She looked like me when she was in her hijab. And Amira. Didn’t we count? “Are you worried Josh won’t like you if you look Muslim?”
Mariam turned away. She didn’t have to say anything, the answer was clear on her face.
“If he really liked you, it wouldn’t matter what you’re wearing.”
She gave a long sigh and shook her head. “I don’t really like him,” she whispered. “I just picked him to be like the other girls.”
“Oh, Mariam.” I sat beside her on the bed and tucked my hands between my knees.
“He likes you, anyway.”
“He doesn’t —” I started to argue but she silenced me with a look.
“He does. I’ve seen him watching you at practice. I’m a horrible friend,” she said quietly.
“No, you’re not.” I looked at the patterns on the floor and her sketch. She was confused and trying to figure out who she was, but she was far from a horrible friend.
Chapter 16
Mariam had been texting me all weekend with updates on the uniform. She’d worked on it all day Sunday and said it would be done for Monday morning. I’d have to try it on at school so she could see what areas needed to be fixed.
I was also anxious to find out if anything else had changed. Would she be wearing her hijab? Or would the pressure to look like other girls win out?
“Marhaba,” I greeted Amira as she walked past me in the hallway. Her backpack dangled from her arm like a dead thing. “Amira?” She ignored me and kept walking to her locker, a few down from mine. I followed her, confused. “What’s the matter?”
She kept her mouth in a firm line and stuffed her backpack inside her locker, letting it clang shut. “I want to go home.”
Homesickness. A reasonable emotion, I thought to myself. To be honest, I was surprised she hadn’t reacted this way earlier. She’d arrived during a cold snap. News reports lamented the frigid temperatures. Dad had let the car run for ten minutes to warm it up this morning before he drove me to school.
“I. Want. To. Go. Home!” This time the words came out angrier. She glared at me and I took a step back. The timid girl from last week had disappeared over the weekend.
“Amira —” I kept my voice hushed. I didn’t want her to draw attention to herself, or me. “This is your home now.”
“This is not my home,” she spat. “We had nowhere else to go!”
No one around us understood Arabic, but they’d know she was mad about something. I grabbed her elbow to lead her to the washroom, but she shook me off, wrenching her sleeve from my grip. “Don’t touch me. I don’t want to go anywhere with you.”
“Fine,” I whispered back at her. “I was just trying to help.”
“I don’t need your help!” Amira pushed past me and bolted for the classroom.
“What was that about?” Mariam asked. She had the bag with the uniform in her hands.
“She’s homesick,” I said shaking my head.
“I thought you said she’d lived in a refugee camp before coming here.”
“She did.”
Mariam snorted in disbelief. “How could she miss that?” Mariam had left Egypt, but not as a refugee either. Her family had chosen to leave after the Arab Spring movement began. With family spread out around the world, they’d have been willing to go anywhere, but Canada had accepted them first. Mariam used to Facetime her friends sometimes, which was tricky with the time change. Over the years, her connection to them had dwindled. I wondered what they would think if they knew she was de-jabbing every morning at school.
“Must be hard, coming with nothing,” I said. “It was sad about her friends, how she doesn’t know where they are. And her family is scattered all over. Some of them are still in Lebanon.” I felt a twinge of annoyance that I had to explain all this to her. “I think she needs some friends,” I gave Mariam a meaningful look. “Even if she doesn’t act like it.”
Mariam narrowed her eyes at me. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“If you feel so bad for her, you could talk to her or sit with her at lunch or something.”
“I do talk to her,” Mariam fired back.
“Not just hi, but the way I do —”
“Because you’re so perfect.” The seething tone in her voice was like ice water.
“I didn’t say I was perfect.”
“You don’t have to. I can see it when you look at me when I take off my scarf, like you’re better than me. You’re so judgmental!”
“I am not! But even if I am, at least I’m not two-faced. Coming to my house, hanging out with me, and then acting like this at school!”
Mariam glared at me, dropped the bag at my feet, and turned on her heel, stomping off without saying another word. Inside, I groaned. I’d said too much. I should have kept quiet. And just when things were getting better between us. Some Monday morning this was turning out to be. With an exasperated sigh, I picked up the bag and pulled out a corner of fabric. I didn’t have the heart to try on the uniform, not without Mariam. Instead, I put the bag into my locker and hoped the argument would blow over by lunchtime.
“Hey, Sadia!” Josh called out, grinning
“Hi.” I gave him a lacklustre greeting and watched him out of the corner of my eye as he walked to class. I sighed to myself, thinking about Amira and my argument with Mariam and how hard it would be to explain things about my family to someone like Josh.
Miss McKay took Amira out of the classroom to work on her English before I even sat down. I wished I could have gone with her, instead of dealing with Mariam’s icy silence. Once again, she sat beside me, bare-headed. I wondered if she’d intended to, or if our argument had pushed her to do it. “O Canada” hadn’t started yet, and I caught snippets of her conversation with Carmina as we waited for it to begin. “It was so fun! Daniel talked to me! We had, like, a real conversation! But guess what?” She looked over her shoulder toward the back of the class. “I spent most of the party with Riley!”
Mariam gaped. “Riley Penner?”
“He’s really funny once you get to know him. And super artistic. He showed me pictures of some of the things he’s drawn.”
Despite a bad start to the morning, I was happy for Carmina. Riley was a nice guy, and if liking him meant I never had to hear the name Daniel again, I was all for it.
“Josh was there.” Carmina singsonged the last bit, tempting Mariam.
“He was!” Mariam squealed, darting a quick look his way. Fake, I thought. Imposter. “Yeah! Everybody was there.” I watched as Mariam’s smile faded. Carmina’s words had hit a sore spot.
“Like I told you, it just didn’t work. I tried to get out —”
Part of me wanted to stand on my desk and shout, “LIAR!” at the top of my lungs. I sat fuming, clenching a pen in my hand so hard I thought I might break it. I had to say something, I couldn’t keep quiet any longer.
“Did you tell Carmina about the uniform?” I asked, leaning over toward them.
Mariam gave me a warning look, but I ignored it and kept talking.
“Mariam came over Saturday and then worked on it all weekend.”
“Oh,” Carmina said, surprised.
Mariam’s eyes flashed angrily at me. “Yeah, my parents made me go to Sadia’s.”
Carmina looked between us, confused by the glares we were shooting at each other.
I so badly wanted to tell Carmina that Mariam’s parents had had nothing to do with her decision to stay at my house and ditch the party. As I opened my mouth to say something, Amira walked in. Her eyes were puffy and red.
“Amira?” I asked, leaning over. “Are you okay?” I spoke quietly in Arabic and looked over at Mariam. The expression on her face shifted from anger to concern. Our argument fizzled out. “Amira?”
She didn’t answer me, so I left her alone. I didn’t know what
else to do to help her, or if help was even what she wanted.
At the end of class, I leaned toward Mariam. “I’m going to try on my uniform at today’s practice,” I told her quietly. It wasn’t an apology, but at least it told her I wasn’t holding a grudge.
I didn’t know if I’d get a reply. Part of me expected her to ignore me, but I wasn’t willing to walk away from three years of friendship.
I saw her glance at Amira. “I’ll be there,” she said.
When I got to the cafeteria for lunch, there was no space at Mariam and Carmina’s table. Of course, I grumbled to myself. I scanned the room and found Amira sitting apart from a group of older kids at a table by the door. “Hi!” I said and sat down beside her.
She looked surprised to see me, and shifted over so I could join her. “I’m sorry about this morning,” she mumbled.
“It’s okay. I remember what it was like. The culture shock part, anyway.”
She let out a long sigh. “Culture shock? Is that what this is?” She looked at me woefully. “My parents keep telling me to be grateful. And I am. It’s just —”
“It’s lonely,” I said.
She nodded quickly and blinked away some tears.
“Do you want to come to basketball practice with me today? Mr. Letner wouldn’t mind. You could watch or take shots. If you do come, you can see the uniform Mariam sewed for me. It’s hijab, but I can play in it. No more head scarf flying all over the place.” She gave a hesitant nod. It would have been hard to leave her by herself in the cafeteria and go to the gym.
“I can’t believe your parents allow you to play,” she said.
I shrugged. “They know how much I love it. Plus, the co-ed team only plays in one tournament. Hopefully, I’ll make the JV girls team.”
Mariam walked toward our table. I thought she’d ignore me, but I was wrong. “Can I sit here?” she asked in Arabic. Amira and I squished over to make room for her. “I was thinking …” She looked at Amira. “I could use some help managing the team.”
Amira looked up at her in surprise. “What could I do?”
Mariam shrugged. “We’ll think of something.” Amid all the chatter and chair scraping of the cafeteria, I met Mariam’s eyes and gave her a grateful smile.
“I do remember how hard it was when we moved here,” Mariam said to me under her breath. “I’m glad I don’t have to do it over again.”
“We were lucky. We had each other.” I thought about Mr. Letner’s photography assignment and how the perspective I’d had as a newcomer had shifted the longer I lived in Canada. Over time, Amira’s would to; she’d think of Canada as her home. Syria, her lost friends, and everything she’d gone through would dull into dim memories. But right now, their loss was sharp and painful, like walking across broken glass. I wished there was something I could do to help her through it.
I held my breath as I wiggled into the uniform in a stall in the girls’ change room. I put on the shirt first, long-sleeved and dark blue. The fabric was featherlight. The pants were slim but not tight and tapered at the ankles so they let me move comfortably. There were little mistakes in her sewing: fabric had been caught into the stitches or a hem was crooked, but from a distance, no one would be able to see that. Lastly, she put on the head covering. It felt comfortable, like a hood. The cap fit close to my head and she’d attached a looser piece of fabric under my chin so it draped like a scarf, but was secured on either side with snaps. I came out of the stall, walked past Amira and Mariam, and looked in the mirror. I liked what I saw: a girl ready to play basketball.
I spun past invisible guards and leaped across the change room to test its flexibility. I took a jump shot, raising my hands high in the air. I shook my head, trying to dislodge the head covering, but it stayed put.
“What do you think?” Mariam asked nervously. Amira stood beside her, a mixture of surprise and curiosity on her face.
I looked at Mariam with bright eyes. “It’s perfect!” I proclaimed. “Perfect!”
Mariam beamed at me. “It was so hard to get the neckline right. I ripped it out like five times.” She fingered the edges of the shirt. “There are some mistakes, but it was my first one. I think I could make it better if I —”
I cut her off. “Mariam, it’s perfect!”
She grinned. “Okay. Good.”
Practice was starting in a few minutes and the other girls on the team filtered into the change room. Each one of them stared at my new outfit, wide-eyed. They couldn’t believe Mariam had made it.
“Maybe you should make one for all of us,” Jillian teased. “It can be our team uniform.”
Mariam blushed, tucking her hair behind her ear, but I could tell she was pleased. The outfit was so comfortable, it reminded me of how I used to move when I was a kid. There was nothing hampering me. I felt like I could do a slam dunk.
“Wow. Mariam’s a really good friend,” Jillian said when Mariam and Amira had left the change room. “You’re lucky.”
I thought about all the ups and downs we’d had lately. Sewing the uniform must have taken Mariam hours. But she’d done it for me. As I ran my hands over the snug-fitting headpiece, I knew I wouldn’t miss an elbow flying toward my nose again. “Yeah, I am lucky,” I agreed.
When I came out of the change room, Mariam and Amira were sitting on the bench by the gym office. Mariam was explaining something to her in Arabic. I took a ball from the bin and jogged over to a hoop to take shots beside Allan. For a second, I got nervous. What if he made fun of it? I swallowed back my nerves and aimed at the hoop. He did a double take at what I was wearing. “You look like a basketball ninja,” he said quietly.
I gave a laugh of surprise. “Thanks.” I think. My shot bounced off the backboard and went in.
I turned to the gym bench. Mariam hadn’t heard Allan’s comment, but I gave her a thumbs-up. She gave me an excited grin. There was a row of folded jerseys on the bench beside her. “If you want your jersey, come on over,” she called to the team. She had a paper with our names and jersey numbers. Amira was in charge of making sure each person got the right jersey. “Here’s number seven,” Mariam said and handed me my jersey. She’d sewn a band across the bottom so it was longer than the others and hit mid-thigh.
I held up Kyle Lowry’s number.
“Put it on. I want to see how the whole thing looks together,” Mariam said to me.
Just as I slipped it over my head, Mr. Letner walked out of the gym office, chewing a half-eaten apple. “Did you make that?” he asked Mariam. He looked stunned.
“I never thought —” he broke off, looking between the two of us.
“Anyone bring their camera today?” Mr. Letner asked. “Mariam?”
She shook her head. “I left it at home.”
“Mine’s in my locker,” I offered.
“Go grab it,” Mr. Letner said. “We’ll start practice when you get back.” I dashed away, enjoying the sensation of running in my new uniform.
When I got back, I handed Mr. Letner my camera, but he was still eating his apple. He nodded at Josh. “You take the photo, Josh. I want both girls in it.”
“Wait!” Mariam said. “I’ll be right back.” She darted into the change room. To fix your hair? I wondered.
When Mariam came back, she was in hijab; her shirt was long and dark denim and she had a grey head scarf hanging loose, but made with the same fabric as my uniform. “I’m in team colours,” she said. “Okay, now I’m ready!” She put her arm around my shoulders and the other hand on her hip. I held a basketball against my side and tilted my head toward her. The two of us grinned at Josh, who held the camera up to his face. “Say, one, two, three, Thunder!”
“One, two, three, Thunder!” we repeated and he took the photo, bringing the camera around to show us the shot on the viewing screen. I liked what I saw. The two of us, side by side, like a team.
&nbs
p; “Now that is a passion project!” Mr. Letner beamed at Mariam. “You solved a problem using creativity and talent. I’m really proud of you.”
Mariam blushed at his compliments.
“Want me to take some action shots of you?” Josh asked me.
Mariam moved to stand by his side as he held up the camera. I dribbled the ball upcourt and leaped. The ball arced and went down in the basket. It was as close to a slam dunk as I could get.
Chapter 17
Amira’s lips moved as she silently read the word Mr. Letner had written on the board. After being at school for only a few weeks, she was already getting better at reading English, even if she couldn’t understand what all the words meant.
I translated it into Arabic for her. “It’s another photography term.” But there was another reason he had picked Focus. The tournament was this weekend, and between our photographs going up at the gallery soon and the passion projects, we’d all had a lot going on.
It was Allan’s turn to do the Friday announcements from the office. I had a feeling Mrs. Mooney was leaning over his shoulder, making sure he followed the script. Once “O Canada” finished, his voice boomed out and we cringed at the volume.
After he’d gotten through the usual announcements of daily activities, including a reminder that Monday was a day off — for the kids anyway, because the teachers had meetings — he put on his best sports announcer voice and said, “And here’s a special announcement from Mariam Hassanin, team manager for the JV All-City Tournament basketball team.”
I’d thought she was in the washroom taking off her hijab and was surprised to hear her voice come through the speakers. “The co-ed tournament is this weekend at the Riverview Sportsplex. The JV team’s first game is at nine o’clock. Come out to cheer on the Thunder!” I’d never heard Mariam on the announcements before. Her voice sounded soft and whispery.
“That’s tomorrow, people!” Allan said, still struggling with volume. He must have been holding the microphone right up to his lips, like a rapper, because his voice was thick with static. “Come out to cheer us on. Or else!”
Sadia Page 10
