Farah Rocks New Beginnings Read online

  “They don’t know,” Mama replies. She’s not eating her food, just moving the rice and chicken around on her plate. “Something in the kitchen. They don’t think it was electrical. I’m just…”

  We all stop and stare at her. Her face looks like she’s just awakened from a nightmare, and her usually thick hair, damp from the shower, clings to the side of her face. …I’m just in shock!” she finishes.

  I wonder if that’s the feeling I had earlier, while lying on Allie’s bed—that scared feeling when I couldn’t get my heart to beat normally.

  Shock. What an excellent word.

  “It’s a puzzle,” Mama says. “It started in the back corner of the kitchen, but how?”

  “Are any appliances there?” asks Mrs. Liu.

  “Nothing’s there—just the trash can.”

  A thought starts swimming around like a mermaid in my brain, trying to break through the water. I can’t quite understand what I’m supposed to remember, or do, or say.

  “The children are safe,” Baba says, “and we are safe. Nothing else matters.”

  The Lius nod their agreement.

  Samir comes in with his empty plate just then. “Yummy!” he tells Mrs. Liu. “Thank you!”

  “You’re welcome. By the way, Samir,” she says, “is it true that today is your birthday?”

  “Yeah!” he says. “I’m six!”

  Mama grins. “Samir,” she says, “nothing—not even a house fire—could make us forget your birthday, habibi.” She winks at Baba. “Abdallah, go get it.”

  “I’ll be right back,” Baba says grandly and stands up. “Don’t go anywhere, habibi.”

  A minute later, he comes back with a cake from the bakery, decorated with white icing and blue writing that says, Happy 6th Birthday, Samir!

  My brother shrieks in delight.

  Mrs. Liu lights a candle, and we all sing “Happy Birthday.” I sing it again, in Arabic, with my parents, and then the Lius surprise us and break into Mandarin, singing, “Zhù ni shengrì kuàilè.”

  “Make a wish!” we urge him. Samir screws his eyes shut and then blows out the candle.

  While Mama cuts the cake, I notice Mr. Liu take the candle and the matchstick to the sink and run water on them before tossing them in the trash can.

  And the mermaid in my mind breaks through the surface.

  Chapter 4

  At Sunday mass, Father Alexander makes a big speech about our house and how the parish will pray for us.

  In the pew between my parents, I feel sick, like I’ve swallowed a rock. Here’s the truth, I think. I started a fire and ruined our house.

  During coffee hour, several people stop by to ask us what we need. They’re all pretty nice, except I really don’t want Mrs. Hassan’s granddaughter’s old dresser or Mr. Diwan’s daughter’s old winter coat.

  Mama goes to the snack table to get Samir some milk and returns looking annoyed. Baba touches her elbow, his secret way of asking what’s wrong. She tilts her head toward the coffee line, where Mrs. Khoury stands.

  You can see Mrs. Khoury’s lipstick from the next zip code. She also always wears brightly colored dresses with heels so high that I worry about her safety when she hobbles up to get Communion.

  Her daughter Lana is there too. Her clothes are so expensive that I’m sure her coat costs more than Mama’s old car. She’s also super mean. Over the summer, Lana stole flyers I’d posted all over Harbortown to promote my tutoring business.

  “What’s wrong?” Baba asks Mama.

  “She’s heading over here,” Mama whispers.

  Sure enough, Mrs. Khoury and Lana walk over to us, both smelling of heavy perfume that makes me want to sneeze.

  As Mrs. Khoury talks to my parents, making tsk-ing noises as she asks about the fire, Lana looks at me and says, “Well, you never had nice clothes to begin with. It may not be a bad thing that they all burned.”

  Later that day, the insurance agent meets my parents and me at Hollow Woods Lane to see if anything can be saved. Samir stays with the Lius but begs me to find his Tommy Turtle sneakers. My stomach aches, because I know they’re ruined.

  “No family movie night tonight,” Baba says in the car, “but Samir will understand.”

  I wonder if Baba will understand when he finds out that it was my fault the fire started. We stayed at the Lius’ house last night, but I barely slept. I woke up and used the light coming from the hallway to write a little story. In my story, a girl plays outside while her house burns behind her. It’s not fiction. It’s an autobiography.

  As we drive up to our house, I notice the front door has been boarded up with a brown wooden plank, like someone taped a giant Band-Aid over our home. “I got scared,” Baba explains. “I saw fire and thought you were inside. I couldn’t get my key in the lock, so I just kicked it open.”

  “Well, we can get that new door now, right?” I joke, but no one laughs.

  We wear white masks on our faces to cover our noses and mouths when we enter. Our living room and kitchen look like a black-and-white movie, everything covered with soot and ash. I feel like Persephone arriving in the underworld after being kidnapped by Hades.

  Mama looks like she’s about to cry. If she does, I think, I will probably also sob like a baby.

  Baba hugs Mama. “We are safe. Remember what’s important.”

  The insurance lady wears a white cap with the name of the company on it. She says she’s sorry for our misfortune, but adds, “We’ll get it sorted out.”

  Handing us each black trash bags, she tells us to take anything that can be saved. Mama and Baba have already taken Mama’s jewelry box, a bunch of pictures, and Samir’s medicines.

  “If something is damaged,” the lady says, handing us each a clipboard, “write it down.”

  Then she tells us it’ll take three months to fix everything. My parents gasp, and my stomach hurts again.

  “The floors and walls are smoke-damaged, so they all need replacing. The kitchen and living room require a complete rebuild,” she explains. “So.” She checks a paper in her file. “We’re going to place you in a house, not a hotel, until it’s finished.”

  “Do you know yet how it started?” Mama asks.

  I look worriedly at the lady, but she shakes her head no. “That will take more time,” she says.

  I’m lying. I’m not saying anything that’s not true, but not saying anything at all is also a form of lying. I know that. But for now, I am relieved.

  As we go through the house with clipboards and trash bags, I find my rock collection. It’s mostly chunks that Baba brings home from the quarry, where he cuts stone. It’s what his father did too—that’s how we got the name Hajjar.

  The books on my shelf are ruined, like Baba said. But I dig under my mattress and find my book on rocks and minerals and my big book of Greek mythology. They’re both fine, even though my bed and pillows are gray with ash.

  Some of the clothes in my dresser are fine, although Mama says they’ll have to be taken to the dry cleaners just in case. The clothes hanging in my closet are covered in a thick layer of soot. The insurance lady tells us to just throw them out. “That residue is tough to remove,” she tells Mama. “Also, almost everything in your son’s room needs to be thrown out.”

  In the hallway, I see Samir’s Tommy Turtle sneakers sticking out of a box labeled Trash. It seems really unfair to me that I’m the only one whose favorite things were saved.

  I remove my mask, because a tear trickles down my nose, but the air is so dirty that I quickly put it back on.

  Chapter 5

  Back at the Lius, Samir seems actually excited that we’re moving to a new house.

  “It’s just for a short while,” Baba explains when he starts bouncing up and down.

  “But Faw-wah, that was my wish! A new house!” When I don’t rep
ly, he adds, “Wemembah my wish?”

  “Oh, when he blew out his candles the other night,” Allie says, laughing.

  Samir stops bouncing. I know he’s about to say something, like, “No, the wish I made yesterday when Faw-wah lit the candle for me and sang in her funny voice.”

  Just as I think of how to distract him, he shrieks and yells, “My toof!” The tooth that has bothered him all week sits in his palm. There is a gaping hole in his smile.

  Everyone makes a big deal about the tooth, which gives me a chance to sneak up to Allie’s room to think. I feel as guilty as a criminal.

  Allie finds me lying on her rug later and hands me a juice box. “It’s almost Tuesday,” she says.

  “What’s Tuesday?” A panic spreads through me.

  She stares at me. “We start school on Tuesday.”

  “Oh, right.” I sip my juice.

  “You know,” Allie says, “I heard my mom saying that your parents have okay insurance so you guys should be fine. It’s not going to… you know…”

  “Make us even more poor?”

  Allie sighs. “You’re not poor, Farah Rocks.”

  I know that we’re not sleeping-in-the-train-station poor. But my mom’s car makes a chugging noise every time she puts it in drive. And the soles on Baba’s work shoes are paper-thin. And what do I do to help out?

  I go and burn down the house.

  I feel so bad about the whole thing that I can’t stop thinking about it. There’s a story in Greek mythology about Cronus, who had a bad habit of eating his kids. When his wife had another baby, Zeus, she hid him and fed Cronus a rock disguised as a child. Well, it’s Iike I swallowed a rock too, except this one is getting bigger and bigger, weighing me down.

  The insurance woman is like a fairy godmother. She checks stuff off on her clipboard and it just happens. She tells us we will spend a few nights in a hotel until the rental house is ready. We thank the Lius and drive to the Harbortown Hotel.

  In the room, Mama pulls me aside and hands me a plastic bag. “You need these for school tomorrow.”

  “Thanks, Mama,” I say as I open the bag. There’s the calculator, pencils, a compass, folders, and notebooks.

  There’s something else: a small red notebook with a fabric cover and pockets on the inside.

  “Something special for you,” she whispers. “Maybe you can write down what you’re thinking while we’re dealing with… with everything.”

  I thank her, feeling more guilty than ever. The only time I can forget that feeling is when I’m writing stories about it. In my stories, the fire is happening to someone else, another girl, not to me. In my stories, the person who started the fire is a fictional girl, not Farah Hajjar.

  Samir and I share one of the queen-sized beds. I pull the blue sheets around us and snuggle him.

  “Why is evewyone so sad?” he whispers to me.

  “Nobody is sad,” I tell him, then change the subject. “Pretty soon, we’ll see our new house.”

  “Get some sleep, my darlings,” Mama mumbles from the next bed. Baba is already snoring.

  “Faw-wah, can you believe my wish came twue?” Samir whispers. “I have a secwet powah.”

  No, I think. You just have a terrible sister.

  Chapter 6

  Mama drops Allie and me off at the Magnet Academy on Tuesday. She parks in the drop-off line and gets out of the car. As I hoist my backpack over my shoulder, Mama leans down so close that I can smell her coconut shampoo. “Is it okay if I hug you?” she asks seriously.

  I look around. Kids are streaming from the parking lot to the front doors of the school.

  “I’m gonna say no,” I tell her honestly. “Sorry.”

  “No problem,” she says and sticks out her hand. “Is this okay?”

  We shake hands formally, like we just signed a business deal, and we both crack up. So does Allie.

  “I’m proud of you, Farah. You too, Allie,” Mama says, before driving away.

  There are black and red balloons lining the walkway up to the doors, and I feel excited and nervous all at once.

  Allie and I are in the same homeroom. The door of room twenty-two is decorated like a science experiment. There is a huge beaker made out of colored paper that covers the entire door except for the knob. Inside the beaker is a bubbly liquid. When we look closer, we see that the bubbles are actually tiny photographs of all the new students.

  “There we are!” says Allie, pointing to the center of the beaker. “Oh, and there’s that boy.”

  The Tree. Even in his official school picture, you can only see one eye poking out from behind his hair.

  “What is up with the green hair?” I say. “He looks so weird. I mean, who does that?”

  “Well, I have green hair because…,” says a voice from behind me.

  Holy hummus.

  I turn around, and the Tree pauses, shaking the curls out of his eyes. …I am original,” he says. Then he opens the door and enters room twenty-two, letting it slam behind him.

  “Rude,” I stammer. But I feel bad for calling him weird.

  As soon as we walk in, we see a man standing at the front of the room, wearing a red flannel shirt and jeans. He’s juggling three tennis balls in the air.

  “Hurry up! Everyone grab a seat!” he shouts at us. “Not sure how long I can keep this going.”

  The only two empty seats next to one another are in the back, right behind the Tree.

  “So! I’m Mr. Beaker,” says the man loudly. “When I toss you a ball, catch it, then tell me your name and one cool fact about yourself. Got it?”

  We all nod. The Tree’s curls bounce in front of me like the wind blowing through the leaves on a branch.

  “Good. GO!”

  Mr. Beaker stops juggling and, lightning quick, tosses a ball to a thin boy with glasses in the front row.

  “Ummm… should I stand?” the boy asks.

  “Sure!” replies Mr. Beaker.

  “Okay, well, I’m Rajesh Gupta,” says the boy, rising. “And… something cool? I speak Urdu and I read Latin.”

  “Awesome, Rajesh!” Mr. Beaker tosses the second ball to a tall girl in the third row, who has long, curly blond hair.

  “My name is Amanda Cook,” she says, speaking confidently, “and I actually love to cook!” Everyone laughs. “I make the best blueberry waffles ever,” she declares. Some kids clap for her, and someone hoots.

  “Next!” Mr. Beaker says, tossing the ball to Allie, who stands up too.

  “Allie Liu,” she says matter-of-factly. “I like to play chess.”

  As more and more kids get called, I try hard to think of a cool fact.

  Why don’t you mention how you just burned down your family’s house? says a little voice in my head. My stomach begins to ache.

  Then I hear a voice I recognize: “Winston Suarez.” I look up in surprise. Winston is a friend from my old school. I never even saw him in the room. Guess I’d been distracted by the Tree and the juggling.

  “I have severe allergies to thirty-two known substances,” he says as he stands up, “including peanuts, kiwi, and chickpeas.”

  “Glad to know that!” says Mr. Beaker, who then tosses the ball to a slender girl in denim overalls. She has thick black hair in long braids.

  “I’m June Jordan Williams,” she says quietly. “My mom named me after a famous poet.”

  “Good stuff! Look alive!” he calls out. Too late, I realize he’s talking to me.

  The tennis ball hits me right in the middle of my forehead. I have no time to block it because my arms are wrapped around my stomach. “Ooof!” I cry out.

  “You okay, young lady?” asks Mr. Beaker. “Sorry about that. By the end of the year, you’ll be catching all my pitches,” he promises. “Now.” He bounces the two balls he’s still holding an
d catches them. “Name?”

  “Farah Hajjar,” I say, standing up.

  “Cool fact?” he prompts me.

  “I like rocks,” I say.

  “Rocks? Hmm… okay!” Mr. Beaker tosses the ball to the next person, who actually catches it.

  “I mean, I collect them,” I say, but he’s already moved on.

  “Was my answer weird?” I whisper to Allie as I sit back down.

  Before she can answer, the Tree turns around and whispers, “Totally weird.”

  Chapter 7

  Later that morning, Mr. Beaker hands out sheets with our schedules. Right before dismissal, from 2:40 to 3:15, is something called Club Time.

  Mr. Beaker tells us that Magnet students must participate in one club every quarter. “Later this week, the older students will invite you to a Club Fair to show you the options.”

  How cool, I think, that clubs are part of our schoolwork here. Harbortown had some clubs, like drama or basketball, but they happened after school. I hope there’s a geology club or a story-writing club. Maybe a language club, where I can learn Chinese or Spanish.

  Mr. Beaker holds up fat colored markers and tells us to write our names across the top of our desks.

  I have never had a teacher ask me to write on my desk. I’m top-of-the-roller-coaster thrilled.

  He hands out markers like candy. “When you’re done, go find a locker you like, and write your name on that too.”

  I can’t believe we’re allowed to pick our own lockers. Allie and I pick ones next to each other, of course. Next to me, Rajesh draws a mini-solar system under his name on his locker. It takes him about a minute, but it’s perfect. There’s the sun, eight planets, and one dwarf planet. Earth even has little continents on its surface.

  “Cool!” I tell Rajesh, who offers to draw something for me tomorrow.

  Winston picks a locker down the hallway, close to the bathroom. I see Enrique LeBrand, another friend from Harbortown, and wave at him. He’s in the other class, and they are also picking lockers.