Amal Unbound(2)

“How’s your mom?” Hafsa asked. “My mother said her back is hurting.”

“It’s gotten worse,” I told her. “She couldn’t get out of bed yesterday.”

“My mother said that’s a good sign. Backaches mean a boy,” Hafsa said. “I know that would make your parents happy.”

“It would be fun to have a brother,” I said.

“There it is! Look at the door!” Hafsa said when we turned the bend toward our homes. She pointed to the building that had appeared next to our village mosque. A structure had never emerged quite like this before with no explanation. Two weeks ago, a concrete foundation had been poured onto the field where we played soccer. The next week, brick walls arose and windows appeared, and today there was a door—painted lime green!

“Any idea yet what it could be?” I asked her.

“Yes.” Hafsa grinned. If Hafsa could have it her way, she’d be permanently stationed by the crates of fruit at her family’s market, soaking up every bit of gossip. “Khan Sahib is building a factory.”

I rolled my eyes. Rumors and gossip were a part of life in our village. Some of the talk was ordinary, about the state of the crops or the weather, but often it centered on Khan Sahib, our village’s powerful landlord.

“Why would he build a factory here? He has plenty in Islamabad and Lahore,” Seema said. “What we need is a clinic. Look how much Amma’s back hurts. The doctor in town is good, but this village needs a proper clinic.”

“Do you really think Khan Sahib would put up anything to help us?” Hafsa scoffed.

“Maybe it’s not him building it,” I suggested.

“Look at the fancy green door! Who else has time and money to waste like that? You know I’m right.”

Any unexplainable situation was always pinned to Khan Sahib. He was the mysterious figure I’d heard of all my life but never seen. When I was younger, he loomed large and scary, like a character in a horror story.

“Sure! He’s the one who breathes fire when he talks, right?” I rolled my eyes.

“Didn’t he pick all the fruit off Naima’s guava tree?” Seema winked.

“I heard he’s why we’ve had no rain for months,” I continued.

“I don’t decide what I hear,” Hafsa huffed. “I just report it.”

“We’ll find out what it is soon enough.” I hooked my arm through Seema’s. “But in the meantime, let’s hope it’s a clinic.”

Hafsa’s house came first on our path, just past the post office. Then came mine. I saw it in the distance. Gray like the others surrounding it except for the roses my mother planted around its border just before I was born; they still bloomed each spring around this time, without fail. It’s why spring was my favorite time of year.

My friend Omar pedaled past us in his blue and khaki school uniform. He chimed his bell three times, our signal to meet. The stream. That’s the direction he was headed in.

“Oh no.” I looked in my book bag. “I left my exam in class.”

“Again?” Hafsa frowned.

“Tell Amma I won’t be long?” I asked Seema.

Seema hesitated. Our father would be home soon, but she knew Omar didn’t chime his bicycle bell three times unless it was important.

“Okay.” Seema nodded. “Hurry.”





Chapter 3





Omar waited for me by the narrow stream that sliced through the length of our village. This was one of our usual spots, the wooded area next to my father’s fields where our towering green stalks of sugarcane met the orange groves that dotted the landscape into the horizon. This area was far enough from the heart of the fields where our workers spent most of their time fertilizing the earth and keeping the groves and stalks trimmed and cared for, but even if they ventured to the edges, the shade trees here were thick and leafy, shielding us from view.

“I brought it!” he said when I approached and sat next to him on the fallen tree bridging the stream. He handed me a book with a burnt-orange cover.

I ran my hands over the raised lettering. The complete works of Hafiz. We had a small collection of books in our class, but it was no secret that the boys’ school had a much bigger library to choose from.

“So, what did you think?” I asked him. “Which one was your favorite poem?”

“Favorite?” He frowned.

“Omar!” I exclaimed. “You didn’t even read one poem?”

“I bring you what you like. Doesn’t mean I have to read it.”

“Yes, you do.” I poked him. “I need someone to talk about it with.”

“Fine,” he said, raising his hands in surrender. “I’ll read some after you’re done. That’s how good of a friend I am.”

Omar’s dark hair looked almost brown under the bright afternoon sun. Looking at him, it hit me yet again how unfair it was for God to give me a friend who understood me completely and create him as a boy.

“Amal, I know he’s your friend, but you’re not a little girl anymore,” my mother had lectured me a few months ago when I turned twelve. “You can’t spend so much time with him.”

“But he’s like our brother,” I had protested. “How can I not see him?”