Farah Rocks New Beginnings Page 3

  The Tree, I notice, writes his name in green on the locker he’s picked at the end of the hall.

  Even the cafeteria at Magnet is amazing. There are round tables set up all over the room, and there are more tables set up on an outdoor patio.

  “Get your food and sit anywhere,” Mr. Beaker calls out to us.

  My lunch bag was destroyed in the fire, so I get in the line to buy food. The line is long, but the cashier moves fast, ringing up everyone’s lunch and welcoming them to Magnet. She wears a purple velvet cap decorated with gold braids, and a button that says, We know what we are but know not what we may be.

  She sees me looking at it as she rings up my tray. “That’s a quote from William Shakespeare. I wear a different one every day. I’m Mrs. Salvatore, by the way,” she says, taking my money.

  “Farah Rocks.”

  “Welcome to Magnet, Farah Rocks.”

  Allie and I sit outside on the patio.

  “This place is amazing,” Allie says, opening her lunch box and looking around. “Our teacher juggles, we can eat lunch outside, and everyone seems really nice. Well, almost everyone.”

  I see the Tree sitting by himself on a ledge that rims the patio area. He eats a sandwich out of a small plastic bag and some pretzels out of another. I feel guilty for what I said about him this morning, but then shrug off the thought. He’d been rude to me since orientation day. If he wants to be alone, then he can be alone.

  Almost every single subject is fun. In science, Mr. Beaker takes us to a real laboratory, and we all put on white lab coats. And goggles—we each get our own pair. We pour, mix, and boil liquids. He takes one of his tennis balls and dips it in liquid nitrogen, then smashes it against the table.

  The only part of the day that doesn’t one-hundred-percent thrill me is Language Arts. The teacher, Ms. Toste, wears sweatpants, a sweatshirt, and running shoes. She rushes around the room, handing out books like they’re on fire. They are biographies of famous people because we’re going to be writing a book report, she explains.

  I get a book about Marie Curie, a famous scientist.

  “Finish reading, then we’ll learn how to summarize,” Ms. Toste says. “At the Magnet Academy, we read for information.”

  Then she picks up a plastic model of a brain from her desk. “When you read,” she continues, “you give your brain an amazing workout! Your brain loves to exercise.”

  And right there, she drops to the ground and does ten push-ups—with one hand.

  Holy hummus.

  We all stand up to watch. “Whoa!” whispers Enrique, who’s a star athlete. “She’s not even sweating.”

  When she finishes, Ms. Toste hops back up and punches the air in triumph. “I feel good!” she announces. “And that’s how my brain feels after reading.”

  I raise my hand then, and Ms. Toste consults her list. “You’re Farah… Hajjar?”

  “Just call her Farah Rocks,” offers Enrique helpfully. “Everyone does.”

  Before she can ask why, I get to my question: “I just wondered if we were going to write any stories or maybe poems in this class?”

  “Stories? Poems?” she asks, as if I’d asked if we’d be learning how to cook pasta. “We’ll do a little bit, yes.” She walks up to me. I wonder if she will order me to do ten push-ups. “But you know what’s a great story? The life of Marie Curie,” she says, picking up my book and showing it to the class.

  Then she tells us all to start reading.

  From across the room, June Jordan smiles at me and shrugs her shoulders.

  The Tree sneers—yes, sneers—at me.

  Chapter 8

  Baba joins us as we all drive to look at the new house. “Thirty-two L Street,” says Baba, reading from a paper as Mama drives. “That’s behind the funeral home.”

  “I don’t want to live near a funeral home!” I exclaim.

  Of course Samir, who’s been quietly playing with a “Good Behavior” sticker on his shirt, asks, “What’s that, Faw-wah?”

  “Nothing, habibi,” Mama tells him and glares at me in the rearview mirror. I know when her eyebrows shoot up like that it means I’d better, as Baba says, “zib my lib.”

  So I do. Even though I have a lot of questions. Like, why doesn’t our street have a proper name? Why would someone not give a street a full name? Did they run out of names or just get lazy?

  “I thought the house would be on Seacrest,” Mama mutters to Baba. “That’s what the lady told us, no?”

  “I guess she couldn’t get that house,” he replies.

  “I hate this stweet! I don’t like the lettah L!” Samir whines.

  Mama sighs. “I still cannot believe this is all happening.”

  Baba turns around and talks to us, but I can tell he’s really talking to Mama. “We are all safe,” he says firmly. “Like I keeb telling you, nothing else matters. If we have to live in a tent, it is okay, because we are healthy and safe.”

  I think it would be more fair if, for two months, my family gets a nice, pretty house on Seacrest, and I get to live in a tent. I can imagine the insurance lady just checking it off on her magic clipboard: “One leaky tent for a terrible person. Got it.”

  Mama turns right into a little development of townhouses behind the old train station. The houses are all much smaller than our house, and they all look the same: beige siding with brown doors. To me, they look like stained teeth.

  We pass J and K Streets and finally get to L Street, and Baba reads the numbers off the homes until we find number thirty-two. It looks like all the others, sitting in the center of a row of houses, which surround a green square of grass. In the center of the square is a small bed of flowers, a bench, and a soccer net.

  I sit up and pay attention, because there is someone kicking a soccer ball into that net. Someone with green hair.

  Holy hummus.

  I sink down below the level of the window.

  “Funny, Faw-wah,” says Samir, unclipping his seat belt and sliding down as well. “Hide and seek?”

  Mama parks and snaps at me: “Farah, khalas!” Enough.

  But I’m in too much shock to listen. My parents both get out of the car and walk up to the front door.

  Samir tugs on my arm. I peek out of the window and don’t see the Tree, so I unbuckle my seat belt and open the door. But when I step out onto the sidewalk, he’s right there in front of me.

  “Hello there, Farah Rocks,” he says, looking like he’s about to laugh.

  “Umm… hello,” I mumble. What is he doing here?

  “Who is this, Farah?” Baba asks. I can tell he is staring, as I knew he would, right at the Tree’s head.

  “I’m Bryan Najjarian,” he introduces himself to my parents, and he even shakes their hands like a grown-up. Suddenly, his hair is pushed out of the way. For the first time, I can see both of his eyes at once. “Farah is in my class at Magnet.”

  “Can I see that?” Samir asks, and the Tree hands him the soccer ball.

  “We can play later, if you like,” he offers. Samir starts bouncing up and down.

  “Yes, I remember you from the orientation,” Mama tells the Tree. I can tell she likes him because she assumes he’s smart. “Do you live here?”

  “Yes, at number forty-eight, across the quad, with my dad.”

  “Why? What happened to your house?” I ask.

  He glares at me for a second. “Nothing. That’s where I live.”

  “Oh,” I say. “Sorry.”

  “Bryan, ask your father if he’d like to come by our blace later, when he gets home from work,” Baba says.

  “Oh, he’s already home,” says the Tree. “He… uh… works a night shift, so he sleeps in the afternoon. So maybe later this week.”

  My parents wave goodbye, and he walks away, bouncing the ball on his knee. As Mama unlocks
the front door, she says it would be nice to meet the neighbors, like the Tree’s father.

  “Yes,” says Baba, laughing. Then he winks at me. “Maybe his hair is burble!”

  I crack up laughing when he says that. But as we walk in through the front door, the laughter dies in my throat.

  Chapter 9

  There is beige everywhere. Everything—the walls, the floors, the wood trim around the windows, the kitchen counter, the refrigerator—is beige. I open the kitchen cabinets, and the shelves inside are beige. I peek into the small bathroom, and the floors, the sink, and yes, the toilet, are beige.

  Our house on Hollow Woods Lane had been filled with color, every room a different tone. Our dining room was red, our TV room was blue, our kitchen was yellow. Now I am in the beige underworld.

  It is smaller than our real house, if that is even possible. There isn’t even room for a table in the kitchen. The dining room has a small table in the corner. It’s attached to the wall, with one leg holding up the other end. The table is made of beige plastic.

  The living room has a small beige sofa and a big, soft beige chair. There is a small coffee table and curtains covering the back window of the house. All beige.

  Samir and I run upstairs. There are three bedrooms with small beds, beige blankets and sheets, and small nightstands with beige lamps. Samir seems excited and picks the room in the middle. I put my backpack down on the bed in the back room, the smallest one.

  I see Baba reach out and rub Mama’s shoulder and say, “It’s okay.” And she nods and answers, “Yes, of course,” like she is trying to convince herself.

  I deserve a closet instead of a room, I tell myself. I should probably volunteer to sleep on the roof.

  The thing is, I know I have to tell my parents the truth. I wrote a story yesterday in which the girl who started a fire confessed everything. But it’s easier to write a story about that than to actually do it in real life.

  Baba and Mama make three trips to bring the few boxes of things we saved from the fire. In one box, Samir and I find four plastic pumpkins, which we always put outside of our house in the fall. We arrange them now on the front step of this new house. I’m standing on the sidewalk, making sure they are lined up in the right order, biggest to smallest, when I hear a thwack. It’s the Tree, practicing his soccer kicks in the middle of the quad.

  He looks up and catches my eye, and we stare at each other. Nearby, I see some kids riding around on their bikes, shouting and yelling. The Tree sees them, takes his soccer ball, and goes inside his house.

  Later that night, Mama attempts to cook in our new kitchen using some pots she borrowed from Mrs. Liu. Somehow, while we put away clothes and hang some pictures, Mama is able to whip up a pot of lentil soup and a tray of chicken and potatoes.

  “Need some help?” I ask her, walking into the kitchen. I realize that there isn’t really enough room for both of us. If Baba wanted to come in, one of us would have to leave.

  “No, I’m almost done,” Mama says, adjusting the temperature on the oven. “Did you put your clothes away?”

  “Yep.”

  “You should have five sets of clothes for school,” she says. “I think the church is doing a drive for us, so we might have more next week.”

  “A drive?”

  “Yes, I told Father Alexander that most of our clothes were ruined. He said he would ask people to donate some.”

  “I don’t want someone’s used clothes!” I protest, feeling like the Tree just kicked his soccer ball right into my guts.

  “Why not?” she asks, looking surprised. “People want to help.”

  “I’m not wearing used clothes,” I say again.

  “Farah, habibti,” she says, pausing to lean against the counter and stare at me. “When your father and I were growing up, we were happy to have anything that didn’t have holes in it. I think you should be more grateful.”

  My heart hammers so hard that I wonder how my chest doesn’t explode.

  Mama pulls me into a hug. “Oh, habibti. I know this is all very upsetting for you. I promise you that soon we will be back home. Everything will go back to normal.”

  I feel even worse. My stomach hurts more than ever, because it’s my fault we’re here in the first place. I need to say something, but I’m scared of how disappointed they’ll be.

  After dinner, I go to my new temporary room and start writing in the red notebook Mama gave me. I decide I need a diary. I have to express how I feel before I burst.

  Downstairs the phone rings, and I hear Baba’s voice. He sounds anxious. Tucking my notebook under my arm, I sneak to the top of the steps and listen.

  “Yes, of course. I’ll ask my wife,” I hear him saying. “I just don’t understand.”

  When he hangs up, he tells Mama, “They figured out the fire. It started in the trash can!”

  “What?” she says. “The trash can? How can a fire start in a trash can?”

  “It’s so strange,” he says. “I was at work already, so you were the last one there. Were you cooking before you left?”

  “Abdallah!” Now Mama’s voice rises. “Are you blaming me?”

  “I’m just trying to understand how a fire started in my home, in a trash can in our kitchen, with my children in the house. That’s all!”

  I creep back to my beige room and shut my beige door.

  My name is Farah Hajjar, I write, and I definitely do not rock.

  Chapter 10

  One evening after dinner, the doorbell rings. Thinking it’s the Lius, I rush to the front door and yank it open.

  There’s a man on our front step who looks almost like my father but shorter. He has black, curly hair and thick eyebrows that look like hairy worms across his forehead. He has a big, happy smile on his face and speaks English with an accent, just like Baba.

  “Hello! Hello, little girl,” he says, bending down to wave a hand in my face. It sounds like “leetle.”

  “Hello,” I say. I keep the door half closed because I don’t know who he is. And then I see the Tree.

  “I am Mr. Najjarian. My son,” he says, pointing over his shoulder, “he goes to school with you, yes?”

  “Um, yes,” I say. By then, Baba is behind me, welcoming him in. They shake hands, and my mother insists he stay for a cup of coffee.

  “We just want to welcome you to our neighborhood,” Mr. Najjarian says. He’s actually very sweet, unlike his son. “Bryan says you will stay only a little time here?”

  Baba explains that our house burned down. I hurry to the kitchen to help Mama, because if I stay and listen, my stomach will hurt for the rest of the night. As she boils water for coffee, I put three tiny cups and saucers in a tray. (Arabic coffee is so strong that if you drank it in a big mug, Mama says you wouldn’t sleep for a week.)

  “Thank God those were not ruined in the fire,” Mama says. “That’s my good set that I got as a wedding gift.” She shakes her head. “I’m trying to look at the positive side of all this.”

  Aaaaaand… hello, stomachache.

  I serve Mr. Najjarian first, because he’s the guest. He gets excited about the coffee. “This is how we drink coffee in my country,” he says.

  “You’re Armenian, yes?” Baba asks. “I could tell from your last name.”

  “Yes!” And you can tell Mr. Najjarian is happy because nobody ever knows where he’s from. They start talking about how our Palestinian and Armenian cultures have a lot in common.

  The Tree takes a seat on the floor because there are no more seats left. Samir and I sit on the floor too.

  “Hey,” says the Tree. Samir just stares at him, not saying a word.

  “Your face,” I tell the Tree.

  “What?” His giant mass of hair swivels toward me.

  “He can’t see your face. It bothers him,” I say.

 
“Oh.” The Tree pulls a rubber band out of his pocket. In one smooth move, he pulls his hair back into a green bun at the top of his head. Suddenly I can actually see his whole face. He has big, brown eyes and a tiny brown birthmark on his cheek.

  “How’s that, dude?” he asks Samir.

  It’s like someone turned on a light switch. “Wanna see my stickah?” Samir asks. He shows the Tree an emoji sticker on his shirt. “It’s from my teachah.”

  “Did you listen to her and do your work?” the Tree asks.

  “Yeah!” Samir points his thumb in toward his chest. “I listened weel good.”

  “Cool.” The Tree holds up his hand. “High five.”

  “What?” Samir sits up on his knees. “A what?”

  “Here.” He pulls Samir’s hand and spreads out his fingers, then smacks them with his own palm. “That’s like, ‘Awesome!’”

  “High five!” Samir squeals, excited, and demands that I give him a high five. Then he heads over to the adults. “Mama, high five!”

  “He’s cute,” says the Tree.

  “Yeah,” I say. I’m glad he was being good to Samir. My little brother is actually very smart, but sometimes older kids and grown-ups talk to him like he’s not. I’m relieved that the Tree is not like that.

  We both stare at the beige carpet. I wish the adults would finish their conversation. But now that they’re talking about how the fruits and vegetables taste so much better “back home.” We’ll be here for a while.

  “Did you hear anything about the clubs we have to join?” I ask the Tree.

  “The fair is tomorrow.” He cracks his knuckles. “I’m signing up for robotics and engineering.”

  “Cool.”

  “You?” he asks.

  “No idea. I wonder if they have anything about creative writing,” I say.

  “Creative writing?”

  “Yeah, like a club where we can write stories and poems and stuff.”