Love from A to Z(60)

“I spoke up, as you said, in the stupid teacher’s class, and then, yes, I took my frustration out by doodling a simple knife, BUT I WAS GOING TO ADD THE FORK, and then I got suspended for one week!” She walked ahead for a bit then paced back. “That’s why I’m here in Doha!”

Her voice was loud.

He looked around, wondering if the other visitors were getting as alarmed as he was. Luckily, the family nearby had exhibit headphones over their ears as they stood in front of a video on Islamic calligraphy through the ages.

“Whoa. Okay, do you want to sit on that bench over there to talk about it or even go to the café downstairs?”

She marched to the bench and took a seat. Then she stood up, agitated, wanting him to understand the depth of her predicament. “He got me suspended. Got my friend removed from student council and now just gave me a D for dishing up the same BS he teaches in class.”

Adam walked over to the bench and sat down at one end. He was confused about how to proceed.

Pragmatism, his old friend, poked him. Ah, yes.

He’d take it logically and find out why she was suspended. “So you got suspended for speaking up in class?”

“No, for drawing a knife.”

“Okay. Can I ask why you drew a knife?”

“To accompany the hashtag EatThemAlive, which is this movement to get racists removed from their jobs. Which we plan on doing to Fencer, my teacher.” She sat down at the other end of the bench. “STILL plan on doing to him. Get his racist ass fired.”

Adam blinked at the Marvels of Creation and Oddities of Existence display right across from them. “Because he hates on Muslims?”

“Yes, completely for that reason.” She lifted her phone and scrolled through it. “Like, look at this gross article he passed out in class just last week.”

Adam reached for it and drew a breath at the title. GIRL BURIED ALIVE IN HONOR KILLING.

He flicked through, reading slowly. When finished, he lowered the phone “Whoa.”

That irritated her, the “whoa,” the third one he’d muttered in the span of a few minutes.

It sounded too much like the reaction of her classmates to that buried-girl article.

She stared at him. Wait, what are his views on issues like these anyway?

Like, did he even have any of the same values she did?

“Could you stop saying ‘whoa’ like that? It’s kind of annoying.”

He looked at her. She found him annoying?

“WHY ARE YOU GUYS JUST SITTING HERE?” Hanna stalked over to them. “I went ahead to the ceramics room and thought you were behind me and almost went to the science room. But you guys are just taking a rest here?”

Zayneb turned to her. “Yeah, we are. Because we’re old. And your elders. Have a little respect, ’kay?”

Adam raised his eyebrows and took his hand out of his pocket. He wasn’t worried anymore.

He was getting tired.

And he wanted to get Hanna away from Zayneb. “Hanna, do you mind just waiting in the ceramics area? Zayneb’s kinda upset at something right now.”

Looking crestfallen, Hanna walked away, glancing back at Zayneb a few times.

“She’s got nothing to do with your teacher,” Adam said quietly.

Zayneb, guilt flowering within at the way Hanna looked back at her over and over, with a mixture of shock and shame, felt her anger quelling.

She was about justice. And this, what she’d just done to a little kid, wasn’t very just. “You’re right. I’ll apologize to her.”

Adam sat up. That was refreshing to hear. She’ll apologize to Hanna.

And she seemed to have calmed down. “Well, I’m sorry that you got suspended. That your teacher is a terrible person.”

He looked at her face and saw that it was true—she had calmed. A bit.

A frown knitted her brow, though. “I can’t sit still when things are wrong. I need to do something about it. Or I can’t rest.”

“Well, we are what we want.”

Now Zayneb tilted her head at him. (In his journal, he recorded this tilt as being “in disbelief.”) “What does that mean?” she asked.

“It means whatever we want in life is what defines our existence.”

“Okay, so what do you want?” It must be something super peaceful, chill, zen, Zayneb thought. If he was as good as he appeared.

“I want peace. I want to see it in the things around me, natural and not, but mostly natural. The marvels of creation.” He nodded at the manuscript displayed in front of them. “I want to examine how the wonders around me are connected, find peace through that. What about you? What do you want?”

He smiled encouragingly, and the frown she wore softened, because his smile was that open.

She also felt satisfied about being right about him. About his wants being so chill. Peace.

But the truth was there couldn’t be peace without—

She took a breath. “I want justice. And I want it now. For everyone.”

His smile grew as though he liked hearing that, and she, for the first time in a long while, had a sudden, beautiful thought: He likes me for the way I really am.

So she went on. “And sometimes I feel like I’m the only person who feels this want so strongly. Because I’m the only one in class speaking up. The only one in my family, that’s for sure, who cares this much. Who goes on marches and writes stuff and just gives a care.”