“What is this? We have to beg them to leave us alone?” It’s similar to a video his father has shown Arshad, My Faith, My Voice. “While they can do whatever they want to us? Are you chickening out?”

“Nah! I was just showing you what Sajjad and Bilal want to do. They’re all bull, no balls.”

“Let’s not waste time then. You were late.” Arshad shows Jemaal the list he’s made.

They argue about the criteria: the churches should be within bikeable distance, of course. But not too close to each other—this is Jemaal’s condition—to create a sense that their crusade is far-reaching.

Arshad proposes, as a symbolic gesture, the Episcopalian church opposite their mosque, though he worries that it might direct suspicion toward their congregation.

“Let them suspect,” Jemaal says, “they won’t be able to prove anything.”

They settle on it as their first stop. Jemaal picks the next one—a megachurch near the freeway that dwarfs the Islamic center being built. This is some distance away, so they decide to pick two more churches along the way, completing a circuit.

They look at photographs. A tall glass facade clinches one choice. For the final target, Jemaal says they need to include a Baptist church—he’s heard that Baptists hate Muslims the most. After poking around the internet, they settle on one that looks enticing with its row of blue stained-glass windows. It has the added bonus of being the oldest Baptist church in the city.

There’s one last decision to be made: What should they call themselves?

Jemaal suggests “The Avengers”—he’s a fan of Marvel comics. It’s Arshad’s idea to look to the Quran, and happily they soon alight on one they can both agree on: Ar-Ra’d. The Thunder. The name seems appropriate: it’s the title of the surah that speaks of unbelievers demanding of Allah signs of His omnipotence.

“The Thundering Avengers has a nice ring!” Jemaal says, but Arshad prefers the simple Arabic name.

Jemaal goes downstairs to pick rocks, while Arshad designs their “calling card.” They’ll make copies on sheets of paper that they’ll fasten around the rocks. Arshad has given up on including the surah—it seems blasphemous to allow parts of the Quran to be crushed, or trampled underfoot—so the sheets will simply contain the takbir, Allahu Akbar, and their group’s name.

Jemaal returns with his backpack loaded, he has chosen the rocks wisely: they fit easily in the palm, they’re neither too heavy nor too light, and they appear hard enough, unlikely to crumble. They wrap a sheet around each rock, two rubber bands per rock, and split the rocks between their two backpacks. They lock the house and leave on their bikes.

They arrive at their first target, stopping by their mosque, square and squat in the tarmacked parking lot, its green dome dazzling in the midmorning sun. Diagonally across from it, at the far end of the block, is the church, hunched in the shadow of oak trees on its small rectangle of a lawn, only its steeple rising above the foliage.