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“Okay, just tell me one reason why you don’t want to do this.” Eva said as she and other girls entered the Bakkoush’s household.
“Why?” Noora repeated. “Because it’s stupid? Is it enough of a reason?” she asked holding her shoes in her hands.
“No, it’s not. And besides, it’s not stupid.” Eva insisted.
“I actually agree with Noora, I don’t really like this idea.” Vilde said while hanging her coat on the hook.
“Seriously?” Eva asked surprised. “I thought you would have my back on this, Vilde. After all you were the one who wanted to be a Russ in the first place.”
“Yeah, but not at all cost. Not like that and not now” Vilde frowned.
Meanwhile Sana and Chris were standing in the hallway, amusedly watching the girls banter. They were fighting over this since yesterday and frankly it didn’t look as though they’re going to stop any time soon.
“Are you done?” Sana asked when they finally shut their mouth for a second. They looked at her and Chris, and then at each other, and finally nodded. “Good. Come on then, let’s get something to eat.”
The girls silently followed Sana to the kitchen, only to bump into her when she suddenly froze. Muttering silent “ouch”, the girls followed Sana’s look to find a familiar figure in her kitchen.
“Jamilla!” Sana exclaimed. “What are you doing here?”
“Hey there” Jamilla smiled at them, closing the fridge and putting some vegetables on the counter. “Your mum had some errands to run so I volunteered to babysit you and Elias.” she smirked and walked towards Sana to hug her.
“Babysit me?” Sana asked surprised. “I mean I get babysitting Elias, but me?”
“Ask your mother, not me. I’m just working here.” Jamilla laughed and said ‘hello’ to other girls. “So, are you hungry? A friend of mine gave me a recipe for risotto and I was thinking about trying to make it.”
“Yes, please.” Chris said a little bit too quickly and all the girls burst into laughter.
“Someone called the sanitary inspection to come and check the school’s cafeteria.” Noora explained.
“We managed to get to the nearest café and buy some sandwiches during the lunch break but that’s all we’ve eaten all day.” Eva added.
“So yes, please.” Chris repeated and smiled at Jamilla who still had her arm wrapped around Sana.
“Okay, so we definitely need to do something about that.” Jamilla shook her head. “Can you help with the vegetables?”
“Yeah, of course!” Noora said excitedly. Girls knew how much she loves cooking. Contrary to Sana who wasn’t really that eager to help in the kitchen.
The girls sat around the table, equipped with knives, peelers, cutting boards and vegetables, while Jamilla took care of chicken, rice and stock.
“I still don’t understand why you’re so against taking part in it.” Eva said, once again bringing the hot topic to the table.
“Ugh, Eva. We’ve talked about this already.” Noora replied, clearly bored of having to explain it again.
“I know, but I just don’t get it why you think it’s stupid.” she insisted.
“Because it is?” Noora replied.
“No, it’s not. Only you think it is. Come on, Chris, back me up on this.”
“Yo, you know that I’m all in. It’ll be fun.”
“Vilde?” Eva asked and Vilde looked at her. Her eyes were wet from tears. “Wait, Vilde, are you crying?” she asked and all the girls looked at her concerned.
“What? No, it’s because of the onion.” she laughed and passed the chopped onions to Jamilla. “And I already said it earlier.” she continued as soon as he sat back on the chair. “I agree with Noora on this.”
“Ugh, come on girls! We’ve got to do this!”
“No, we don’t” Noora smiled at threw a bit of the celery stick at Eva.
“It’s a tie now.” Vilde noted. “And since we live in a democratic country, the best way to stop this discussion is to vote.”
“Fine.” Eva agreed. “All those who want to do Russeknuter raise your hands.” Eva and Chris both raised their hands. “And all those who don’t want to do Russeknuter raise your hands.” This time Vilde and Noora raised their hands.
“Sana?” Noora threw another celery stick at Sana who was currently peeling (or more like trying to peel) a carrot.
“You have to pick a side.” Vilde said once Sana looked at them from the carrot.
“Nei, Vilde, I don’t.” Sana smiled.
“Yes, you do.” Eva insisted.
“Nope. I abstain from voting.” she laughed and took another carrot to peel from the pile.
“Sana, come on! Now we’re at the starting point again.” Eva frowned.
“Are you seriously fighting about Russeknuter?” Jamilla snorted. The girls looked at her, carefully stirring rice with a spoon and adding another portion of the stock.
“I’m not.” Sana said. “They are. Since yesterday.”
“Ehh, girls, trust me. You have better things to worry about than knots. How’s it going with those vegetables?” she asked smiling at them and the girls passed them to her.
“So Jamilla… You were on the russebus, right? How was it?” Noora asked leaning on the counter.
“It was fun.” Jamilla answered smiling at the memory of her time in Nissen. “My bus actually managed to win more knots than the bus of those stupid boys from my year. Which definitely makes the whole russ thing fun when I think about it.”
“Wait. You were doing the dare for the knots?” Sana asked surprised.
“No need to sound so surprised, habibti.” Jamilla laughed. “We weren’t doing any immoral stuff, of course. For example, we got a knot for being sober for the entire Russ time. Or we got challenged to wear bread for shoes for a week.” they all burst out with laughter when they heard this.
“And did you do this?” Chris asked amused.
“No, we didn’t. I think some other group did it after all. But we declined. There are so many people who have nothing to eat that it didn’t seem fair for us to waste food like this for ‘fun’.” she emphasized the last one with quotation marks. “Instead we made our bus a safe place. We had plenty of water and fruits and blankets so basically we were rescuing all those who drunk too much and realized that partying like that is not as liberating as they thought it is.”
“Wow. That’s a cool idea.” Eva admitted.
“You never told me about this.” Sana noted.
“Well, you never asked.” Jamilla smirked and continued to stir the risotto.
They were talking and laughing over the empty plates, when someone opened the front door and out of the sudden the whole house was filled with loud voices of Elias and his friends.
“Guys, guys, wait.” they heard Mikael’s voice from the hallway. “What is it?”
“Fy faen, it smells so good.” Mutta sighed.
“Wait, I’ll ask my mum if we can get some.” Elias said and soon started to walk to the kitchen shouting “Mum! Mum, did you left some of that delicious food for us?”
“Unfortunately not, habibti.” Jamilla said with a straight face as soon as Elias and the rest of the boys entered the kitchen, while the girls burst out with laughter. “But there’s still some stock left on the stove so I guess you can have it.”
“Jamilla? What are you doing here?” Elias asked surprised.
“What am I doing here? Well, your mother asked me to babysit you.” she replied and Adam and Mikael laughed, while Mutta and Yousef seemed to only focus their attention on Chris and Sana from the moment they entered the room. “Oh look at them, they’re so unbelievably cute.” Jamilla smiled and rested her face on her hand while looking at Sana and Yousef.
“Yes, they are.” Noora crinkled her nose and smiled at them. As soon as Sana and Yousef noticed that suddenly they are in the center of attention, they looked away (clearly embarrassed that they were exposed like this) and blushed.
“Well, these two are not that bad either.” Eva nudged Chris with elbow and the girl giggled while Mutta just looked at them dumbstruck with a goofy smile.
“Fy faen, can you lovebirds just get a room or something or at least give us something to eat and drink before you disappear in the void of each other’s stares, okay?” Adam said and sat down heavily next to Vilde.
“Well, you parasites treat our kitchen as some sort of a free dining room so why don’t you for once either buy something to eat or prepare something for all of us?” Sana asked with her typical death stare and a little smirk visible on her face.
“Wow, Sana. You’re not going to let your boyfriend starve to death, are you?” Mikael asked offended.
“First of all, I’m pretty sure that he can cook so if he’s hungry he can prepare something for himself. I wish I could say the same about the rest of you but we all know the truth. And secondly, humans can survive a whole month without eating anything before they die from starvation so ask me this question in 29 days.” she replied. She could see with a corner of her eye that Yousef was trying really hard to hold back laughter.
“Man, she’s a monster.” Adam said to Yousef. “Run while you still can.”
“So you said that there’s stock left?” Yousef asked Jamilla, completely ignoring Adam’s comment.
“Yep. On the stove.”
“Do you have any noodles?” he asked Elias.
“Why are you asking me, man? Do I look like someone who would know?” he asked back.
“Certainly not.” Sana interjected.
“Oh like you’re such a great cook yourself, aren’t you Sana?” Yousef winked at her.
“Okay, that’s not cool.” she said offended. “You should be on my side. I actually did plenty of things here today. You can ask girls who peeled all the carrots for the risotto if you don’t believe me.”
“Oh yes, Sana’s help was invaluable.” Jamilla laughed wrapping her arm around Sana and placing a soft kiss on her forehead.
“No okay, know you’re all just making fun of me.” Sana cringed. “Come on, girls, we’ve got work to do.” she stood up, took her things and started to walk to the kitchen’s door.
“Oi, Sana, come on. We are joking you know that.” Adam said.
“Yes. I know.” she said. “But I’d still like to be excluded from this narrative, thank you very much.” she walked out of the kitchen and Chris and Eva followed her, while Vilde and Noora stayed in the kitchen and sat closer to Jamilla.
“Okay, listen.” Noora whispered. “We’re making a surprise birthday party for Sana. The day before Christmas Eve, my place.”
“You’re coming, right?” Vilde asked.
“Yes, of course!” Jamilla said excitingly. “Do you need me to help you with anything or ...”
“Noora, Vilde, are you coming or what?!” Sana shouted from her room, interrupting Jamilla’s question.
“Yes, we’re coming!” Noora shouted back to Sana and got up on her feet. “I’ll send you all the details and add you to the groupchat later, okay?” she whispered to Jamilla who nodded and smiled. They couldn’t wait for it.
***
“Remind me again why I agreed to go ice-skating with you.” Sana inquired, putting the skates on her feet.
“Because it’s fun!” Vilde exclaimed.
“And because you wanted to spend some time with us.” Noora winked at her. “And we all know that spending time together is always a good idea.”
“What’s taking you so long?” Chris inquired from the ice rink. She and Eva have already started skating.
“Ask Sana!” Noora shouted back and smiled at her.
“Sana, come on!” Eva walked out of the rink, grabbed Sana’s hands and helped her get up from the bench. “Let’s go!”
Sana, Eva and Noora joined Chris on the ice, laughing at Noora who fell over as soon as she got on the ice.
“Noora, are you alright?” Eva skated to her and helped her get back on her feet.
“I’m fine, I’m fine!” she assured them and laughed.
“Where’s Vilde?” Chris asked and all of them started to look around, only to find out that Vilde is still sitting on the bench.
“Vilde! Come on! Why are you still there?” Eva asked and walked towards her.
“I… I haven’t told you that earlier, but I kind of… don’t know how to skate?” she said quietly.
“Oh, Vilde.” Eva said softly and hugged her friend. “Come on, I’ll teach you everything. We’ll take these fun skating penguins! I’m the master of ice skating, don’t you know?” she winked at her, making Vilde laugh.
After two hours on the ice rink – quite literally, as all of them (except Eva) ended up on ice so many times – Noora invited the girls to the kollektivet for a hot chocolate.
“Ouch!” Vilde exclaimed. “I don’t know how I’ll get of the bed tomorrow, everything hurts me.”
“Ugh, same”. Chris nodded.
“Oh, don’t worry, you’ll be fine.” Eva said, wrapping her arms around Chris and Vilde.
“Says someone who hasn’t fallen over even once?” Noora asked amused.
“What can I say? I told you I’m a great skater.” Eva said proudly.
“I’m never going skating with you again.” Sana said.
“What? Why?” Eva inquired offended.
“It’s because Sana doesn’t like when someone’s better at something than her.” Noora said before Sana even opened her mouth.
“Well… yeah. True. That’s the reason, I guess.” Sana giggled as Noora opened the door to her flat.
It was unusually dark and quiet inside and it seemed as though no one was there. Sana saw the disturbed look on Noora’s face and could sense that something’s going on. Noora started to walk towards the living room, girls right behind her. When she turned on the light, suddenly the people shouting “SURPRISE” jumped out from behind the couch and doors of Linn’s and Eskild’s bedrooms. They all started singing “Happy Birthday” and only then Sana noticed the “Happy Birthday Sanasol” sign pinned to the ceiling.
“Aah, I can’t believe you’re here!” Sana said hugging Jamilla tightly.
“Of course, how could I miss this? Anyway, this is from me and your brother.” she said and gave Sana a beautifully wrapped present. When Sana opened it, she was speechles. Inside was a gorgeous red hijab with star pins.
“This is so beautiful, Jamilla!” Sana exclaimed and hugged her again. “Thank you so much!”
“I had a feeling this colour will suit you.” Jamilla winked at her.
And she was right. Sana could already imagine what she will wear on the first day of school after New Year. Black jeans, black sweater, black shoes. Red hijab and red lipstick. She is going to look totally badass. For the last couple of months she changed her style completely, she started to wear colourful outfits again, to the surprise of some people (for example her mum). But every now and then she loved getting back in her old black clothes. She used to use them as her shield, they were her defense against everything and everyone, but now whenever she wore all black she just felt so good, so badass, so bitchin’. She put the gift from Jamilla and Karim on the pile of other gifts – custom-made bracelet with a little gold sun tag with “Happy 18th birthday, Sanasol! We love you!” she got from girls, four volume set of Wreck This Journal from Elias, Adam, Mikael and Mutta (she wasn’t sure if they thought it’s a cool gift or they wanted to annoy her as she specifically told them once that she doesn’t see the point in paying lots of money to buy something as ridiculous as this), Christmas sweater with squirrels from Eskild and Linn (“Everyone needs at least one ugly Christmas sweater in their closet.” he said. Not that it matter she’s a Muslim and doesn’t celebrate Christmas at all), the star mug with tea bags set from Isak and Even. But she still hasn’t received a present from one person. She looked around the room, trying to find him. The girls and Eskild and Linn were decorating a Christmas tree while singing some songs, the balloon boys were recording something on their phones, Even and Isak were making out on the couch, and Jamilla was talking on the phone. But the person she was trying to find wasn’t anywhere to be seen. Sana started to walk towards the kitchen (‘if he is anywhere, that’s probably the place’ she thought), but then she saw with the corner of her eye the figure standing in the hallway. He was leaning against the wall under the mistletoes. She walked towards him and stood on the opposite side of the room. She could see him smile as soon as she approached him, but he was still looking at his feet instead of her.
“So…” she began and he finally dared to look at her. “I still haven’t got one present.”
“Is that so?” he asked grinning at her.
“Yes.” she nodded. “Anyway, why are you here and not there with the boys?” she asked.
“Because you were there…”
“Okay…” she was really confused at his reply.
“…and you look so beautiful today that I began to worry that I might die from the amount of cuteness.” he finished and blushed while Sana burst out with laughter.
Indeed, she was looking exceptionally beautiful today – black skinny jeans, beige oversized sweater and hijab of the same colour. As soon as she put on these clothes in the morning she knew this outfit was on point.
“What’s up with that mistletoe by the way?” Yousef asked just as S Club 7’s “Perfect Christmas” started playing.
Sana looked at the ceiling and giggled. She was here when Eskild hanged them up. He said that he’s not going to take the risk of someone passing right next to him and not kissing him (“We all deserve love during Christmas”, she recalled him saying), so instead of just one mistletoe he attached around seven of them to the ceiling so that they were in one line and no one could go inside without walking under them. Now Sana and Yousef were standing on their two ends.
“Eskild.” Sana said thinking it would be a sufficient explanation and indeed it was. “So… what about my gift?” she smiled at him.
“Fy faen, Sana, you’re so impatient! You’re aware of that, aren’t you? You can’t just wait five minutes, can you?” he laughed.
“Nope. You know that. And you love that in me.” she said, showing off her dimples.
“Yeah, I do.” he blushed, took his backpack from the ground and get the present out of it. He walked closer to her so that now they were standing just centimeters away from each other. “Happy birthday, Sana.”
She hesitantly peered into the bag and inside was a box tied with ribbon.
“Really?” she asked annoyed.
“If you thought you could get your present so easily, you were wrong.” he grinned at her and she just rolled her eyes.
She untied the ribbon and lifted the lid. When she saw what’s inside she just started laughing.
“Have you become his fan or what?” Sana asked amused.
“Nei. I just thought it would match perfectly my jersey and I didn’t want you to stand out in the crowd once we go and see him play one day.” he said.
“Oh, so basically you bought this for me so you wouldn’t look stupid because you came to see a game with someone not wearing anything from the official store?”
“Yeah, basically.” he winked at her as inside the box was nothing else than a Golden State Warriors Stephen Curry black hoodie. “Come on, you have to admit it. I gave you a lot nicer present than you gave me.”
“Excuse me but what’s wrong with the plush swan I gave you?” she asked offended. “Is it because it’s plush or is it because it’s a swan?”
“No offence, but both.” he laughed.
“Ah, how can you say something like this to me?” she poked him in the arm and pouted.
“Oh come on, Sana, don’t be mad.” he begged.
“I won’t but only because I know from Elias that you sleep with it.” she grinned at him.
“I’m…. what??? I’m not…” he mumbled, trying to think of some excuse and make Sana believe that it’s not true, only to come to the conclusion that she can see through him either way so there’s no point in trying to lie. “I don’t have any words. I’m so going to kill him.” he said making her laugh. “Just… Damn you and your brother. Why are you like this? Seriously though, is this hereditary? Should I be worried? Are our kids going to be like this, too?”
“Our kids?” she asked astonished.
“You know what I mean.” he blushed.
“I do, but I still want you to say it.” she said showing off her dimples.
“I…”
“Oh la la, look at these two lovebirds!” they heard Adam’s voice.
When Sana and Yousef turned their heads, they saw Adam and Mikael standing in the corridor and filming everything on the phone. It seemed they wanted to add something more, but they went back to the living room as soon as they saw Sana’s death stare, Mikael just patted Adam on his back and whispered “Okay, man, we’d better get out of here asap.”
“I am seriously going to kill them one day.” Yousef shook his head. He looked at Sana who was grinning at him. “What?” he asked confused.
“Nothing. I was just thinking about that mistletoe…”
“Yeah? And what about it?” he smiled shyly.
“I don’t know. We’ll have to find out.” she shrugged and put both of her arms around Yousef’s neck. He wrapped his arms around her waist. They were standing like this for a few minutes, the verses of “Perfect Christmas” still echoing in Sana’s ears.
All our dreams are coming true at last… oooh
The perfect ending to a wonderful year
“Happy birthday, Sana Bakkoush.” he whispered into her ear.
Would be to celebrate the good times with you here
“Thank you, Yousef Acar.”
Cuz I know
For sure
I never wanted anything more
‘Yes’, Sana thought, ‘it sounds about right’.