Broken With Betrayal

Chapter Two: Farah Umair

I look up at the windshield. The board of ‘Bright Future Academy’ smiles down upon me. “You don’t have to holler like that to tell me this,” I reply curtly but with a sense of humor in my tone as I shut my biology book that had been sitting in my lap during the whole drive.

“If you keep day-dreaming like that, then I will have to shout at the top of my lungs in order to bring you back to the world of reality, the world in which you, I and a billion other people live,” she says waving her hand in the air.

“Seven billion approximately,” I correct her, “and by the way, I wasn’t day-dreaming.”

“You weren’t studying biology, I can tell that!” Mariam continues with her claim.

“And how can you tell that? You don’t read people’s minds, do you?”

“No, but I do read people’s faces. When you’re studying biology, you have a discreet and grave look on your face. And when you’re cooking up some philosophy in that philosophical head of yours, you have a look that tells that you’re lost in a world far from this world. And that’s the look that you had all through the ride.”

So much for having an elder sister whose centre is to ‘read people’s faces’.

“Okay okay, I give up,’ I sigh, roll my eyes, then getting hold of my school bag, I open the door. Mariam starts laughing. “What now?” I ask, much irritated. Mariam simply shook her head. “Go on,” she said, “or you’ll be late for school.”

I roll my eyes again. “The next time Daddy has to leave early for office, I’ll make sure he arranges me a ride to school by some sensible person,” I say, then holding my biology book in my left hand and slinging my bag pack on my right shoulder I get out of the car. I feel a muscle in my cheek itch. No Farah, you’re not going to smile. Please no! You’re going to give the impression that you’re pretty serious. But before I can help it, I’m smiling just like Mariam. “AssalamuAlaykum,” I greet her then shut the door.

“Wa-Alikummussalam,” she rolls down the window and replies. “And yes, break a leg in this test of yours! The one that you were revising in the car,” she said and once more cracked up.

“Hmmph! You wait till I reach home,” I retort back but she’d already reversed the car. Mariam will never stop teasing me. Well, who would stop teasing the youngest kid in the house? I bet all elder siblings torment their younger siblings in that same way! But all the same, I enjoy these arguments I have with her. It’s a way of expressing one’s love and affection. After all, if she won’t argue with me, who else she’d argue with? That grumpy woman at the grocery store? The mere thought of this makes me smile. And with this gigantic smile plastered on my face, I start walking towards the school gate.

*******

My name is Farah Umair. I’m a Muslim, and an American. I was born in Washington DC, and that’s exactly where I’m living right now. My parents converted to Islam when they were quite young, met each other in some Islamic Ijtima, decided that they liked each other and got married. They have four children, one son and three daughters. I, being fourteen years and seven months, am their youngest daughter. My eldest sibling Ayesha is married and lives with her husband in New York. She’s twenty three. Then comes my brother, Ali, twenty one, who lives in New York as well with Ayesha where he is studying plus doing some past-time job. After that, it’s Mariam, she’s nineteen and currently studying for CPA exams. And me, I’m in tenth standard and study in Bright Future Academy.

You might want to know how I look like. Okay, don’t get too excited. I’m not a beauty queen. I have fair skin, and pitch black eyes that go perfectly with my pitch black hair. My hair is always covered in my scarf when I am somewhere other than my house, so not many people know how it looks like. I have a slender, long, American-type, of nose. And yes, I wear glasses. Thick glasses that hide my dark, black eyes. I’m dressed in a floral print skirt and a bit long yellow full-sleeved T-shirt. A white scarf is wrapped around my head and covers my front, and my Head Girl badge is placed right above my heart. So you can imagine how nerdy I look like!