The Next New Syrian Girl by Ream Shukairy

Author:Ream Shukairy [SHUKAIRY, REAM]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Published: 2023-03-14T00:00:00+00:00

24

Leene

I’m doing English homework in my room when my phone dings with a text from Khadija.

Come upstairs!

Khadija doesn’t usually text me, so that could only mean one thing. I go upstairs to the ground floor to search for her. She’s not in the kitchen and not in the living room. I check everywhere.

I’m about to text her back when she calls my name. I follow the sound to the stairs. She’s looking down from the railing.

“Come up,” she calls.

I walk to the first stair and pause, staring at the step that feels like a looming wall of separation. I stand on the side where strangers are allowed—beyond this step is for family and the closest friends. I’ve seen Nassima pass over this stair a dozen times without a second thought. Once I pass it, I’m in new territory. As I step onto it, I’m underwhelmed when the barrier vanishes.

I skip up the steps two by two. Following the sound of French music, I make my way to her room.

“Welcome, welcome,” she says as I step in.

I almost fall back from glancing around her room. This is not how American girls’ rooms look like in the movies. In the ones I’ve watched, the girls either have makeup and pink stuff everywhere or comic books and scary-looking band posters on the walls.

To think that I called her American in my head when her bedroom is a shrine to Syria. She listens to foreign music and dreams of going to faraway places with Nassima.

“You can close the door and take off your hijab,” she says. I do this, fluff up my hijab hair, and look around, but there’s nowhere to sit other than at her desk. Khadija, sporting two short French braids, is sprawled on her bed with her homework fanned out around her. She glances up at me like it’s normal for me to be in here. “Oh, come sit by me.”

I walk over and sit on the comforter, careful not to disrupt too much. She hands me her phone.

I read the email slowly. I’m not the fastest reader in English and my vision blurs, but I get to the end eventually. For a long while after, even when the screen turns off, I stare.

“So that means they don’t know if Mustafa is still there,” I rasp. “It means they can’t help us.”

Khadija frowns. “Their email isn’t really helpful. They basically just said that they have unreliable records, and we’d have to find him ourselves. We won’t know for sure unless we go.”

My eyes sting with tears. Ever since I saw the photo, I have thought of Mustafa at this orphanage just waiting for me to get him back. But what if there’s a chance that he was just passing through? What if I go all the way there and don’t find him?

“But not to worry because I have a plan,” she says, giving my shoulder a shake. “You know my mom thinks I want to go on a summer trip with Nassima, right? She already knows that I want to go abroad, and I’m on my way to convincing her.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.