The Henna Wars(14)

“Welcome to the new school year,” Principal Murphy begins with a tight-lipped smile. My gaze strays toward Flávia, standing side by side with Chyna Quinn, and I wonder what exactly this new school year will have in store for us.





6

CHYNA QUINN WASN’T ALWAYS MY MORTAL ENEMY. IN fact, once upon a time, we were friends. Kind of.

On our first day of secondary school, as we all flitted into this new place with butterflies in our stomachs, Chyna and I found each other. Fate—or the school administration—had decided to stick our lockers next to each other.

As we both got down on our knees to jerk open our lockers, murmuring our combinations to ourselves under our breaths, our eyes met. We exchanged a nervous smile.

She was braver than me, unsurprisingly. She stuck out her hand and said, “I’m Chyna!” in the brightest voice I’d ever heard.

“Nishat.” And that was how I survived my first day in secondary school without my little sister. I was navigating an uncharted sea, but with Chyna by my side, all of it felt easier. We developed an easy friendship that was confined to school grounds, but it blossomed like any new friendship does.

The problem was that we didn’t really have much in common, other than a shared anxiety of being friendless in a new school environment where we didn’t know a soul.

Our school also suffers from lack-of-diversity syndrome, which basically means that in First Year I could count on both hands the number of people in our entire school who weren’t white. To be accepted by Chyna—beautiful, porcelain-skinned, blonde-haired, blue-eyed Chyna—felt like starting secondary school off on the right foot.

“So I got invited to Catherine McNamara’s birthday sleepover,” Chyna told me during our second week. It wasn’t surprising, considering she’s always been more outgoing than me, more talkative, more charming, more everything positive. “And she was really exclusive about who she was inviting.” Chyna looked smug about it, like tween party invites were akin to winning Oscars.

“Oh, cool,” I said, trying not to sound deflated but definitely, one hundred percent sounding deflated.

“She said I could bring a friend.”

“Oh, cool!”

She grinned and I grinned and I felt like we were going to be friends forever and exchange friendship bracelets and, if we added two more people to our gang, do a Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants thing. Even if I had to be the token person of color. I was down to be the token POC.

But of course good things don’t last for long, and friendships built on shaky foundations tend to fizzle out quite fast. So before we got to the stage where we were wearing friendship bracelets and exchanging magic pants, we were at Catherine McNamara’s birthday party together.

It was my first secondary school party and only my second sleepover, because Ammu and Abbu are way overprotective and slow to trust white people.

I was all nerves and texted Chyna at least fifteen times before the party started.

What are you wearing?

What should I wear?

What are you bringing?

Do you think my gift is boring?

Did you tell Catherine that you’re bringing me?

Are you sure it’s okay for me to come?

She only responded to about five of my texts, but I couldn’t really blame her for that.

Chyna was already at the front door when I arrived, ringing the bell and waving at Ammu while she backed out of the driveway with one eye on me the entire time.

“Hey,” Catherine said after flinging open the door. She was smiling at me tight-lipped, and I immediately knew the answer to half of my texts. Chyna hadn’t told Catherine she was bringing me. It wasn’t okay for me to come.

But I was there already, my hands full of bags, my Ammu already halfway home, and there was nothing I could do. So I swallowed my pride and stepped inside, mumbling a half-hearted, “happy birthday!” and thrusting a present into Catherine’s hands.

Chyna fit into the party like the final piece in a puzzle. I fit into the party like somebody really bad at puzzles had tried to super glue a piece in out of frustration.

For a while I hovered around the edges of the party, watching Chyna be the life of it.

I texted Priti, pretending that my phone was the most interesting thing to ever exist.

This party is awful, I want to leave!!!

Priti texted back, you have to stick it out, it’s your first party with those girls!! YOU’LL BE OKAY!

I squeezed in next to Chyna mid-conversation.

“Hi!” I tried to be bright and bubbly like I’d seen Chyna be with other people. On her, it was charming. On me? Pathetic, maybe. That’s what I gauged from the way everyone in that room looked at me, with smiles that didn’t reach their eyes.

“Oh, this is … Nishat.” Chyna was smiling the exact same sort of smile as the others. She waved a hand at me as if everybody couldn’t see me clearly. As if my brown skin didn’t set me apart like a question mark in a sea of full stops.

“Nesha, hi, I’m Paulie,” a girl with bright red hair said, sticking out her hand like we were middle-aged moms and not twelve-and thirteen-year-olds.

“Uh, hi. It’s Ni-shat.”

“Neesha.”

“Nishat.” I tried again.

A wrinkle appeared on her forehead, like pronouncing my name was a difficult math problem she couldn’t quite get right.