Chapter Text
“What are you looking at?” Amina asks the girl who’s crouched down just within an out of bounds area of the school. Amina stays within the safe ‘in-bounds’ area that she’s allowed to play in. She’s amazed that this girl would be brave enough to face the wrath of the teachers at St Abigail’s Primary School. Wrath is a new word that Amina learnt in a book she just read.
The girl looks up at her with a frown on her face and her long dishevelled hair half slipping out of her hair tie. Amina feels bad that she interrupted her and made her mad. She must be mad at Amina if she’s frowning. Noor always frowns at Amina when she does the wrong thing.
“Sorry, that was very nosy of me, wasn’t it?” Amina says. “Noor’s always telling me to stop being nosy but I can’t help it. I’m just really interested in a lot of things. Ma says I have a curious mind. Do you think that’s bad?”
“No,” the girl says. Amina feels relieved. Noor thinks being too curious is bad, which isn’t surprising because her mum said they shouldn’t let their thoughts stray too far. Amina’s not really sure what that even means. Amina’s not sure where this ‘too far’ line actually lies. Adults are always saying things that Amina doesn’t understand, and they never manage to explain themselves very well when she asks questions.
“Noor thinks it’s bad,” Amina tells the girl.
The girl looks back up at Amina and frowns again, “I don’t think I like Noor.”
Amina gasps. “That’s not nice! You could get in trouble for saying things like that.”
“Don’t care,” the girl says as she goes back to digging around through the dirt. Amina should probably leave and find where Noor’s playing. This girl must be crazy if she doesn’t care about getting in trouble. And besides, if Amina doesn’t leave and she’s not careful then she might trip and end up in the out of bounds area…and then she might get told off. But, she still can’t quite see what the girl is doing.
“What are you doing?” Amina asks and the girl sighs heavily like she’s never been more annoyed. It’s a sigh Amina’s heard before.
“Looking for bugs,” and then the girl twists around, still with her knees bent, and raises her tightly curled hand so Amina can see what’s in it. She slowly opens it up and inside are one, two, three, four, five, six(!) rolly polly bugs curled up in tight little balls inside the girl's dirty palm. There’s dirt under her fingernails too. Amina hates when that happens to her, and Noor’s mum always makes them scrub under their nails with brushes if they get too dirty when they play outside at Noor’s house. Ma just tells Amina that her hands shouldn’t look clean, that she’s too little for clean hands. Amina’s not little though. She’s seven, and she’s an advanced reader. She’s two years above the reading level of her age group so she can’t be that little.
“Oh,” Amina breathes, a little grossed out. She thinks bugs are interesting and all but she hates when they land on her without her permission. The ones curled up in the girl's hand seem nice though. They’ve started to uncurl and walk around her palm. Amina reaches out and runs her finger over them, and they curl up tightly again when her finger grazes their hard exterior.
“What do they need to eat?” Amina asks. Amina’s brain is always so full of questions. There’s so many things in the world she doesn’t understand yet and no one seems to have the patience to answer all her questions. One day, she’s going to learn everything.
The girl shrugs, “how should I know? I just like to find them.”
Amina likes her, even though she doesn’t smile and doesn’t speak much. Amina wants to be her friend. “My name’s Amina. Amina Hussain. I’m in grade three. I’m seven but it’s my eighth birthday really soon. My Ma said it’s only five months away now. What’s your name?”
The girl looks back down at the bugs in her hand. “Saira.”
“What grade are you in?” Amina asks. She knows that some people are shy. Amina’s not shy but she does get nervous sometimes so she can understand what being shy might feel like. Sometimes, there’s this strange swirling feeling in her tummy when too many people are looking at her, like when the teacher asks her a question in class. But Amina’s not shy just one-on-one. Maybe Saira is.
“Five,” Saira says. Maybe Amina shouldn’t be bothering someone who’s so much older than her, but her curiosity is getting the better of her again.
“Are you shy?” Amina asks.
Saira looks up at her and frowns again. “No, I’m not shy.”
“Am I bothering you?” Amina asks.
“Not really,” Saira says and she turns to continue digging around in the dirt.
“How old are you?” Amina asks as she steps closer to watch Saira dig.
“Nine,” Saira answers.
Amina gasps, “wow that’s so old.”
Saira looks back up at her, “not really. My sister’s fifteen.”
Amina’s mouth gapes. “Is she in high school?”
“Yeah,” Saira answers with a finger deep in the dirt in front of her.
“What’s her name?” Amina asks.
“Ruksana, but she wants me to call her Roxy. I think it’s stupid.” Saira pulls a worm out of the ground and adds it to the collection in her hand.
“I like the name Roxy,” Amina says. Roxy has such a cool ring to it, like some sort of rockstar name. Amina can picture it written in bold text on the front of one of the CDs in Baba’s car.
“Are you worried that you’ll get in trouble?” Amina asks from the safety of the in-bounds area, although her foot is creeping closer and closer to the edge.
“No. Ruksana says it’s good to get in trouble because it means you can think for yourself.”
“I don’t like getting in trouble,” Amina says.
Saira twists around, still crouched on the ground. The knees of her school trousers are covered in dirt. Amina can imagine the sigh her Ma would let out if she saw Amina’s knees looking the same way. It’s such a hassle to wash dirt out of school trousers. That’s why Amina wears the pinafore. It’s much easier to clean and it doesn’t matter if her tights get rips in them because more always show up in her drawer anyway.
“Do you want to hold the worm?” Saira asks Amina as she holds the worm up.
Amina shakes her head. She’s sure it would feel gross in her hand, wriggling and covered in dirt.
“Go on,” Saira says and she finally stands up. She’s much taller than Amina thought she’d be but then again, she is nine so she’s had much more time to grow than Amina has.
Amina shakes her head again. “What if my hand gets dirty?”
“Then wash it,” Saira says. She holds the worm out to Amina again.
Amina takes a small step forward and raises a trembling hand out and slowly opens her palm. She fights the urge to close it as Saira puts the worm in it.
Amina was right, it does feel gross. She squeals and starts jumping on the spot, careful to not disturb the worm too much with her movement. “Take it off, take it off, take it off!” Amina shrieks.
Saira laughs and it’s the first time Amina’s seen Saira smile. She’s missing one of her bottom teeth. Amina’s already lost two but they’ve grown back in already, so it’s hard to tell. She’ll have to remember to tell Saira that. She wants them to be friends and that feels like something you’d tell a friend, but right now she needs Saira to get this gross worm out of her hand.
“Take it off, please!” Amina yells.
Saira reaches back out and takes the worm out of Amina’s hand. Amina’s not sure what to do with her hand because she doesn’t want to wipe it on her pinafore but it must have worm germs on it, so she leaves it sticking out in front of her with her fingers spread out.
“Sorry, worm,” Saira says to the worm, “I don’t think you’re gross.”
Well now Amina feels bad. She doesn’t want the worm to think she’s mean. Saira looks back up at her and the small smile on her face gets bigger as she laughs at Amina’s frown. “I was joking! Worms don’t have feelings, don’t worry.”
“You don’t know that. You don’t even know what they eat.” Amina crosses her arms.
Saira shrugs and crouches back down, she lets all the bugs roll out of her hand into the dirt. Amina steps forward to watch them burrow back down over Saira’s shoulder.
“Ah, excuse me, girls! That area is out of bounds. Find somewhere else to play,” a teacher calls out to them.
Amina takes two large steps back. Her heart feels like it’s pounding in her chest and she can’t catch her breath. She starts to cry. She knew this would happen! And now she’s in trouble.
“Don’t cry!” Saira says as she steps back into the safe in-bounds area. “Look, the teacher didn’t actually care. She’s not even looking at us any more.”
Amina turns to look over at the teacher and sees that she’s already kneeling on the ground talking to a kid much littler than Amina who must’ve fallen over. Amina rubs her hands over her cheeks to scrub the tears away, and then she remembers the worm germs and more tears start rolling down her cheeks.
“The worm’s germs are on my face,” she blubbers. Saira just laughs at her. Amina’s not sure Saira’s very nice but she does like Saira’s laugh.
Saira reaches her dirty hand up to her face and rubs it on her cheek, a bit of dirt smearing on it. “See, now I have worm germs on my face too.”
Amina laughs and uses her non-wormy hand to wipe the remaining tears away.
“Come on,” Saira says to her, “I found a stick insect in that tree the other day, maybe it’s still there.”
Maybe Saira’s not so bad after all.
Amina thinks the same thing later that day when her mum picks her up from school. There’s a much older girl in a grammar school uniform waiting by the gate, she looks so old and she’s so pretty. She’s wearing a black hijab with large silver safety pins pinning it together, which probably isn’t part of the school uniform. Amina can’t wait until she’s old enough to start wearing a hijab too but she thinks she’d probably like to wear pretty colours that match her clothes. As Amina watches the pretty high school girl, Saira, her new friend , comes stomping out of the school gates and walks over to the girl that must be Roxy, Saira's sister. She reaches out to rub the dirt off Saira’s cheek. Saira pushes her hand away. Amina thinks that if she had a sister, she wouldn’t push her hand away. It must be nice to have a sister. Sometimes Amina feels lonely, but she has Noor and when she plays with Noor she doesn’t feel as lonely anymore.
Saira looks over and sees Amina staring at her. She waves at Amina. Amina waves back and watches as Saira follows her sister home. She’s jumping up and down as she tells her sister what must be a very interesting story.
“Who was that, Mini?” Ma asks.
“Oh that’s my new friend Saira,” Amina tells her mum, and then she tells her about the lunch time adventure, including the part where they get in trouble. Ma doesn’t seem to mind, she rarely does.
“She sounds interesting.”
“She’s so interesting, Ma, and she’s nine ,” Amina lets her mum know.
…
The bell rings for lunch and Amina quickly packs up her lunch box and puts it back into her bag. She feels excited about lunch time today, she feels excited most lunch times but after yesterday, it’s like her heart is rabbiting in her chest, just waiting for her to hop along and find her new friend.
“Amina, come here! Look, the flowers have grown again and we can make daisy chains,” Noor calls out to Amina with a huge grin on her face. Amina slows her pace, she forgot about Noor for a moment there. Amina’s not really sure how to sneak off to find Saira. Although now she’s not sure she even wants to, she loves making daisy chains. Maybe one day Amina and Saira can make daisy chains together.
Amina runs back over to Noor and sits down on the grass next to her, as they pick flowers and start organising them to make the best daisy chains they can. A few minutes later Amina ends up with a flower crown on her head and a daisy bracelet. It’s time for her to sneak off.
“I have to go to the bathroom,” Amina tells Noor. She feels bad, she feels like Noor’s going to see right through her lie.
Noor looks up at her, the tongue that’s poking out in concentration disappears back into her mouth, “okay. Be quick though!”
Amina stands up with shaky hands and runs off. She’s finally made her escape. On her way to find Saira, she does actually stop to use the bathroom so it’s not completely a lie, and that way she won’t have to go during class. Amina’s very good at making practical decisions like this.
She wipes her wet freshly washed hands on her top and continues her search for Saira. She wanders back over to the out of bounds area that she found Saira in yesterday, hoping that maybe she’ll be digging for bugs again, but she’s not there. Amina frowns. The search for Saira might be a bit harder than Amina first thought.
Amina turns around where she stands, looking in each direction just in case she can see her. She can’t. She sighs heavily and her shoulders slump over as she slowly makes her way back to Noor. She’ll go looking for Saira again tomorrow, or the next day, or the day after that.
Then she spots her, all the way over by the big tree.
Amina squeals as she runs over to Saira, and she puffs, “hi, Saira.”
Saira looks over at Amina, “oh, hi.” Although she doesn’t smile much on the outside, Amina is certain that her smile is as big as Amina’s on the inside.
“Can I play with you again today?” Amina asks.
Saira shrugs, “sure. I like your flowers.”
…
Amina starts spending the second half of every lunch with Saira, so Noor doesn’t get too upset. Over just a few weeks Amina learns a lot about Saira. She learns that Saira is always doing something interesting and something new. She also learns that Saira usually isn’t playing with anyone else so Amina can always go up to her and ask to play, and Saira always says yes. Saira also has really good ideas for things they can do together. Amina has some good ideas too, at least that’s what Saira says when Amina suggests them.
Today, Amina suggested they do cartwheels.
“Do you do anything after school?” Amina asks Saira as she sticks the landing of her cartwheel. It turns out Saira doesn’t know how to do cartwheels, so Amina has decided she’ll teach her.
Saira tries to do a cartwheel. It’s not very good. Amina’s very good at cartwheels. Saira sighs and looks over at Amina, “well, I get homework now so sometimes I do that.”
Sometimes Amina forgets how much older Saira is than her. Homework must be so cool. Amina can’t wait to start doing homework too.
“Wow, that’s so cool,” Amina says. She hopes Saira understands how truthful she’s being. Saira shrugs and then tries to do another cartwheel. She’s pretty close this time but she does fall over towards the end.
“No, Saira, like this.” Amina does another cartwheel. She pulls her ponytail tighter after she lands. Saira’s given up on her pony tail and is just letting her hair fly around as she tries to do another cartwheel, getting much closer after watching Amina.
“What do you do after school?” Saira asks. Sometimes she asks Amina questions now, because they’re friends and that’s what friends do.
“Sometimes I watch TV, sometimes I bake with Ma, sometimes I go to my guitar lessons,” Amina lists off as she readies herself for another cartwheel.
“You play guitar?” Saira asks. She’s stopped what she’s doing and turned to Amina. Amina likes when Saira’s attention is solely on her.
“Yeah,” Amina tells her, “I only started this year. Baba said it was time for me to learn so I can follow in the footsteps of his favourite singers. Like Don McLean. I’m not very good though.”
“Doesn’t matter,” Saira says excitedly. “I’ve always wanted to learn but my mum says it’s haram.”
“Oh,” Amina says, and that makes her feel worried. No one’s mentioned this to her yet, not even her parents. What if she makes Allah mad? Her hands start wringing and she starts chewing on her lip. Oh no, what if she gets in trouble? “Is it haram?”
“Nah,” Saira says. But Amina still feels worried. “Don’t worry,” Saira reassures her, “Ruksana says music is fine. And she would know.” And then she does a proper cartwheel.
Amina screams with delight and claps her hands, all worry forgotten in the face of Saira’s victory.
“You did it!”
Saira shrugs again but there’s a small smile on her face.
…
“You should bring your guitar to school one day,” Saira says with her leg up in the air. They’re trying to see how long they can balance on one foot. Saira’s much better at it than Amina. Saira hasn’t let the whole guitar thing go since Amina mentioned it a few days ago. Amina didn’t realise it was going to be such a big deal for Saira.
Amina loses her balance again and barely catches herself on both feet. This whole guitar thing is starting to worry her. “Why would I do that? Someone might ask me to play. I’m not ready yet.”
She really doesn’t want to play in front of anyone yet. Well, anyone except her guitar teacher and her parents. And her grandparents and Noor and she would be willing to play for Saira maybe one day. But not yet. She’s not ready yet.
“I want to hear you play, Mina” Saira says, with her leg still up in the air although she’s starting to lose her balance, the foot she’s balancing on rocking back and forth.
“I’m not good yet, I already told you.” Amina crosses her arms over her chest. Sometimes Amina thinks that Saira isn’t a very good listener. But it doesn’t really matter because she makes up for it in other ways.
“Well, get good then so I can hear you.”
“I’m trying!”
Saira falls at Amina’s outburst, and she looks so funny splayed out on the ground with her hair half out of her ponytail that Amina laughs and laughs until she’s on the ground too, lying next to Saira. She laughs in the car when she tells Ma after school.
…
Amina had a funny feeling this would happen, and she knew it was going to happen fairly soon. As she tries to leave Noor to go find Saira, Noor stops her and asks, “why don’t you play with me for all of lunch today?”
Amina pauses, but only briefly, “because I want to play with my other friend, Saira.” She’s getting frustrated that this conversation is cutting into her time with Saira. She’s usually well on her way to finding her at this point during lunch.
Noor looks like she wants to ask something. Amina waits, even though it makes her feel frustrated. Noor asks, “can I come and play with Saira too?”
Amina understands why Noor would ask this. She’s told Noor all about Saira. She’s told her how funny Saira is and how fun the games she comes up with are and how she’s nine and she still wants to play with Amina. And it should be great, having her two best friends together and wanting to play with each other too. But…Amina doesn’t want Noor to come. It won’t be as much fun with Noor there. Amina’s not sure why but she just knows it won’t.
“I don’t know,” Amina says. What if Saira meets Noor and likes her more than she likes Amina? What if Noor and Saira become best friends and they don’t want to play with Amina anymore, and then she’ll have no friends. Well, she’ll still have Alex and Nora and Layla, but she won’t have them . Her two best friends.
“Please, Amina,” Noor begs. “I want to see how much fun Saira is.”
Amina can’t say no to Noor. Especially not when she’s pleading with Amina. Usually Noor’s the one that makes decisions between them. Amina can’t say no.
“Okay,” Amina says, and she desperately hopes that she doesn’t sound as reluctant as she feels.
At least Noor seems happy as she takes Amina’s hands and they walk off together to find Saira. Amina finds her hanging upside down from the monkey bars, her hair hanging down like a messy waterfall. Even though she’s upside down, Amina can see the way Saira’s face lights up when she sees her. It makes Amina feel bubbly and excited inside.
“Mina! I’m trying to see how long I can hang upside down before my brain explodes. So far I’ve been fine but I feel like it’s going to pop soon, can’t be too much longer now.”
Amina giggles, Saira’s face is rather red. Amina doesn’t think she could last as long but she runs over to the monkey bars anyway.
Before she starts climbing up she remembers Noor. “Oh, Saira, this is Noor. She’s my best friend and she wants to play with us today.”
Saira doesn’t say anything to Noor. Amina’s not surprised. Even though she said she wasn’t, Saira can be rather shy at times.
Amina starts swinging across the monkey bars, her arms are still quite short so it takes a lot of swinging to make it to each one. She eventually makes it to Saira.
“How do I get up there?” Amina asks Saira. It’s hard talking to her like this, considering Saira’s still upside down. Amina’s legs keep bumping into Saira’s arms where they dangle down.
“Just swing your legs up and hook them over the bar.”
“Okay,” Amina says and she starts swinging back and forth trying to build up momentum to hook her legs up. She bumps into Saira every time she swings, and the two of them burst out in laughter each time.
“Amina, I don’t think you should do that,” Noor calls up to her from the ground.
“Why?” Amina calls back, she’s so close to hooking her legs up.
“Because you’re wearing a dress, Amina. It’ll fall down when you’re upside down.”
“That’s okay. I’m wearing tights,” Amina says.
“Yeah, she’s wearing tights,” Saira says to Noor.
“They’re see-through, Amina.”
“Oh.” Amina stops trying to swing. Noor’s right. Her tights are see-through. “Maybe I shouldn’t.”
“You should!” Saira calls out. “You should hang upside down if you want to.”
“No, Noor’s probably right. Noor’s always right.” Saira doesn’t know Noor yet like Amina does.
Amina drops to the ground and doesn’t quite stick the landing. She gets bark all over her tights. It’s actually quite lucky she didn’t end up upside down after all, isn’t it? What if she had fallen from that far off the ground?
Noor runs over to help Amina up, brushing off the bark and straightening her dress.
“Let’s do something else, Amina,” Noor says. “We can play hopscotch again.”
“Okay,” Amina says. Although she loves playing hopscotch with Noor, she feels a bit sad that she’s missed out on playing with Saira today. She usually has so much fun with Saira. Amina knew it wouldn’t be as much fun with Noor around but she’s glad Noor was there to protect her. Amina can’t imagine how embarrassing it would have been if everyone saw her knickers.
“Bye Saira,” Amina calls out as Noor takes her hand and leads her over to the hopscotch.
Saira waves at Amina from her upside down position, Amina waves back with her free hand.
On the way home from school that afternoon, Amina tells Ma about the near upside down dress incident at school.
“Do you want to start wearing trousers to school again?”
Amina shakes her head, “what if I get them dirty?”
Ma laughs with her hands firmly on the steering wheel, her eyes glancing away from the road for a moment to look at Amina. “You worry too much, Mini. If they get dirty, I’ll wash them. You should swing around upside down all you want.”
Amina sighs, “that’s what Saira said.”
“I like this Saira.”
“Me too. She’s my bestest friend. Other than Noor, of course.”
…
Amina waits for Ma after school. She’s usually already waiting for Amina by the front gate but today she’s not there. Amina doesn’t want to worry too hard yet but there’s this small part of her that worries that maybe Ma’s forgotten about her and she’ll be stuck at school alone forever. Amina sniffles, the small worried part of her is growing and growing the longer she stands there. The number of parents and kids is starting to thin. Amina sniffles again, wiping under her eye with her sleeve.
She feels silly standing at the gate crying with her backpack on that’s still too big for her, even though Ma said she’d grow into it. Maybe when she’s eight it’ll fit better, maybe when she’s eight she won’t get upset so quickly at being left alone.
Before the panic can completely set in, she hears, “Mina?”
Amina turns to see Saira standing next to her with her backpack that fits her, and her older sister looking at Amina with worried eyes. Amina breathes a sigh of relief but still sniffles, “Ma’s forgotten about me.”
Roxy quickly walks over to her and bends down so she can look at Amina properly, “I bet she hasn’t forgotten about you. I bet she’s on her way here right now.”
“Do you think so?” Amina asks and wipes under eyes again.
“I know so,” Roxy says. “You must be Amina, it’s nice to finally meet you. I’m Roxy.” Roxy holds her hand out to Amina and Amina shakes it, her worry and tears forgotten. “Saira’s told me a lot about you.”
“Really?” Amina says. She can’t believe she’s talking to Roxy right now. She’s so much older than Amina and she’s so pretty, and Amina feels like she’s in the presence of a celebrity right now.
Saira scoffs and kicks at the ground, “not that much.”
Roxy pushes Saira’s shoulder and then turns back to Amina, “she told me you play guitar, is that true?”
Amina nods, “yeah, and I’m getting much better at it. My teacher says I’m picking it up really quickly.”
Roxy smiles, “that’s so brilliant. I’m gonna learn how to play one day too. Do you think you could teach me?”
Amina giggles, “maybe, if I get even better.”
“I’m sure you will,” and Roxy says it with so much confidence that Amina’s sure she will get better too. And when she does, she’ll bring her guitar to school and she’ll teach Saira how to play.
“I like your headscarf,” Amina tells her, it’s a bright red colour today. “I think it’s really pretty.”
“Thank you,” Roxy says and when she smiles she looks so much like Saira.
“Are you allowed to wear bright colours like that with your school uniform?” Amina asks.
“No, but I’d like to see them try to tell me off. It’s good to be different and it’s good to stand out.”
“I don’t like getting in trouble,” Amina whispers to Roxy.
“That’s okay too. You’re allowed to follow the rules if that’s what makes you happy.”
“Amina!” Amina turns towards the sound and sees Ma running towards her, Amina runs towards her too. “I’m so sorry,” Ma says, leaning down to hug Amina.
“You forgot about me,” Amina cries.
Ma holds her tight and shakes her head, “never, never, never. My watch broke, can you believe it? I didn’t realise the time.”
Ma lets Amina go and reaches out to hold her hand before turning towards Roxy and Saira. “Thank you so much for waiting with her.”
“‘S no problem, it was only five minutes. Bye Amina,” Roxy waves. Amina waves back, her eyes wide with wonder because she just got to talk to the Roxy .
“Bye, Mina. See you tomorrow,” Saira calls out as Roxy and her walk off towards their home.
“Bye, Saira. Bye, Roxy.”
By the end of the car ride home, Ma certainly understands how big of a deal it is for Amina to have met Roxy.
…
The next day, Amina searches everywhere for Saira. She knows now that sometimes Saira can be hard to find and that she plays something different every day. Amina must still be feeling a bit raw from the night before though because she starts to worry. She knows she shouldn’t, that Saira will be somewhere. And if she’s not, then maybe she’s just sick or at the dentist. That can happen sometimes. But what if she can never find Saira again? What if one day Amina plays with Saira and she doesn’t even realise it’s the last time? And of course then Amina worries that in less than two years, Saira will have to go to high school and what if Amina goes to a different high school? What if Saira doesn’t want to stay friends with someone in primary school when she’s so much older and in high school ? Amina’s hands start wringing as she continues searching.
Amina’s thoughts keep spiralling into more and more worrying thoughts. What if Saira’s hiding from her? What if Saira doesn’t want to play with her?
Amina spots Saira lying on the grass looking up at the sky. She breathes a sigh of relief and runs over to Saira, immediately flopping onto the ground next to Saira.
“I couldn’t find you for ages!” Amina says. “What are you doing?”
Saira turns over to look at her and smiles. For once her hair is still neatly in its ponytail. “I’m finding shapes in the clouds. Look, that one there looks like a horse.”
Amina looks where Saira’s finger is pointing and she laughs, “no, it doesn’t.”
Saira sighs, “well it did a few minutes ago. You’ll just have to trust me.”
“I trust you.”
They lay quietly on the ground for a few minutes looking up at the sky. Amina feels better than she did before, now that she can feel Saira’s shoulder pressing into hers. It’s nice knowing that Saira’s right there, and that she still wants to play with Amina.
“That one looks like a bird,” Amina says.
“Yeah, it does!” Saira says excitedly, then she turns to Amina again, “you’re good at this.”
But there’s still some nagging thoughts in the back of Amina’s head. Amina whispers to Saira, “what happens if I can’t find you one day?”
Saira pauses to think, “if you can’t find me then I’ll just come find you instead.”
“Promise?” Amina holds out her pinky.
Saira wraps her own around Amina’s. “Promise, Mina.”
…
Saira’s sitting under a tree, her legs crossed and back leaning against the trunk. She looks deep in concentration as she stares at the notebook in her hands, her pen clicking in her hand as she reads over whatever she has written down.
Amina almost doesn't want to interrupt her. There’s something about the way that Saira’s sitting there that makes Amina stop. She looks like a painting in a museum and Amina just wants to stand and watch her. She could watch Saira all day. It might be a bit strange of her though. Ma told her she’s not supposed to stare at people, no matter how interesting they look.
Amina shouldn’t interrupt Saira. She’s starting to learn that she shouldn’t demand people’s attention whenever she wants. Sometimes, people don’t want to be interrupted to listen to her talk. And that’s okay.
Amina’s going to go back to Noor. She’s made up her mind. But right before she turns to walk away, Saira glances up. Amina’s amazed at the smile that takes over Saira’s face. She didn’t think someone - other than her parents and Noor - could look so happy to see her. Saira raises a hand to usher Amina over to her. Amina quickly runs over and sits down next to Saira, turning her body to face Saira, her side leaning into the tree so she can see Saira properly.
“Hi,” Saira chirps.
“What are you writing?” Amina asks.
Saira looks back down at her notebook and sighs, “a song. It’s not very good though. Ruksana says it still needs some work. We’re working on it together.”
Amina doesn’t often hear Saira say such unsure things about herself. It makes Amina feel weird inside, that Saira doesn’t feel completely confident.
“I think it’s good,” Amina says.
Saira laughs, “you haven’t even heard it yet!”
Amina shrugs, “I don’t need to hear it. I know it’s good.”
Saira laughs again, and then she looks down at her notebook and frowns in concentration before looking back up at Amina. “Do you want to hear it?”
Amina nods, her eyes wide. “Oh yes, please.”
Saira starts to sing, it’s very quiet and very unsure but Amina thinks she has such a lovely voice. Amina would never be able to come up with such interesting lyrics either.
When Saira finishes, Amina starts clapping. Amina hasn’t seen Saira look this shy since they first met but this time she’s smiling. It’s only small, with no teeth, but it still makes Amina feel so happy to see it.
“You’re such a lovely singer, Saira.”
Saira shrugs.
…
It’s been a few days since Amina last saw Saira. She’s been trying to go play with her but Noor keeps coming up with reasons why Amina should stay. Amina doesn’t know how to say no to Noor, but she’s trying to learn to. Amina’s exhausted. It’s hard having two best friends, especially two best friends who really don’t want to play with each other.
“I’m going to go play with Saira now,” Amina tells Noor. She’s not asking this time.
“Stay here with me, Amina,” Noor begs, she reaches out and holds onto Amina’s hand with both of hers. Noor’s grip is really strong.
Amina steals herself, she’s going to go see Saira today. “But I haven’t played with Saira for days,” Amina says.
Noor lets go of Amina’s hand and crosses her arms. A frown takes over her face, “fine. Go play with Saira then.”
Amina finds Saira sitting cross legged on the ground. She’s drawing a picture in the dirt with a stick. Amina stands over her shoulder, to look at her drawing. It’s a really good drawing. There’s two girls holding hands, one’s bigger than the other. There’s even a house and the sun. The sun has sunglasses on which is a very good idea, Amina thinks. Very practical, the sun’s very bright.
“Who’s in your drawing?” Amina asks as she sits cross legged next to Saira.
“I haven’t seen you in days,” Saira grumbles with her head in one of her hands, her elbow resting on her knee as she slowly drags her stick around.
“Sorry. Noor wanted to play with me,” Amina tries to explain. She’s met with a deep sigh from Saira. Amina changes the topic, “It’s a really good drawing.”
“Thanks. It’s me and Ruksana,” Saira says. “That’s our house.” Saira points to it with the stick.
Amina looks around her and picks up a stick of her own, one that’s perfect for drawing in the dirt. She tries to copy Saira’s drawing.
“No, don’t copy mine, Mina. Draw your own one,” Saira says and she runs her hand over Amina’s drawing to smooth out the dirt.
“Why? I like your drawing,” Amina huffs. “I wish I had a sister. Ma says Noor’s kind of like my sister. Because we’ve known each other for so long. But we don’t live together, obviously. Also, look, I lost another tooth,” Amina says and she shows Saira her teeth, poking her tongue through the gap at Saira.
Saira smiles, “I’ve lost about ten by now.”
“This is my third one and I’m not even eight yet. Although, I nearly am now. My birthday’s only two months away. Do you want to come to my party?” Amina hopes Saira wants to come.
“I’d have to ask my mum. She doesn’t let me go to a lot of parties. She doesn’t let me go to sleepovers either.”
“You’ve never been to a sleepover?” Amina’s shocked by this news. Amina has sleepovers all the time! She has sleepovers at Noor’s house and her grandparents’ houses. Well one set often, the other’s in India but Amina stays there when she visits them with her parents. Does it even count as a sleepover if her parents are there too?
“Nope,” Saira says and she adds some grass at the bottom of her drawing. Amina starts a different drawing. She’s going to draw a cat.
“Maybe you could sleep at mine. I’m sure I could convince your mum.”
“Doubt it.”
“I promise I will. Has Roxy been to sleepovers?” Amina asks. Since having met Roxy, Amina finds herself wanting to know everything about her. Amina thinks it must be so cool to have an older sister. Saira’s so lucky. Amina wishes she could play with someone any time of the day.
“Yeah but she got in a lot of trouble afterwards. Mum and her fight quite a bit. Well, they used to. Ruksana hasn’t been feeling very well recently.”
“Oh,” Amina says. “Well, I hope she feels better soon. Does she have the flu? I had the flu last year. It was terrible.”
“I don’t know,” Saira says. “She just says she’s really tired a lot. But she still lets me listen to music in her room with her. She listens to really cool music. You’d like it. You should learn it on your guitar.”
“I’m getting much better at guitar now,” Amina tells Saira.
“Really?” Saira asks, “do you think you could bring it in and show me?”
Amina thinks about it. “Maybe, but I’m not sure Ma would want me bringing it to school.”
Saira swivels around to face Amina, her face lighting up as it often does when they talk about music. “Well they have that talent show every year. You could play it then. She couldn’t say no to that.”
Amina sighs, “I’m only seven. I can’t play in the talent show yet.”
“Says who?” Saira asks her. Amina’s always amazed how Saira can always question the rules like she does. Amina likes rules, it lets her know what she can and can’t do but she’s fascinated that Saira sees rules as more of a suggestion than anything. And she’s right. No one said seven year olds can’t play in the school talent show, but Amina just knows she’s too little. No one her age plays in the talent show.
“I don’t know,” Amina shrugs, dragging her stick around. “Do you like my drawing?”
“What is it?” Saira asks.
“A cat.”
“It doesn’t look like a cat.”
Amina sighs, “that’s why I wanted to copy yours.”
…
Amina doesn’t bother playing with Noor for the first half of lunch today. She’s missed out on too much time with Saira this week, so she sneaks away before Noor can even find her.
It was the right idea. Saira’s very excited to see Amina.
“Mina, I have an idea,” Saira looks like she can barely contain herself, she’s so excited. Amina rarely sees Saira like this. “Let’s play rockstars so you’ll be ready for the talent show when it comes around after summer.”
Amina hesitates, she’s not as excited as Saira about the talent show idea. “I don’t know, Saira. I don’t think I want to do that.”
“Sure you do. Listen, it’s not fair that you get to learn guitar and I don’t when I want to play in the talent show and you don’t. So you have to play for me.”
Amina nods, it makes sense when Saira says it like that. And she can do that, Amina can play for Saira.
“First we need cool names. All rockstars have cool names. You should hear some of the names Roxy tells me. She reads to me from this magazine that she gets about music and they all have really cool names. I think some must be fake though.” Amina doesn’t think she’s heard Saira talk this much before, or this fast. She likes it. She likes how excited Saira sounds when she talks about something she’s clearly so passionate about. Passion is another word Amina learnt recently.
“Okay. I want to be called Roxy,” Amina says.
“No! You can’t have Roxy’s name. She’s already chosen that,” Saira yells.
Amina sighs, she’s learnt not to get too worried when Saira yells and speaks very bluntly. Amina thinks if it were anyone else she’d be worried but not when it’s Saira. Amina huffs, “fine, what’s your name going to be?”
“I’m not going to change mine because Saira is already a rockstar name.”
Amina nods, that’s fair. “What if my name is Saira too?”
Saira groans, “Mina, you have to choose your own name. You can’t just copy what everyone else does. You should be your own person. You should be unique, that’s what Ruksana says.”
Amina thinks about that for a second. She likes copying other people. Whenever she copies Noor it makes her feel better, and it makes Noor happy. She knows that she likes different things to most of her friends and that that feels a bit weird sometimes. They’re not as interested in reading as she is, or romance movies, or school, or country music. So she doesn’t talk to them about those things. Amina thinks she could probably talk to Saira about them though.
“Well then I don’t think I want to be a rockstar. I like country music.”
Saira turns abruptly on her heel and stomps away from Amina. She stands by a tree off in the distance with her back to Amina and her hands on her hips. Amina can see her shaking her head back and forth. Saira kicks a rock on the ground and it goes flying into the air. Amina’s not too worried though, Saira will come back. She promised.
Saira turns around and trudges back to where Amina’s standing. With her arms dragging down to the ground, she grumbles, “that’s fine. You can be a country singer instead.”
Amina beams, “well I want to be called Mina then.”
“Fine,” Saira sighs, and then she gets really excited again, “Ruksana’s been to a few concerts before so she’s told me what they’re like. This can be the stage here…”
…
It’s Easter. Which doesn’t mean much for Amina but it means a lot to all the other kids at St Abigail’s primary. They get to spend the whole day colouring in pictures of rabbits and talking about some man dying. Amina’s not really sure how it all connects together. She’s not sure the other kids in her class understand either. Amina gets different colouring pages to the other kids in her class. Amina would hate that she’s treated differently but at least she has Noor. Noor and her get to colour in birds and fish and anything else the teacher can think of to occupy them.
But then it’s time for everyone to go to church, and Amina and Noor don’t get to go with them. This is the part where Amina starts to feel left out. All the other kids come back and tell her how much fun it was afterwards and how much chocolate they all ate and how many songs they sang. Amina likes chocolate. Amina likes singing. Amina’s even thinking of joining the school choir next year when she’s old enough.
But Amina and Noor and a few of the other kids around the school who don’t go to the church service are rallied into a classroom with one of the teachers. They’ve all been told to bring a book and Amina’s so excited because she’s been reading a new book that’s part of a series and it’s so good.
Amina had forgotten that they put all the kids together from all different age groups, because they’re weren’t enough non-Christian kids to warrant splitting them up, and there, sitting slumped on the ground against a wall with a book in her hand, is Saira.
Amina’s so excited she could explode right then and there. “Noor, there’s Saira.”
“Amina, no, can’t we just sit at the table and read quietly together?” Noor asks. Amina’s not sure why Noor’s always so bothered by Saira.
“But I always read with you in class. I never get to read with Saira,” Amina tells Noor and then she wanders over to Saira’s spot on the floor, leaving Noor to sit with their other friends.
Amina sits down next to Saira, “hi Saira.”
Saira looks up from her book and smiles. It’s that small smile she has when she’s trying hard not to look too excited. “Hi Mina.”
“What are you reading?” Amina asks.
Saira snorts, “a book.”
Amina huffs and rolls her eyes, “obviously. What’s it about?”
“I dunno. I just started it. I don’t really like reading.”
“Why not? I love reading, reading is so much fun!” Amina tells Saira. “I’m reading at a grade 5 level so we’re probably reading similar things. I’m in the lamb reading group in my class. That’s the highest one. What reading group are you in?”
“Not the lamb one,” Saira says.
“That’s okay. It doesn’t matter what group you’re in. Why don’t you like reading?” Amina asks.
“I dunno. Sometimes all the words look like they’re swirling around on the page and it makes it hard to read them.”
“Oh, that doesn’t happen to me. That would make it really hard to read, I’m lucky the words behave around me. Maybe I could help you?”
Saira shrugs. Amina covers all the words except the first line with her hands, “there! Now the words can’t move around on the page. Is that helping?”
Saira starts reading, “not really.”
“Oh,” Amina says, and then she thinks. “Well maybe I could read it to you, then.”
“Okay,” Saira says and she shifts her hold on her book so Amina can read it too.
“Maggie the mag-ni-fi-c-sc-scent was waiting behind the school stage to perform. What does mag-ni-fi-cent mean?” Amina asks Saira.
“Like, really good.”
“I think you’re magnificent,” Amina tells Saira. Saira snorts.
The teacher walks over to them. “Girls, it’s silent reading. You’re supposed to be quiet.”
“Oh but Mrs Jones, I’m helping Saira read so I can’t be quiet.”
“Okay, well Saira’s a big girl Amina and she can read on her own. Why don’t you go and sit with Noor?”
“But Saira says all the words move around when she tries to read and that’s not fair if she has to do that on her own.”
The teacher frowns, “is that true Saira?”
Saira nods, her arms crossed and her eyebrows turned down into a fearsome frown, like it so often does around teachers.
“Have you told your teacher?”
Saira shakes her head.
The teacher tuts, “okay well I’ll have a word with him later. Amina you can help Saira just make sure you’re whispering so you don’t disturb anyone else.”
“Okay,” Amina whispers to the teacher.
When she leaves Saira whispers to Amina, “I hate teachers.”
Amina sighs, “sorry if you’re going to get in trouble because of me. I shouldn’t have told them that you can’t read.”
Saira shrugs, “don’t care. What’s Maggie do next?”
Amina giggles and shuffles closer to Saira, resting her head on Saira’s arm so she can see the book better.
…
“Noor doesn’t want me to play with you anymore,” Amina tells Saira. It’s been weighing on her quite heavily recently. Noor does not like Saira. Amina’s been finding it rather distressing. Ma says it’s okay that they don’t get along and Amina’s still allowed to like both of them. Obviously, Amina likes both of them. She’s not going to stop playing with either of them. And Saira hasn’t asked her to stop playing with Noor.
Saira rolls her eyes quite aggressively. She’s been doing that a lot recently. “Why not?”
“She says that you’re a bad influence on me. Because I get in more trouble now, like the teacher telling me off for talking and sometimes I’m late to class after lunch and sometimes you still make me go into the out of bounds areas.”
Saira rolls her eyes again, “I get in less trouble now that I’m friends with you. My mum said you’re a good influence on me. Ruksana likes you too.”
“She does?”
“Yeah. She said it’s good I have a friend like you. She also said that I need to stay friends with you, even when things get hard. Whatever that means. I’m not going to stop being friends with you.”
Amina squeals in delight. “I’m not going to stop being friends with you either.”
Saira nods, “good.”
…
“Do you have a crush on anyone?” Amina asks Saira.
Saira makes that screwed up frowny judgemental face she makes at Amina when Amina says something she doesn’t like. It doesn’t make Amina feel bad like it does on Noor’s face. Saira said it’s okay for them to disagree on things, that it means they’re different and that they’re staying true to themselves. Noor thinks Amina and her should think the exact same things. Ma says she agrees with Saira.
Amina continues when Saira doesn’t answer, “I think I do. I think I might like one of the boys in my class.”
Saira sighs, “I don’t want to talk about stupid boys.”
“Why not?” Amina asks. Noor and her talk about boys all the time. They talk about weddings and husbands and how much fun it’s going to be when they get married together. They’re going to have a joint wedding, they’ve already decided.
“‘Cause they’re boring,” Saira says.
“Oh,” Amina says, “okay.” And her disappointment must show on her face, Noor’s always telling her she needs to learn to not look so sad when things don’t go her way.
Saira seems very uncomfortable. “You’re not boring though, Mina.”
“I don’t think you’re boring either,” Amina says back. “Have you had your first kiss yet?”
Saira groans, “can we just go back to doing handstands?”
“Sorry,” Amina says. And then she does a perfect handstand. Ma was right. It is more fun playing in trousers sometimes. Amina now wears the pinafore for half the week, and the trousers for the other half. The trouser days are fun but she still likes the pinafore. She doesn’t think she’ll commit to the permanent trousers like Saira does.
…
Noor’s not very happy with Amina. It might have been the series of events where Amina went to play with Saira even when Noor asked her not to. Noor said she doesn’t want to play with Amina today, and she seemed so angry when she said it. Amina hates when people are angry at her.
Amina cries as she wanders off to find Saira. She rubs at her eyes and wipes under her nose but she’s struggling to stop the tears. She’s struggling to find Saira today. Her tears start to dry as she searches, her confusion taking over her emotions. She circles the whole school. She looks at all the out of bounds areas (looks at, she doesn’t go into them. She’s not brave enough without Saira). She looks in all the nooks and crannies of the school, she looks in the toilets, she looks in the bushes. She looks up all the trees.
Oh.
There she is. Saira’s up a tree.
Amina runs over to her and calls out, “hello!”
Saira looks down and smiles, “climb up with me.”
Amina laughs, “I can’t do that. It’s against the school rules!”
“So?” Saira asks. “No one’s told me off.”
“Yet,” Amina stresses, “no one’s told you off yet .”
“Just climb up!”
“What if I get hurt?” Amina asks.
“You won’t! I’ll help you.”
“Can’t you climb down? We could pretend to be cats instead.”
“I don’t want to pretend to be a cat. That’s something only babies do.”
“Oh,” Amina says, and her chest and throat start to tighten. First, Noor doesn’t want to play with her and now Saira thinks Amina’s a baby. Amina doesn’t want to cry in front of Saira. She might think Amina’s even more of a baby. Amina turns away from Saira and sniffles. She runs her sleeve under her nose.
“Are you crying?” Saira calls down.
Amina shakes her head, “I’m not crying,” but speaking only makes her cry harder.
“Please don’t cry, Mina,” Saira calls down to her.
Amina turns around, it doesn’t really matter if Saira sees her crying, she already knows and she already thinks Amina’s a baby. “You think I’m a baby,” Amina blubbers.
“No, I don’t! I promise! I wouldn’t play with you so much if I did,” Saira calls down.
Amina wipes her tears, “really?”
“Yeah,” Saira says, like it’s obvious, “come up here and you can tell me why you’re so obsessed with cats recently.”
Amina laughs, “okay,” and she starts to climb. “There’s one that lives on my street and sometimes it lets me pat it and it’s so soft, Saira. It’s grey. I think you’d like it. I think it might be a boy cat but I’m not really sure.”
Amina starts climbing as she chatters away to Saira. Saira points to different branches for Amina to climb onto to help her up. But Saira didn’t take into account their size difference, or age difference as Amina’s still a bit clumsier than Saira - Ma said that’s normal. There’s a point where Amina just can’t reach the next branch, the tips of her fingers slipping as she reaches up on her tipping toes.
“You’re nearly there,” Saira encourages, but it doesn’t stop Amina from losing her balance. Once her fingers fully slip, there’s nothing for her to hold onto and then her foot slips too. It all happens rather fast. One minute, Amina’s only a few branches from reaching Saira and the next she’s crumpled on the ground, a searing pain in her arm.
“Ouch,” she says and then she tries to sit up and the searing pain becomes blinding. Amina starts to cry again and she can’t stop, not this time. It hurts too much.
“Amina? Are you okay?” Saira asks, she’s back down on the ground. She seems worried and frantic, and it scares Amina. “I didn’t think you’d fall! I’m so sorry! Are you hurt?”
Saira tries to help Amina up by holding her arms, the second she touches Amina’s sore arm, Amina screams. Saira backs up, she looks scared. What’s going to happen if Saira doesn’t know what to do?
“Miss!” Saira calls out to the nearest teacher.
“What happened?” The teacher asks as she bends down to Amina. Amina can’t talk, she’s crying too much. Amina doesn’t want the teacher to know she was climbing the tree, she doesn’t want to get in trouble. She wants her arm to stop hurting. She wants to go back to playing with Saira. She wants her Ma.
“She fell out of the tree,” Saira says, “it was my fault.”
The teacher tuts at Saira, “what are you doing playing with a grade three anyway?”
Saira shrugs. Amina cries harder.
“Okay, sweetie, can you move your arm?” Amina shakes her head.
Everything from there happens in a blur. Amina has to get x-rays and then a cast on her arm. She does get a lollipop for her troubles though.
In the car home from the hospital, once Amina’s tears have dried and her lollipop is firmly in her mouth, Ma sighs. “What am I going to do with you, Mini? Too scared to get your uniform dirty one minute and then you’re tumbling out of trees the next.”
“I’m sorry Ma but Saira was up there.”
“Oh, I’m sure she was.”
…
In the end, after the pain wore off, having a broken arm is pretty cool. Everyone wants to sign her cast, and she gets to use the computer instead of writing out her school work. She loves clacking on the large white keyboard instead of having to practise her penmanship.
The only problem (aside from needing to wrap her arm in plastic before she showers) is that Noor won’t let her out of her sight. It’s nice that they’re playing together again, and that Noor is doing everything for her like holding down the tap for the water bubbler and helping Amina eat her lunch. But she won’t let Amina play with anyone else in case she gets hurt again. Amina doesn’t really think it’s that big of a deal. Her arm barely even hurts anymore.
She doesn’t get to go play with Saira. Even when she tries, Noor says no. Amina doesn’t get to give Saira the invitation to her birthday party. Her eighth birthday passes and she still doesn’t get to see Saira. Then the school year ends, and she definitely doesn’t get to see Saira over the summer holidays. Ma doesn’t even know Saira’s mum’s phone number. And they don’t know where Saira lives. But Amina doesn’t forget about Saira. Amina asks Ma if she’s found where Saira lives yet every morning. Ma says to just be patient, that Saira will be at school next year and not to worry.
But Amina is worried. “She’ll be in grade six then, Ma. She won’t want to play with me anymore.”
Ma scoffs, “of course she will. And if she doesn’t, she wasn’t a very good friend in the first place.”
“She’s a very good friend.”
“Well there you go.” And that’s that. Amina has to be patient.
…
The school year starts back up and now Amina’s in grade four, which is very exciting. Although Amina hasn’t forgotten about Saira, she doesn’t go looking for her for a few weeks. She has so many new friends from her class to play with and now that she’s in grade four there’s so many new games everyone’s coming up with to play. Amina feels guilty sometimes, that she doesn’t try harder to leave so she can find Saira. But she will. Eventually. And besides, Amina and Noor are very good friends again and she doesn’t want to make Noor mad.
But one day, Noor is sick and not at school. At first, Amina’s sad that she doesn’t have her best friend to play with. But then she remembers Saira, and all the fun they had together before summer.
The moment she spots Saira she feels like she could burst. She’s so excited. She was starting to forget what Saira looked like, and how happy Amina always felt when she was around Saira.
“Saira!” Amina calls out as she runs over to her, wrapping her arms around her as soon as she’s close enough to touch.
“Mina?” Saira asks and she hugs Amina back. Saira’s arms are tight around her as she whispers, “I’m so sorry about your arm.”
Amina pulls back and laughs, “why? It’s good as new.” She holds her arm out for Saira to look at. It’s actually better than new, she had to do all sorts of weird exercises over summer to make her arm heal better and it’s stronger than ever. And longer than ever. She’s grown two centimetres over summer.
“Good,” Saira smiles at her.
“How was your summer? I know it was ages ago now but we never got to talk about it,” Amina asks. She wants to know everything about Saira, now that she’s standing in front of Amina.
Saira shrugs, “didn’t get to do much.” Amina’s starting to notice that Saira seems a bit down in the dumps. Amina wants to cheer her up.
“That’s a shame. I did so much. I went to the zoo with my Nani and Nana. You should’ve seen the animals there!” Amina tells Saira.
Saira listens and she laughs at Amina’s stories from summer but she doesn’t share her own, and she doesn’t suggest they play any games.
“Do you want to play rockstars again?” Amina asks. “I could be a rockstar this time.”
Saira shakes her head. Amina doesn’t know what else to suggest. Saira doesn’t seem like herself.
Amina goes looking for Saira again when she can, a few days later. But Saira isn’t there. She’s not anywhere. Amina looks really hard for her. She looks everywhere, even up all the trees. After a few weeks, she even ventures into the out of bounds areas on her own. Saira’s not there.
Amina eventually stops looking. There’s no point, Saira’s disappeared. It hurts, that the moment Amina feared most has happened. She can’t find Saira, and Saira’s broken her promise. She doesn’t come looking for Amina.
Amina doesn’t want to play with Noor or Alex or Nora or any of her new friends in her class. If she had known that she couldn’t play with Saira soon, she never would’ve wasted those few weeks at the beginning of term.
One day, after school, Ma sits Amina down. “Amina, you know your friend Saira?”
Amina nods, “I haven’t seen her in a while. I miss her.”
Ma nods and rubs her back, “I know. She hasn’t been at school, has she?”
Amina shakes her head. Ma sighs, “I called the school today. You know her older sister?”
Ma seems upset, it makes Amina’s chest feel tight. “Yeah, Roxy. She looked after me that one time you were late. Ma, she’s so cool.”
Ma looks up at the ceiling and then back down at Amina. Ma’s eyes are full of tears. “Did Saira say that she was sick?”
Amina nods her head, “yeah, she had the flu or something last year.”
“Mini, it wasn’t the flu. Roxy was really sick and she..she died, Amina.”
“Oh,” Amina says, and she doesn’t really know how to feel. She feels her lip wobble. “I don’t understand. She’s not old enough to die.”
“I know. It’s really sad but sometimes people die when they’re young. It’s okay if you feel sad. Saira’s your friend. You can cry, Amina.”
The second Amina has permission she starts to cry. She’s so confused, and she’s so sad. She feels so sad for Saira. Amina struggles to imagine what it’s like to have an older sister but she knows how she feels about Saira, and Saira’s older than her. She can’t imagine how it would feel if…but it was Roxy. And that’s sad too. Amina also loves Roxy. Roxy looked after Amina and she believed in Amina and she was nice to Saira, and she looked like Saira too. But now Saira’s alone.
“Will Saira ever come back to school?” Amina asks, her throat thick with tears.
“Probably but not for a little while longer and when she does, she might be a bit different. She might be sad and she might not want to play for a while. And you can’t make her feel bad about that, okay?”
Amina nods, “I don’t ever want Saira to be sad.”
“I know,” her Ma says.
…
After a few weeks, Amina starts looking for Saira again. Just in case. And one day, she sees Saira, sitting under the tree they liked to play under together. Amina’s so excited as she runs over to Saira. Saira doesn’t seem excited to see Amina. She doesn’t seem the same as she was before Roxy died, and she doesn’t want to play with Amina, just like Ma said.
“Please leave me alone, Amina.”
Amina’s baffled. Saira doesn’t say please. Saira doesn’t ask Amina to leave. But she nods and leaves Saira alone, just like Ma said. Even though it makes Amina feel sad.
Ma says that Saira might need some space for a while, but that she’ll come back eventually. But she doesn’t feel very hopeful anymore. It doesn’t seem like Saira will come back. Saira gets in trouble more than she used to, she even gets in fights. Amina catches her one time cutting a phone cord in one of the class rooms. Amina just wanted to go to the loo. She doesn’t want to get in trouble but she can’t resist speaking to Saira.
She sticks her head into the classroom, “you probably shouldn’t be doing that.”
Saira jumps and turns around. She frowns at Amina, “whatever.”
Amina sighs and walks away. She knows she shouldn’t feel angry at Roxy, it’s not her fault she died. But Amina lost her best friend because of it.
Amina doesn’t quite know what to do to rekindle their friendship. She thinks about lots of things she could do. Like come up with the best game ever, one so good that Saira would have to play with her but Saira’s the one that’s best at coming up with games for them to play.
Just when Amina feels like she’s lost all hope, posters start going up around the school about the annual St Abigail’s primary school talent show. Amina remembers how determined Saira was for Amina to play in the talent show, before summer, before Roxy. She must still be excited about it, and Amina still goes to her guitar lessons once a week, and she’s only getting better now that her arm’s healed. Amina’s made her decision, she knows what she has to do. It doesn’t matter how sick the thought of standing in front of the whole school makes her feel because she’ll finally get to show Saira her guitar, and she’ll finally get to play for her and maybe, afterwards, Saira will want to be her friend again.
Amina practices and practices. She listens to her Don McLean CDs over and over again trying to pick the perfect song. She finds it, the perfect song. She reads the lyrics in the booklet from the CD. It’s perfect.
And I Love You So
Amina does love Saira, and she needs Saira to know. They have to be friends again, or Amina’s not sure what will happen to her, without Saira by her side. The lyrics really speak to her. Amina does feel lonely. She’s starting to feel old enough to verbalise these feelings she’s always had. That she’s different, and people see that and they want her to change. Saira never wanted her to change. Saira only ever wanted Amina to be more herself.
Amina asks Ma to take her to the shops so she can find a cowboy hat, because if she’s going to sing a Don McLean song, she better look the part. Saira told her about that when they placed rockstars together. Saira said she wanted a leather jacket one day. She said Roxy had one hidden in the back of her cupboard. Amina wonders what happened to that jacket.
Now, she’s waiting behind the stage, her tummy swirling around and around. She twirls the end of one of her braids around and around her finger. The red hair tie falls off and her braid unravels. Her tummy hurts more. Everyone’s going to think she’ll look silly with only one braid. But then she thinks about how proud Saira will be of her. How Saira will come running up to her afterwards. Maybe she’ll hug Amina again, maybe she’ll tell Amina that they can be friends forever. It makes her feel strong, it makes her feel courageous. Courageous is one of Amina’s spelling words for this week.
Amina takes a deep breath and steps out onto the stage. She looks out at the audience. An audience she didn’t realise would be so big. The whole school’s here, and all the teachers. For some reason, Amina had been picturing the audience as just Saira, sitting cross legged in the middle of the gymnasium, smiling encouragingly up at Amina. But she can’t even see Saira right now.
Amina swallows deeply, and starts to play. It doesn’t go well. Amina only gets through the first verse, strumming the simpler cords to the song that her teacher came up with for her. And then her tummy hurts worse. She’s never felt so humiliated before. It’s so unfortunate how close they sat the year sixes to the stage. Amina spots Saira, and she’s so glad to see that Saira’s in the second row. She doesn’t feel glad when she sees how much Saira’s laughing. At least she looks happy. Amina wipes a tear off her face and follows the teacher that guides her off the stage.
Saira doesn’t talk to Amina afterwards like Amina had hoped and Amina feels too embarrassed to go talk to Saira. She doesn’t talk to Saira again.
A few weeks later, Amina and Noor watch as a teacher pulls Saira off one of the year six boys. Amina can hear Saira yelling about how he said something horrible to one of the other year six girls, but the boy has blood pouring from his nose and the teacher has a strong grip around Saira’s upper arm, and the year six girls are huddled together far away from Saira. Amina isn’t sure what to think. Saira’s yelling involves a lot of swear words, Amina hasn’t even heard half of these words before (of course she’s read them, no one monitors the books an advanced reader reads).
“I’m glad you’re not friends with her anymore,” Noor says. Amina’s not sure she agrees, but she feels glad that she’s not next to Saira right now, being dragged away from the scene of the crime.
Amina comes to school one morning and a rumour is spreading. A year six girl got expelled for selling school furniture. Amina knows exactly which year six girl it must have been but she just can’t let herself believe it. She spends the rest of the school year looking for Saira. She doesn’t find her anywhere.
When Amina turns nine, she’s surprised by how old she feels. The year threes seem so little to her. She can’t believe Saira even gave her the time of day. If she’s being completely honest with herself, Amina’s not sure she’d do the same. She feels sort of lucky, in the end, that she even got to be friends with Saira in the first place. Even if she never sees her again, and she probably won’t. She’s not really sure where they send expelled kids anyway but it must be to some sort of jail for kids, and Amina is never going to end up there.
Slowly, Amina stops thinking about Saira. She continues learning guitar because she loves it, and she eventually stops thinking about how much Saira wanted to learn and how much Saira wanted to hear her play. She stops thinking about the humiliation of the talent show, even when, every year, they place quite a large gap between the stage and the student audience.
There’s this strange moment of hope Amina feels when she starts high school. It doesn’t last long, but she finds herself looking around and hoping that Saira will turn the corner, books in hand, frown firmly plastered on her face. But she doesn’t. Amina soon forgets about that hope all together, and Saira becomes a distant memory, one she barely has a passing thought for.