allan, who frowned, thinking.

  “So we’re supposed to invent something?” A low murmur of confusion went through the room.

  “Not necessarily. You might want to paint, or make music, or find an organization you want to volunteer with. A passion project can be anything you find interesting. But you have to push yourselves. Don’t just play piano; write your own song and perform it for us. Want a better way to get to school? Invent an electric skateboard.” He directed that idea at Zak, who stopped peeling a sticker off his binder to listen. “Or make a YouTube video to teach people your favourite tricks. Start an after-school class at the skate park for kids who want to learn.” Zak sat up straighter at his desk, interested.

  “How many marks is it worth?” Larissa asked.

  “No marks.”

  No marks? “So why would we do it?” Zander asked, echoing my thoughts.

  Mr. Letner waited a moment before answering. “A passion project is something you work on because you want to. It’s not about marks.”

  “Josh, you talked about wishing our city could host an NBA game. You could look into what it takes, see if it’s possible. Interview people, research what other cities have done to get expansion teams.” He looked at me next. “Sadia, you’d have to help Mariam. She can sew, but you know what you need as a player.” I looked at Mariam. She smiled at me and nodded. Mr. Letner looked at the class. “Anyone have any other ideas?” For a minute, it was quiet. Then Franca wondered if making a cookbook with her grandma’s recipes was a passion project and Mr. Letner nodded.

  “Maybe I could sell it to raise money for a charity,” she said.

  A slow smile spread across Mr. Letner’s face. “Tell you what, kids who are interested in learning more, stay after class.”

  As the bell rang, about half the class packed up to leave. The rest of us, even Mariam, stayed in our seats. “Can I do something with art?” Avery asked. “Like drawing? Or taking pictures?”

  “You could do the pictures of the food in the cookbook,” Franca said as a joke, but Mr. Letner lifted one shoulder as if to say, Why not?

  It was like the wheels in everyone’s brains started to turn at the same time. Veronica had gone to the conservatory and taken photos of her favourite flowers, so she said she wanted to design a new garden for the schoolyard.

  “Anyone like building things?” Mr. Letner asked, and Aidan’s hand shot up. “You could make the containers for the garden.”

  “Or a birdhouse,” Aidan suggested. Pretty soon, people were talking with their friends, coming up with ideas for a passion project. Carmina said she wanted to create a graphic novel with a Filipino main character. “I hate that there aren’t any books with characters who look like me,” she explained.

  Riley shyly added that he could write the story for it, if she wanted. When Carmina grinned at him and said yes, his cheeks turned so red, I thought they were going to ignite. I also saw the way Carmina’s eyes lit up when Riley crouched at her desk to talk to her.

  When the second bell rang, we ignored it because no one wanted to leave.

  Except maybe Amira. I’d forgotten about her. She looked at me helplessly.

  “What is going on?” she asked.

  While everyone else had been coming up with ideas, she’d been sitting at the desk, confused. A little swell of guilt rose in me. I’d been in her shoes once.

  “We’re coming up with ideas for passion projects.” There was no easy way to describe what Mr. Letner had assigned us — even though it wasn’t really an assignment. We would be working on our projects on our own time, not at school, and they didn’t count for marks.

  I tried my best to explain everyone’s projects to Amira, but she kept looking at me with a frown. “Do you get it?” I asked.

  She nodded, but still looked confused, and I wondered if she was just faking it to avoid feeling clued out. I used to fake things all the time to fit in. I’d watch, take things in, and then try them out on my own. Sometimes, like throwing a snowball, they worked, but other times, taking a risk and acting like I knew what I was doing was a big, fat failure. How many times had I thought I understood a game in gym, only to embarrass myself? Amira sat quietly, her brow furrowe
d as if she was concentrating on something. Maybe she understood more than I gave her credit for. After living in refugee camps for the last year and half, she’d proven that she was a survivor. There was no way high school was more challenging than the life she’d left behind.

  Chapter 15

  I hated to admit it, but the thought of Mariam coming over gave me butterflies of excitement. I’d gone from assuming our friendship was over to feeling a flicker of hope. It felt like a long time since we’d hung out.

  She still hadn’t admitted that the real reason she was coming over was to escape the watchful eyes of her parents and go to the party with Carmina. I’d play dumb, of course, when she did. A little piece of me hoped that maybe she’d change her mind and just want to stay at my house. Like old times, the two of us could stay up late watching movies and eating popcorn.

  “Sadia!” Mom called from downstairs. “Mariam is here.”

  I raced down the stairs to the front door. She stood in her hijab with a bag in her hand and waved goodbye to her dad. He reversed out of our driveway and I shut the door. “Hi!” Her bag was stuffed with clothes — borrowed from Carmina for the party? I wondered — and a sleeping bag. Her sketchbook stuck out the top of it.

  It was like falling back into our old ways; I led the way upstairs and Mariam followed. Mom watched us from the front entrance, smiling. “Dinner will be ready in half an hour. Did you eat, Mariam?”

  “No.”

  “Good. You can join us.”

  Mariam grinned at me, something unspoken between us, like an agreement that things were back to normal now that we were in my house. “I brought a meas­­-uring tape so I can make the pattern for your uniform,” she said, setting down her bag beside my bed. “Mom wouldn’t let me bring the sewing machine.” She rolled her eyes. “It would have been easier to sew it with you here.”

  “I can’t believe you can do all this,” I said, impressed.

  She shrugged. “Guess there’s some things even you don’t know about me.”

  I didn’t like the smugness of her words, but I let it go. I didn’t want to ruin the evening. Mariam didn’t waste any time. She whipped out the yellow measuring tape and wrapped it around me, taking note of my waist, hip, and chest measurements and then holding one end of it with her toe on the floor and reaching up to my waist. She wrote everything down on a piece of paper.

  “I think I’ll make your head covering first. That’s the most important.”

  “It will be so good not to have to worry about it coming undone all the time. It drives me crazy.”

  Mariam’s phone rang. She glanced at it lying on my bed. A photo of Carmina’s face popped up. “I should get that,” she said. There was a moment of awkwardness. She probably wanted me to give her privacy, but it was my room. I pretended to busy myself with the sketch of the uniform.

  “Hi,” she said into her phone. Carmina’s echoey voice came back. Mariam moved to the far corner of my room and turned to the wall, but I could get the gist of the conversation from Mariam’s responses. “Yeah, I’m still coming … I’m busy right now … No … Can I call you later?”

  Mariam hung up and dropped her phone on my bed. “Okay, let’s get to work,” she said, as if the conversation had never happened. She pulled out a roll of fabric. So it wasn’t clothes stuffed in her bag …

  “Now?”

  “Sure,” she shrugged. “Why not?”

  I didn’t have a reason, other than I thought she was ditching me to hang out with Carmina and wouldn’t want to start the project when she’d have to leave right away. I watched as she pulled out other things from her bag: sewing supplies and pattern envelopes. Inside the envelopes were pieces of tissue paper that had been folded and used many times. Pinholes dotted the edges. “I’m going to combine a few patterns to make the uniform. I’ll start with this one.” She showed me a knight’s costume her mom had sewn for Halloween. “See the helmet? It’ll work perfectly.” The close-fitting head covering would hang over my neck.

  She measured my head and pinned the pattern pieces she needed onto the fabric, being careful not to waste any. They fit snugly into one corner. “Okay, ready?” she asked, holding the scissors above the fabric. They slid open like the jaws of a shark.

  “Ready!” She snipped the fabric, cutting around the outside of the tissue paper and laid each piece to the side.

  “Okay, now, I’m going to unpin them and baste them together so we can see if this will work.” She took a deep breath. I’d never seen Mariam so focused on something.

  “Dinner!” Mom called from downstairs. Mariam was halfway through creating the prototype and neither of us wanted to leave. In the mirror, I could see the head covering taking shape. I’d had to remove my usual scarf and bonnet cap and my hair lay flat after wearing it all day.

  “Girls, dinner —” Mom opened the door to my room. She cut off her words as she took in the fabric and sewing supplies strewn around my room. “What’s going on?”

  “Mariam is making me a new basketball uniform,” I said proudly.

  “Yep,” Mariam mumbled. She had three pins stuck between her lips and didn’t look up as she spoke. “I made this, too,” she said lifting a shoulder to indicate her tunic. Flimsy, black fabric matched her hijab. She had a long-sleeved shirt underneath it. Mariam surveyed the work so far in the mirror. She’d been pinning the underside to make sure it stayed snug on my head. Right now, it looked like a torture device from the Middle Ages, with pins sticking out at funny angles and the band stretching across my forehead.

  “Hmmm,” Mom said thoughtfully. “That’s very industrious of you, Mariam. Dinner’s ready.” Mom gave us a thoughtful look, a hint of a smile on her lips, and went downstairs. Mariam looked at me in the mirror. Her green eyes shifted over my face.

  “Did you tell her about school? About my hijab?” she whispered.

  I couldn’t lie; she’d see it in my face. “Not on purpose. You were in one of the photos.”

  “Is she going to tell my parents?”

  “She said she wouldn’t. She thinks you should tell them.”

  Mariam dropped the pin in her hand and huffed. “As if.” She took a big breath. “They’d be furious. I’d get in so much trouble.”

  And the party she wanted to go to tonight? Had she thought about what her parents would do if they found out? “Is it really worth it?”

  She looked at me as if I’d never understand, like I was a five-year-old and she was trying to explain quantum mechanics to me. “I want to be both. Canadian and a Muslim. But my parents, they think it can only be one way.”

  “I’m both. I play basketball, hang out with other kids, and you and Amira. Why do we have to choose?”

  “You think you are, but are you? How much hanging out with other kids have you done lately? No one paid any attention to me until I took off my hijab. Now the boys look at me. They never did before.” She let her shoulders slump and dropped the fabric to her lap. “I want to go to a party with Carmina tonight. That’s why I asked if I could come over. My parents would never have said yes. I was going to sneak out and meet her and then come back to your house after. I was going to ask you to cover for me.” She looked at me with something between resentment and apology, as if she was angry she had to tell me and sorry about it at the same time.

  I raised my eyebrows, pretending to be shocked by the news. “You were?”

  “Yeah.” She sighed. “But now that I’m here … I don’t think I can go through with it.”

  I should have felt triumphant that she didn’t want to go to the party. But as I watched her glum face, I felt bad for her. She was caught between the life she had and the life she wanted, or thought she wanted. Her phone buzzed with a text. “Carmina,” she said, checking it. “She’s wondering what time I’ll get there.” She studied the half-done head covering and frowned, then turned back to her phone. Her fing
ers flew over the keys as she sent a response.

  “What did you say?” I asked. If she goes, I won’t be mad at her, I promised myself. At least she’d been honest about it.

  Her mouth twitched. “That something came up and I can’t make it.” Mariam put her phone down on my bed. “We should go eat.”

  My stomach twisted. Things had turned out how I wanted: Mariam was hanging out with me, just like she used to. But it was bittersweet, like I’d won a prize by cheating. I didn’t want my friend to be sad, feeling like she was missing out on something. And, I didn’t want to be the runner-up to what she really wanted to be doing.

  “You should go to the party.” Even though I’d been thinking them, hearing the words actually come out of my mouth surprised me. Mariam stared at me like she hadn’t heard right. “I’m serious. I’ll cover for you,” I added.

  Mariam drew her eyebrows together and then fell back on my bed and stared at the ceiling. “I’m so confused!”

  “Sometimes, when I’m at basketball, I want to take my hijab off so badly. It’s hot and I hate not being able to see because the scarf gets in my way. I don’t though. I just know it’s not me. I feel like if I take it off once, what will stop me from taking if off other days, too?”

  Mariam propped herself up on her elbows. “The first time I took off my head covering, I was so nervous. My hands were shaking. I thought I was going to be struck down by lightning. And then, it got easier. I liked being someone else at school.”

  “It’s not who you are.”

  “It’s not who I was.” Mariam swallowed. She fingered the fringe on the scarf around her neck. “I don’t know if I can go back to wearing it. My clothes, too. I like looking like the other girls.”