her eyes smiling

so hard

her mouth

is jealous.

So

Do you like it here?

asks Baba

and Owais

answers an

I guess so

but not before

he tucks

a smile

inside his cheek,

making all of us

smile

smile

smile.

Windy Day

My father

sometimes reads people

well,

but he reads the wind

very well.

On windy days,

when the trees dance,

my father calls us

and we watch

his kite

unfurl on a long

long

long

piece of thread

until it kisses the sky.

And even though

the trees here are taller,

the houses too,

my father makes the kite

dance easily in the wind.

Trim little circles,

zigzags

too.

In those moments,

when I dive into

my blue cocoon,

soar through the water,

I become the kite—

free.

Author’s Note

Although this story is fictional, I drew on my experiences from when I moved from Abu Dhabi, the United Arab Emirates, to Peachtree City, Georgia. Like Nurah, I joined a team—not swimming, but a tennis team, and found those experiences shaped and challenged me. I barely made the team, but got much better with consistent practice. Full disclosure—like Owais, my three brothers excelled at the sport much more than I did!

Like Nurah’s, my grandmother, who was highly educated, struggled with Alzheimer’s and did not remember my name anymore. I still remember the numb sadness I felt watching her decline, and tried to show it through Nurah’s eyes.

Like Nurah’s father, my father followed the school bus to our school on our first day of high school to make sure we reached it safely. I rode a bus where the bus monitor was missing an arm and was picked on by some students. I remember the horror I felt. I remember wishing I could say something to help. Alas, I did not my find my voice, but my eldest brother did. The day the students teased the monitor asking if he wore a wedding ring was the day my eldest brother broke his silence and yelled at the other students to SHUT UP. I remember feeling elation mixed with fear. I worried that we would become easy targets the next day, but amazingly the students stopped picking on the bus monitor. To this day, I think saying something, anything, to help someone who is being picked on mercilessly is better than just sitting there and being a silent witness.

I was a senior in high school the year the September 11 tragedy occurred. Unbeknownst to us, an officer from Homeland Security stopped by to interrogate my father. Luckily, my father was eventually left alone, but that is not the case for others. Unfortunately, there are criminals who commit terrorist attacks citing Islam, a religion of peace, as a reason. For Muslim students, it can be mortifying to go to school the day after a terrorist attack has been committed by someone touting Islam. The day after September 11, I was not picked on, but one of my best friends, who was born and raised in the United States, who also wore a hijab, was picked on and told to go back to her country. Owais’s line in my story “I’m not a fighter” was inspired by my cousin who said this courageous line when he was picked on by high school bullies in the locker room.