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No Book
I MANAGE TO get through most of the school day, until the afternoon.
Mrs. Rao says, “Take out your books for silent reading time.”
And I am frozen. Around me, everyone is getting books. From book bags. Desks. From piles behind Mrs. Rao’s desk. From the bookshelf in the back of the class.
I cannot move. I want to run and get something to read, too. But I can’t.
“You don’t have a book, Yasmin?” asks Mrs. Rao.
“No,” I mumble.
“Get one from the shelf,” she says. “Come on, hurry. I know what an enthusiastic reader you are.”
I try to pick a book off the classroom bookshelf.
I can’t. I stare at the spines of books marching along the shelf. They blur into a stream of colors and letters.
I can’t pick one. I can’t choose. This has never happened to me before.
“Yasmin,” says Mrs. Rao.
I’m the one who tells others about books I’ve read. Wapa calls me the world’s biggest book fan. I’m the one who reads one book a day and will do so forever.
What is stopping me now?
I stick out my hand and grab a book off the shelf, any book. I go back to my desk. I open the book. The words float together, and I cannot read.
Someone has to do something about this bad news crashing on us all at once. Reeni’s father’s job, Book Uncle’s pink paper. Someone has to do something.