by Farhana Zia
“Says who?” I growled at him. “Just butt out of my business.”
“I’d like to meet her,” Mom said. “How’s she getting on at school? Is she making friends?”
“I guess. Kids talk about her food, though, and they make fun of her hijab. Actually, I don’t blame them. It’s pretty embarrassing.”
“Embarrassing for whom?” Mom asked. “Her, or you?”
“Why doesn’t she just bring something else?” I said. “Like tuna fish, for instance.”
“Tuna is smelly,” Zayd said.
“Shut up!” I cried. “This conversation has nothing to do with you!”
“You should invite her over,” Mom said. “I’m sure she’d appreciate that.”
“And invite little Veenee too,” Badi Amma added. “Come, come. Time for lessons.” My great-grandmother heaved herself out of her armchair and scuffed toward the door. She wore fancy hotel slippers that Baba had brought her from one of his business trips. They were one size too large, but she loved them because they were a gift from her favorite grandchild.
“Couldn’t we please skip Urdu today?” I asked.
My great-grandmother turned and scowled at me. “Come quickly!” she commanded. “Juldi!”
Last year Badi Amma had insisted that Zayd and I study Urdu with her every day for an hour. We had protested loudly. It had taken a lot of haggling but we’d finally got her to agree to forty minutes three days a week. We tried to get her to cut it down further but she didn’t budge an inch even when I reminded her about after-school math and all the homework I had to do.
“Do I have to, Mom?” Zayd asked. “Urdu’s hard and it’s too squiggly to write!”
“When Badi Amma calls, you say, ‘Here I come, Badi Amma!’“ Mom told him. “And you better run, mister!” She glared at me. “That goes for you too!”
“Here I come, Badi Amma!” Zayd shouted. I followed him into our great-grandmother’s room for another lesson on the thirty-two letters in the Urdu alphabet and how to write from right to left without leaving any gaps.
Spilled Lunch
It doesn’t make any sense,” Winnie said. “Why is it an independent study project if Mrs. Doyle allows us to work with partners?”
“Maybe because we can do our parts independently and bring them together?” Actually, I thought it was a pretty good idea. Working with Winnie would make it a whole lot easier.
Only three hands went up when Mrs. Doyle asked if we had started working on the project: Juliana’s, Nicole’s, and Morgan’s. Winnie and I looked at each other and shook our heads. Neither of us had made any headway yet.
As we left the classroom, I overheard Juliana talking with Nicole and Morgan about their projects. I walked closer to them, hoping to get some ideas for mine and Winnie’s.
Juliana whirled around. “Excuse me,” she demanded. “Are you trying to steal our plans?”
“I’m not stealing anything,” I said. “I’m just walking to lunch.”
“Yeah, right! Why would you walk so close to us if you weren’t trying to eavesdrop?” She rolled her eyes. I heard the girls giggle as they hurried on down the hall.
Winnie caught up with me. “What are they laughing about now?” she asked.
“Juliana thought I was trying to steal their fabulous ideas. As if our project won’t be just as good as theirs.”
“I don’t know why you worry so much about what she says. I’m sure we’ll come up with something even better. I know—let’s do something about lefties and righties! Adam’s a lefty and I’m a righty. I could collect a lot of data at home and we could do a comparison and submit surveys and graphs.”
“I don’t know if that’s such a great idea,” I said.
“Why not? The project is about differences. Left-handed people are different. I can tell you that from experience— my brother’s a lefty and he’s so different, he borders on being weird!”
“I don’t know, Winnie,” I said. “It’ll end up being only about you and Adam because everyone in my family is right-handed. Anyway, you’d be doing all the work.”
The closer we got to the cafeteria, the more crowded the halls got.
“I really hope we don’t have to wait forever to get lunch,” I said. “I’m famished.”
As I turned the corner I slammed into Austin. The impact knocked his lunch bag to the floor and his apple rolled away.
“What the …?” He turned around. “Hey, weirdo, are you trying to kill me?”
“I’m sorry,” I apologized. “It was an accident.”
I could hear people laughing as he dropped to his knees, trying to rescue his apple. “I’ll get you for this,” he snarled. “Just you wait!”
“Come on,” said Winnie, pulling me away. “He knows you didn’t mean to run into him.” We got into the lunch line and inched forward, putting food on our trays. Winnie headed to our table while I was still digging in my pockets for my lunch money. “Wait up!” I cried, but she was already gone. I glanced around the cafeteria.
Marwa was sitting by herself again.
“Eww … gross!” someone whispered.
“Nice headgear!” someone else said.
“Aliya?” Marwa called as I walked by her table. “Wait a sec.”
“What’s up?” I asked, slowing down a little.
“Well, I …”
I felt conspicuous there in the aisle; I didn’t want Austin to spot me. “Um, Winnie’s saving a seat for me.”
“Okay,” she said. “I just wanted to tell you that I talked to him just now.”
I stopped. “Talked to whom?”
“I told Austin I saw the whole thing,” she said. “I told him it was an accident and you didn’t mean to knock his lunch down.”
I was astonished. “When?”
Marwa shrugged. “While you were in line.”
“You didn’t have to do that!”
“I just thought … well … it was an accident.”
“You should have kept out of it,” I said. What if Austin was even madder now?
“I was trying to be helpful.” She looked into her lunch box. “You seemed pretty upset.”
“It’s all right,” I said. “I wasn’t that upset.”
Marwa shrugged again. “At our old school, they taught us that it’s wrong for a bystander not to speak up. I was trying to stand by you.”
“Thanks,” I said, walking away. “But I could have handled it myself.”
Monday, October 28
4:40 p.m.
Dear Allah,
What’s with M? She won’t leave me alone! I don’t need her help. I’ve been here a lot longer than she has and I can handle things just fine, thank you very much! Who does she think she is, butting into my business?
Yours sincerely,
A
PS I bumped into Austin and his apple rolled away and everyone laughed when he chased it because it was so funny, except he didn’t think so and now I think he is going to make my life really miserable.
PPS And Juliana thinks she’s so smart! I can’t wait to wave my project in her face. I will, just as soon as I know what it is!
When Mom came home, I told her about Austin’s apple.
“What’s wrong with that boy?” she said angrily. “I’ll talk to Mrs. Holmes about it first thing tomorrow.”
“Oh, Mom, please don’t,” I begged. “It won’t do any good. Besides, if he finds out, it’ll get worse. I’m just going to stay out of his way.”
“You shouldn’t have to do that,” Mom said. “Mrs. Holmes will put a stop to his bullying.”
“It’s not that easy, Mom. Let’s just forget the whole thing.”
Hoping to distract her, I showed Mom my latest letter. She read it more carefully this time.
“I’m writing about what bothers me the most,” I explained.
“I can see that, honey,” she said.
“Well?”
“Well … you’re still missing the point,” she began.
&nbs
p; “What do you mean?” I cried. “Aren’t I doing a better job? Amma and Badi Amma think I am.”
“At the risk of sounding harsh, your letter reads like a lament from a hole,” she said.
“I don’t understand. You keep talking about a hole. What hole? What lament?”
“Don’t you see?” she asked. “There’s still a fair amount of negativity here and very little that’s upbeat and positive. It would be nice to see some change happening … some forward steps.”
“I tried to vary my beginnings,” I pointed out.
“I’m not talking about that kind of change,” Mom sighed. “Your writing skills are fine. I just think your project is supposed to reflect some sort of personal growth.”
“Change! Growth! New! Improved!” I yelled. “I don’t get it! What do people want from me anyway?”
“To know that you are clear about the point of the assignment, for one thing,” Mom said.
“Mom, it’s not a science project with hypotheses and data analysis and conclusions and controls and variables and all that. I know the point. The point is to talk to Allah, and that’s what I’m doing.”
“There has to be more than just talk.” Mom ruffled my hair. “That’s all I am saying.”
And even though she said it kindly, I couldn’t help wondering. Were my letters really no good? Was I on a completely wrong track?
I took the notebook back to my room, tossed it in my desk drawer, and banged it shut.
Baba and Mom
Only three days remained until the start of Ramadan. I’d packed two sandwiches in my Sunday school bag; I guess I hoped my body could store up fuel to help me get through the times with no food.
Sehr unwrapped her sandwich and took a big bite. “Are you fasting on school days or are you going to chicken out again like last year?”
I wanted to tell her to mind her own business. Instead I repeated what Amma always told me. “‘Allah gives full credit for our good intentions.’ Don’t you know that?”
“But you’re a whole year older now. Don’t you even want to give it a try?” Sehr turned to Nafees. “Don’t you think I am right?”
“Oh, leave me alone,” Nafees growled. Usually she was eager to give her opinion but today she didn’t have much to say. She’d spent most of Religion 2, Arabic, and Quranic Reading doodling in her notebook.
Amal nudged Nafees with her elbow. “What’s the matter with you?”
“Go ahead, Nafees,” I said. “You can tell me what you think. I can take it.”
Nafees turned on us. “Can’t a person have a private moment without being bombarded with stupid questions?”
Amal, Sehr, and I looked at each other. Something was definitely wrong.
“Sorry,” Amal said.
“What’s going on?” Sehr looked concerned.
“I can’t believe my stupid parents,” Nafees muttered.
We waited for her to go on. By now we were used to her occasional rants, like a volcano erupting from time to time.
“They found out about Marc.” Nafees slapped her lunch box closed. “And now they’re being total jerks about it!”
Amal gasped. “How did they find out?”
“It was my idiot sister eavesdropping again. And thanks to her, I’m grounded for life! I hate her and I hate them! I hate them all and I hate my life!”
I felt sorry for Nafees. This time, she had a good reason for her dramatic outburst. If I was her and Marc was Josh and Mom and Baba had put their foot down about him, I’d be hopping mad too.
That evening, Baba returned from Detroit and we had dinner together like a proper family. Zayd and I never got used to our father being away so much. We always looked forward to his return—and not just because he brought us back nice things. Badi Amma loved the samples he brought her from the hotels—especially the eye masks. She also had an excellent collection of monogrammed slippers and little tubes of toothpaste, but she let Amma keep the sewing kits because she couldn’t see well enough to mend our clothes anymore.
Baba filled his plate with spiced spinach and lamb curry. Amma had cooked his favorite foods to welcome him home. “I almost missed my return flight.” He broke off a piece of flat bread and scooped up curried lentils as we waited patiently for the rest of his story. “They put my suitcase through the special X-ray machine. This was before I got to the security line, mind you.”
“Why’d they do that, Baba?” Zayd asked.
I turned on my brother. “Don’t you know anything?”
Mom passed Baba more roti. “Might it have anything to do with your Muslim name?”
“I waited for better than fifty minutes in that darn security line,” he continued, ignoring Mom’s question. “They puffed air at me and pulled me aside at the gate. They called it a random check.”
“Yeah, right!” Mom snorted.
“It is getting pretty tiresome,” Baba conceded.
“The surveillance … the Patriot Act,” Mom said. “It makes me nervous, all of it.”
“We are law-abiding,” my father said. “You have nothing to worry about.”
“That may be true, but in some ways, it’s the kooks on the street I fear the most,” Mom said with a sigh.
“Like the woman who screamed at us?” Zayd asked.
“What woman?” Baba asked.
I told him about what had happened on the way to the Islamic Center.
“I know it was upsetting. But it’s best not to take it too personally.” Baba was trying to smooth everything over like he always did.
“Hello?” Mom scowled at him. “Get your head out of the clouds and take a peek at the real world, please?”
But Baba only smiled.
“I bet some kid’s going to cause trouble about Marwa’s hijab,” I said. “I don’t understand why she has to wear it to school.”
“It would be a big shame if her hijab caused trouble,” Mom said.
“Don’t worry,” Baba said, looking straight at me. “Marwa’s hijab will not get you in trouble.”
Mom shook her head slowly. “I don’t know anymore,” she said. “It’s sure unnerving to be singled out.”
“Your friend seems like a gutsy little girl,” Baba said to me.
“Marwa’s not exactly a friend,” I muttered.
“Oh?”
I changed the subject. “Guess what, everyone? I’ve made a decision. I’m going to fast during Ramadan this year.”
“On school days?” Baba and Mom asked together.
I nodded.
“But, Meri Jaan, why not wait until the weekend?” Amma asked.
“If younger kids can do it, then so can I.” Now that I’d decided to fast, I didn’t want to be talked out of it.
Mom turned to Baba. “I should think she needs to stay sharp for math, right?”
“Yes, yes,” Badi Amma interrupted. “She needs to get good at her numbers. Aliya, nine fourteens are?”
“Quit it, Badi Amma,” I cried. “I’m not practicing math now.” I looked over at my father. “I want to fast on Wednesday. May I?”
“Go ahead, kiddo,” he said. “Give it a shot.”
But the day before Ramadan, I came home from school with the sniffles.
“I don’t like the sound of that cough either,” Amma said, putting her hand on my forehead. “Maybe you should stay home tomorrow.”
“I want to stay home,” Zayd cried.
“I don’t know, Amma.” I sneezed a couple of times. “I’ll let you know how I’m feeling.”
“I’m making roti and egg curry for suhur,” she told me. “That will keep you nice and full for your first day of fasting.”
“Eat, eat,” Badi Amma insisted. “Big day tomorrow.”
“Ah-choo!” I sneezed.
Sniffles
Mom came into my room very, very early the first day of Ramadan. “Wake up,” she said in a cheery voice. “It’s your first suhur.”
“What time is it?” My head felt heavy and the light hurt my eyes.
“It’s almost 4:15. You can eat your suhur and catch a few more winks later if you like. Amma’s waiting downstairs with a nice big early breakfast. Hurry up and do your ablutions.”
“Mom, I don’t feel good.” I sneezed. “I don’t think I can do it today. I’ll fast tomorrow.”
“You’re the one who was clamoring to start right away. You made such a commotion about it the other day!”
“I’m just not used to waking up this early. I’ll do it tomorrow.”
“Aliya!”
“I mean it, Mom. I’ll fast tomorrow, I promise. Please let me go back to sleep?”
The bus slowed for Carly’s stop and I bit into the breakfast bar Amma had thrust into my hand as I left. After Mom granted her permission, I had pulled the warm covers over my head and closed my eyes. I’d slept right through my alarm.
I missed suhur, I overslept, and now I was munching on a breakfast bar. Ramadan wasn’t off to a great start.
“Aren’t you supposed to be fasting?” Winnie asked.
“I didn’t make it. I’ll do it tomorrow.”
“Oh.” She sounded disappointed.
“I’ve got a really bad cold, okay? And when a person’s sick, they’re excused from fasting.” I sneezed into a tissue. “But I’m fasting just as soon as I shake this off.”
Carly sat down across the aisle from us. “I’ve got the best news!” she chirped. “Wait till you hear what it is!”
I looked out the window and acted as though I didn’t hear her.
“It turns out Ellen can’t come to my party!” she went on.
Whoop-de-doo. I still wasn’t ready to pretend that everything was okay.
“So you can come after all! That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”
I whirled around to face her. “First you didn’t want me to come, but now suddenly you do?”
“Please, pretty please? Say, yes? You are my friend. I swear.”
“I don’t know …”
“I really, really, really want you to come. We’re going to Le Tropez for manicures. Then we’ll get pizza. It’ll be a lot of fun.”
“I’ll check with Mom,” I said. “It’s Ramadan, but she might let me come.” It wasn’t exactly a great feeling to be an afterthought, but maybe it was better than not being invited at all.
