Santa Claus in Baghdad and Other Stories about Teens in the Arab World

5. In Line: A story from Egypt: Will a city girl ever feel quite at home in a farming village?

5 In Line A STORY FROM EGYPT Halfway home from school, on a lovely clear day in December , I did something really daring. I decided to change my route. Not much, of course, because my mother knew exactly how long it took me to get home and she would be waiting. I just thought it would be nice to walk along the canal a bit and pretend it was the Nile. That’s how it happened I ran into Fayza. I’d noticed her in class. You could hardly not notice her, even in a classroom as packed with people as ours. She always raised her hand to answer the teacher’s questions—she even asked good questions of her own! What’s more, she was a lot smarter than most of the boys and wasn’t afraid to let them know it. So I’d begun to think I’d like to get to know her. But how? Most people still acted as if I were from Mars, or someplace even farther away, and they couldn’t figure me out. I was afraid Fayza might feel that way, too. Well, I would try, at least. Fayza was standing at the edge of the canal, holding a big bunch of flowers—roses so bedraggled they looked as though the flower seller had given them to her for free. But what made me curious was the way she was staring down at the canal. I stopped SANTA CLAUS IN BAGHDAD AND OTHER STORIES 94 near her to see what she was looking at. It was a donkey, dead, lying there in the water. “Ugh! How awful!” I said. “Why do they allow that?” I couldn’t help it, bursting out like that even before saying hello. Such an ugly sight, flies and everything! “Ugh is right, Rania,” Fayza said, barely glancing at me. “It’s stupid, and bad for health. And besides, it’s sad. Poor donkey, he wasn’t even very old.” It didn’t surprise me that she knew my name—the teacher had called on me often enough. But what Fayza said about the dead donkey being sad did surprise me. Dead animals were common in the countryside, and nobody seemed to care much, so far as I could tell. Why should she feel sad? “Anyway,” I said, “it would have had a hard life.” Fayza sighed. “Of course. But I still think it’s too bad for animals to die so miserably. I wish all creatures could have happy lives, people and animals both. I think that’s what God wants.” I looked at her, wondering. She was quite pretty, with gray eyes and her hair in braids. Then I had an idea—although it was a little bold of me since we didn’t even know each other. “Maybe you should become a veterinarian,” I said. For the first time she looked up at me and smiled. “Yes! Yes, that’s exactly what I want to do. Go to veterinary college and then work in a village or town somewhere around here. Maybe I can make life a little better, someday.” Imagine already knowing what you want to do in life! And something that would be very useful, like helping farmers keep their animals healthy. The kids I knew in Cairo—all they thought about was music and the cinema and having a big birthday party at a hotel. IN LINE 95 Fayza sighed again. “I have to get home now.” But as she started to leave the canal, she paused and turned back. She broke off a couple of droopy rosebuds and tossed them down onto the donkey. What a thing to do—scatter flowers on a dead animal! But a moment later, hardly knowing I was doing it, I broke off one of her roses. “Let me, too.” Again Fayza grinned at me, and then we both tried to look very solemn and sad. We tossed flowers with great ceremony until that big bunch was all gone, and the donkey was covered with pink and yellow rosebuds. “For sure, that donkey needs them more than my family does,” said Fayza. “At least we’ve given him a proper funeral.” I was so surprised at myself for what I’d done that I had to smile—and we both began to laugh. Then we said good-bye and I went on my way...