Farah Rocks Florida Read online

  Mr. Delacroix laughs and says, “It takes time, Fay.” I don’t tell him she has been in the United States for longer than I have been alive. I really do like his accent, like a whisper that floats in the air after the word.

  “How’s your brother?” he asks me politely. I suddenly realize everyone at Grand Bums, as Sitti calls it, must know why I have come here.

  I tell him that Samir is having a bunch of tests and probably surgery soon.

  “I hope he will be all right. I’m sure he will be,” and he says it so confidently that I believe him. “Also,” he adds, leaning toward me, “sorry about the reception you got from Dr. Fisher.”

  “He was actually on the plane with me too.” I swallow my food then confess, “I accidentally dumped a cold soda on his lap.”

  Mr. Delacroix starts laughing so hard that I’m afraid the rice is going to shoot out of his nose. (That’s possible, just so you know—I saw it happen to Samir once.) When he stops laughing, he says, “I wondered what had happened to his pants! I thought… well, you know.” He laughed again. “He is a strange man. Cranky. Always has been.”

  “He’s pretty old,” I say, which makes Mr. Delacroix grin again. “What kind of doctor is he?”

  “Something to do with environmental science.” Mr. Delacroix shrugs. “We all avoid him, mostly because…” He pauses, then looks at me uncertainly.

  “What? Why?” I put my hands together like a prayer. “Please tell me!”

  “Nothing. He’s just unusual.”

  “Unusual how?” I’m not letting it drop.

  His voice gets really low. “Once I went into his condo because he had a large package delivered, and he was away for a trip. And in there, I found…”

  “What?”

  “Well, maybe I shouldn’t say…”

  “Holy hummus, what?”

  “Skulls. Skulls, everywhere.”

  Chapter 6

  Later that afternoon, I actually fall asleep on one of Sitti’s couches, because I ate more than I usually do in a week.

  I hear someone call my name, then Sitti nudges me awake. She hands me her cell phone, saying, “Your mother.”

  “Mama!” I say excitedly into the phone.

  “How was your flight?” she asks.

  I tell her all about Uniform Lady and Blue Hat and Dr. Fisher, who ended up being Sitti’s grouchy neighbor. I don’t mention the stuff about the skulls. (I thought Mr. Delacroix had been joking with me earlier, but he promised, before he left, that he was standardized-test serious.)

  “How’s Samir?” I ask.

  She tells me that they know what is wrong with his heart. “It’s called a ventricular septal defect, or VSD,” she explains. It’s like an opening in the tissues between the chambers of his heart. “So his heart has to work harder, and this is why it can be dangerous. He’s actually had this for a long time, Farah. It was supposed to close up by now, but it has not.”

  “So… it’s like… a hole in his heart?”

  “Basically, yes.” I hear her swallow loudly on the other end. When I hear that deep gulp and then her shaky breath, I feel my own throat tighten up.

  “Can they fix it?” I manage to ask, but before I finish the question, I know it is silly. As if you can sew up a hole in someone’s heart like Mama sews up the knees of Samir’s pants. Or pack the hole full of Play-Doh like I did once when I pulled a nail out of my bedroom wall and it left a big gash.

  “He will need surgery,” she says quietly.

  My stomach clenches up, and I hope I am not about to hurl all the magloubeh I just ate.

  “Farah?” she says. “They do these surgeries all the time, habibti. They will take care of him. I don’t want you to worry.”

  I say okay, because I know that she doesn’t need to worry about me too. I even stay quiet and don’t get mad when she says it looks like I will need to stay in Florida for a few weeks for sure. And I promise her I will listen to Sitti and work on my schoolwork and be on my best behavior. She promises to call me every day.

  Then I hang up the phone and lie down on the couch again, resting my palm on my chest until I can feel the beat, right in the center. I focus on the rhythm, steady and strong, and I wonder what it must feel like to have a hole in your heart.

  On Saturday mornings, the residents at Grand Bums eat breakfast together. Sitti says she doesn’t usually go, but Mr. Delacroix knocks on her door and insists she come down. “So your granddaughter can meet everyone,” he says.

  “I do food here,” she mumbles, pulling her veil forward on her forehead. It keeps slipping down all the time.

  “No, no! Fay, you need to come and hang out with everyone else,” he insists and points his finger at me. “Come on, young lady. They’re all dying to meet you.”

  I have been checking the emails from my teachers and thinking about the Rock Stars fair, trying to form an idea. My brain hurts, and I’m ready to get out of the condo.

  Everywhere I look, the dining hall is decorated with flowers. Every table has a vase of flowers, and the wallpaper is covered in yellow daisies. The curtains on the big window also have flowers on the borders. Someone went crazy in here with the flower decorations, the way Sitti did with her embroidery in her condo.

  People are clustered around the tables. A group of them beckon Sitti over. She shuffles toward them in her long dress. I recognize Mitch and Agatha, and I introduce myself to several others.

  Sitti reaches into the front of her dress and pulls out a plastic card. “Use this to go and buy something to eat,” she says to me in Arabic. She points to the food counter that is in the other room.

  “Can I get a soda?” I ask.

  She nods, but only because I don’t think she knows what soda means.

  Just as I am about to clap in glee, Mitch says, “At nine a.m.? Fay, is that a good idea?” When Sitti doesn’t answer, he looks at me and waggles his finger. “Shouldn’t have sugar so early, young lady. Now get something healthy and come tell us all about yourself.”

  I smile politely, even though I want to throw a thunderbolt like Zeus. At the buffet line, I fill a plate with scrambled eggs and two pancakes. There are glasses of orange juice, so I place one on my tray. Everyone is friendly—the servers, the cashier, even the cook comes out from behind the window to say hi to “Fay’s granddaughter, from out of state.”

  “Your grandmother doesn’t talk much, but she is a sweet lady,” the cook says. He is tall and thinner than a spaghetti noodle, with a short, red beard. When he smiles, his grin fills up the whole bottom half of his face.

  “Thank you!” I say awkwardly, as if I somehow made Sitti the way she is.

  “My name’s Bill McCallum, but you can call me Cal,” he says.

  I think it’s pretty neat how most people here get their name shortened: Fay, Mitch, Cal. “Thanks, Mr. Cal,” I say. “I’m Farah—”

  A gruff voice comes from behind me. “Are you going to move, Minotaur, or just hold up the line?”

  Holy hummus.

  “Morning, Dr. Fisher,” says Cal, though I notice his voice becomes suddenly church-serious. “Did you meet Fay’s granddaugh—”

  “Yes, yes, unfortunately, I did.” He picks up a plate of bacon from the counter and moves past me. “I don’t have all day.” He walks up to the cashier, scans his card in the machine, and stalks away.

  “Don’t let him bother you, not one bit,” says Cal, but he still doesn’t bring back his amazing smile. “He’s just a mean old… err…”

  “Grouch?” I offer. “Crank? Meanie?”

  “All of those.” The cook shakes his head. “Well, you won’t see him much anyway. He spends all of his time back in the woods, near the pond, doing who-knows-what.”

  “He used to be nice,” says the cashier, a woman about the same age as my mom. “Before.”

  “
Before what?” I ask.

  But she won’t say. Instead, she wishes me a good day and serves the people in line behind me.

  “Farah, your grandmother tells us that you are quite the brilliant student,” says Mitch when I return to the table. “What grade are you in?”

  “I tell dem you smart,” Sitti says in her cute English.

  And in between bites of my scrambled eggs (which are the best I’ve ever had), I tell them all about the Magnet Academy, about my Official Best Friend, Allie Liu, about the writing club I started at school earlier this year, and about the upcoming Rock Stars fair.

  “What will you present at the fair?” Agatha asks me.

  I shrug. “No clue. I think someone else is already doing something about erosion. Another team is doing something on lava rocks, which would have been cool.”

  Sitti pokes me in the arm, and I know she wants me to translate for her, but I’m honestly not sure how to say lava rocks in Arabic. Looking annoyed because I am stumbling over my Arabic words, she gets up and comes back with a cup of tea. She reaches into the front of her thobe again and pulls out a Ziploc bag with peppermint leaves in it. She pulls out two long leaves and drops them into her paper teacup, then returns the bag to her dress.

  Holy hummus.

  I am embarrassed and look around at everyone else, but they don’t seem to notice that my grandmother is pulling actual food out of her clothes.

  “Well, maybe you will think of something while you’re here,” says Mitch kindly. “Everyone here would be happy to help.” He frowns as Dr. Fisher walks by our table, dumps his tray into the trash can, and walks outside. “Well, maybe not everyone.”

  Chapter 7

  One day, Sitti wakes me early to go to the chapel. There is no church close by where they speak Arabic, she says, so the chapel is good enough. We get dressed and walk to the Grand Bums clubhouse. It has three main sections: the chapel, a gym, and a pool. I imagine people getting up from praying and then diving into a pool, which makes me snicker until Sitti shushes me.

  “Be respectful,” she says in Arabic.

  We push open the wooden door and enter the quiet space. Three rows of pews line both sides. On a long table at the front, candles sit in a large bowl of sand. The wax drips like tears down the slim candlesticks.

  We walk to the front, and Sitti picks up a candle. “Let’s light one for Samir,” she says.

  Tears rush up into my eyes like a hot wave, and I blink really hard so they don’t run down my cheeks. I’m nightmare-scared about doctors operating on my brother’s tiny heart.

  But I light the candle without saying a thing, and then Sitti takes my hand and pulls me, like she did at the airport, to a pew. Sitti has a rosary, and she says a prayer in Arabic for every bead. When she finishes the prayer, she grips the next bead between her thumb and index finger and repeats it. There is something about her voice, about the repetition, that makes me feel quiet inside. I decide that I like the peace of it all.

  Half an hour later, we leave and go back to her condo. I sit down and look through my homework again. I’m working on a worksheet about square roots when I hear a phone ring.

  I look around but don’t see the phone. Then I notice Sitti reaching inside her dress.

  Yes. She does it.

  She pulls a cell phone out of her clothes.

  One day, I think, she is going to be like a magician and pull a rabbit out of there.

  “Yes?” she says as she answers, then she launches into a stream of Arabic: “How are you? Good to hear your voice. Yes, thank goodness, I am fine. Yes, she is staying with me for a while. Who told you that? Oh, how is she doing…?”

  I finish my square roots sheet. Because she is still talking, I snuggle up on the couch, hugging a big embroidered pillow to my chest. There is a small basket behind the pillow, and I take it out. Inside, there is a square of black fabric and several small balls of thread, with needles stuck in them as if they’re pincushions.

  I open the square and see the outline of a bird.

  “It’s a bulbul,” Sitti says, as she closes her cell phone.

  I like the way it sounds: bulbul, like a little poem. She explains to me that it’s a songbird back home in Palestine.

  “It’s the same bird as on the blanket on the bed,” I tell her.

  “It’s our village symbol,” she says but then smiles when I look confused.

  “Did you ever look at my thobes closely?” she asks.

  I look carefully at the one she wears today. It’s made of green fabric with yellow embroidery, and there it is, a bulbul, embroidered along the sleeves and the hemline.

  “Every village back home has a symbol we use in our tatreez,” she explains. “Tatreez is part of our culture.” She points to her dress. “Some villages have certain flowers, like roses or lilies, or specific birds, or religious symbols.” She plucks the fabric square from my hand and threads a needle as she explains. “Anyone who sees me can tell which village I am from just by the designs on my dress.”

  “It’s like a…” I struggle to find the word. Then it pops into my head. “Like a code,” I tell her, and she nods thoughtfully, like it makes sense.

  She finds an extra square of fabric in her basket. “Come on,” she says. “I will teach you tatreez, just like I learned when I was your age.”

  At first, I’m excited, but then five minutes later, I realize something: Tatreez is hard.

  It takes me forever just to learn how to thread the needle. I close one eye to do it, but still stick my finger at least three times.

  Something else: Tatreez requires math! I have to count the number of stitches I need to make and then make sure I have the space on the fabric to do so. The fabric is divided into little squared cells, and I have to calculate how many squares I will need to match the design. Sitti can do these calculations super quickly in her head.

  When I stick my finger yet again, she makes a noise with her mouth, like she is hitting her tongue against the back of her teeth. She’s like a rattlesnake, I think, as she snatches the fabric from my hand.

  “Enough,” she says with a huff, folding it up. “We’ll try again tomorrow. Go make your bed, please. You forgot to do it this morning.”

  After I make my bed, I decide to walk around Grand Bums on my own. Sitti gives me a key to her condo and a paper map that she pulls out of a kitchen drawer.

  First I go to the recreation center. The gym is interesting, because it is filled with people, but nobody seems to be doing any exercise. One man stands on the treadmill, chatting with an old lady who is sitting and not biking on the stationary bicycle. Two other ladies are sitting on a floor mat, with their legs extended, but they are not bending, just talking and laughing.

  But then I see Dr. Fisher, over on the side. He is on the ground, doing push-ups, and holy hummus, he is really moving. Up and down, up and down. I am surprised by how strong he is for an old man. I remember what Mr. Delacroix told me about the skulls, and I move on before he finishes and sees me watching him.

  Next, I go outside and take the path I saw on the first day, strolling toward the pond. It’s filled with ducks, quacking like they are a music band. Mr. Delacroix drives by in the shuttle and pauses, calling to me from the window. “Hey, Farah! Go inside and get some old bread from the kitchen to feed them.”

  “Good idea!” I say, then hurry in and ask Cal. He looks like he is crying because his eyes are as red as his hair.

  “I’m okay… just chopping onions,” he reassures me with a smile, pointing to the neat piles of onions on his cutting board. “Ducks can’t eat bread—I save the vegetable scraps for them.” He hands me a small bag filled with shards of celery and carrot leaves and tells me to have fun.

  The first time I throw a small sliver of celery, a flock of ducks attacks it. A tall one with brown feathers snatches the morsel. The others, w
ho are hungry and now know there is food nearby, turn and—in one yellow and white wave—waddle toward me in a stampede! I back up, tossing scraps at them as fast as I can rip them out of the bag. After a few minutes, they calm down, maybe knowing there is enough food to go around. I calm down too, knowing I won’t be trampled by these feathered, quacking monsters.

  When my scraps are gone, I head down the path again, toward the tall palm trees and thick, mossy grass. I push through one area, scanning the ground for interesting rocks. My rock collection at home is pretty large. Luckily, Baba works at a quarry, so he always brings home interesting stones for me.

  I wonder if I can add something from this trip to my collection, although I will have to sneak them by Sitti Fayrouz. The other day, I found a grasshopper on the lawn and trapped him in a paper cup. I was going to bring him inside to try to draw him, but Sitti made me release him. “No bugs in the house!” she practically shrieked. “I have rules, and you have to follow them.”

  Doesn’t she know she has more rules than the whole United States government?

  Near a bush of wildflowers, I find some white stones that I don’t recognize. I put them in my pocket. Farther along, I find flat gray shards. But after looking at them closely, I realize they are just chunks of cement, so I put them back, disappointed. Even farther, I find one pretty pink stone with layers in it. I keep that too.

  And then, under a palm tree, I pick up a brown and red stone that looks oddly like a chunk of tree bark. I find more like it, and then I kneel down and start digging. The dirt is getting under my nails. I know Sitti will be annoyed, but I keep going because I have a hunch.

  And I’m right. About two inches down in the brown dirt, I find a whole cluster of these strange rocks.

  I pick one up and hold it up to the sunlight. It glistens with streaks of red and blue, as if little crystals are embedded in it. Even though Sitti will be mad, I stuff a few into my pockets.