Marya Khan and the Fabulous Jasmine Garden (Marya Khan #2) by Saadia Faruqi

Author:Saadia Faruqi
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Abrams
Published: 2023-03-28T00:00:00+00:00

The next day was Friday. Hanna was absent, which meant Alexa and I sat at our square table all alone.

“Look what I made, Marya,” Alexa said, pointing to her chest. She was wearing a purple dress, and on her chest was a name tag. It said ALEXA, CO-CAPTAIN.

I stared at it. Where did she even get that? And who said we were captains? “Gardening is not a sport,” I told her.

She waved her hand like a queen. “It doesn’t matter.” She took out another name tag from her backpack and handed it to me. “Here’s yours.”

MARYA, CO-CAPTAIN. What nonsense. I put it on very, very slowly. “It looks weird,” I muttered.

Omar leaned toward our table. “That looks great!” he whispered. “I’m glad you two are the captains!”

I gave up and smiled because who was I kidding? Co-captain sounded even better than leader.

Alexa clapped her hands in delight. “Perfect! We look like twins.”

Miss Piccolo took attendance. Then she handed our garden plans back to us. I took mine and put it into my backpack. I didn’t care if Alexa and I were co-leaders or co-captains or whatever. My plan was the best one.

“Let’s make sure we’re all ready for our garden project on Monday!” Miss Piccolo said.

Alexa raised her arm very high. “Ooh, Miss! Marya and I got our name tags, see?”

“Yup,” I added. “We’re ready for Monday.”

Miss Piccolo raised her eyebrows. “You think having a name tag makes you ready to be a leader, Marya?”

I frowned, because what else did we need? I’d won the leader position. Okay, I had to share it with the most annoying girl on the planet, but I was ignoring that part. This was going to be a piece of cake. That garden was going to be fabulous, just like my plan.

Shaking her head, Miss Piccolo wrote Leader Responsibilities on the board. Then she added:

“This sounds complicated,” I protested. I wasn’t even sure this list was correct. Being a leader was more about giving orders, like everyone in my house did.

Alexa patted my hand. “My gardener says learning about plants is the most important thing. You don’t want to make mistakes.”

“What kind of mistakes?” Omar asked.

Alexa chewed her lip. “I’m not really sure,” she replied. “He’s really good at his job, so he doesn’t really make any mistakes.”

“Maybe you should ask him,” I said jokingly. It was still strange to me that the Rhodes family had a gardener. In my family, it was Dadi who watered all the plants in our backyard. There weren’t many, and sometimes I helped her.

Alexa smiled at me. “Good idea,” she said. “I’ll get back to you next week, Co-captain!”

Ugh.

“Attention, students!” Miss Piccolo exclaimed. Then she started talking about how plants needed sunlight to make food.

I stood alone at dismissal, missing Hanna very much. Everyone was talking and laughing. I fiddled with my name tag, looking around.

When Mama arrived, the most terrible thing happened. The teacher calling out names shouted: “MARYA KHAN! SALMAN KHAN!” Then I almost fainted because she screamed, “ALEXA RHODES!” right afterward.

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