One Small Miracle In Gaza

Past

The school day grinds on, and after a lunch of pita bread slathered with soft cheese and two slices of tomatoes, my stomach walls are still grinding against each other. We each had only one pita, and although we'd had falafel at my Khali Mossab's house the night before, I'd had nothing to eat for breakfast this morning. No matter: the hunger keeps me alert. It keeps me active. And I am no different than the other girls at this new school, I note: our pants hang too loose around our thighs, and our hijabs outline cheekbones which could do with a few extra layers of fat. The boys fare better, but that is how it should be, I know.

I haven't managed to make a single friend here today. I've noticed girls paired up, tittering to one another behind cupped hands. I feel jealous of them, afraid even. If I went up to a pair, what would happen to me?

Right before the end of Qur'an class, a boy comes up to me and spits on my forehead. My hands tremble. Color rises in my cheeks. It is happening.

"Traitor pig," he hisses.

At my old school, I would have kneed him right away, straight in the groin, but even though the teacher's back is turned and at least four other kids have seen it, I don't dare: the bearded man is still fresh in my memory, his gun flailing in the air. And what would that man do if he knew about me?

So I stand silent in front of the boy who is almost half a head taller and staring down at me and breathing cheese breath into my face. I wipe the spit from my forehead, stare him in the eyes, then spit hard at his feet.

But just before he can lift his fist to punch me, plump and unusually cheery Khalti Ameena appears behind him and puts her hands on his shoulders. "Now, now, children," she says. "Let's not fight." And she steers him away.

But the insult, more than the coolness of the spit on my forehead, still stings.

Not perhaps, but definitely, that is why they hate me.

Not perhaps, but definitely, that is why I have not made a single friend.

They know.

Khali Mossab was wrong: even here they know.

I stand stock still in the milieu of students, watching as Khalti Ameena steers the boy down the hall. I register his long black curls, his Qatar Foundation Jersey.

Amir. And I will not forget.