Truth: She was warned. She was given an explanation. Nevertheless, she persisted.
I posted that renegade column and walked right out of school. I knew I was going to get suspended anyway, so why give Hardy the pleasure of doing it to my face? I felt squeezed, like the walls were closing in and I needed some air. It was chaos in the halls, everyone talking about that swastika, teachers trying to corral students back into classrooms. Panic and confusion mixed with the lingering smoke in the air. I figured no one was going to notice me walking out, but they sure were going to figure out pretty fast that I was gone.
Walking to my parents’ store, I was feeling pretty good about myself. Besides the clammy hands and wanting-to-throw-up part. My parents were going to be mad. Furious. I’d never been suspended before. I’d never even skipped school. And without a doubt, I was going to get yelled at by a very red-faced principal. But I wanted to be a journalist. I was a journalist. And the whole point of the press was to throw light in dark corners and crack open the doors that people like our school’s administrators tried to close in your face, because hiding the truth let them control it.
I’d make my parents understand. It’s not like they didn’t know me. And when they saw the picture of the swastika, they’d get it. I mean, it’s not like they haven’t lived in this country. My mom always said that people think Islamophobia only started after 9/11, but she was an immigrant kid during the Iran hostage crisis, and that’s the first time she ever heard a grown man—a stranger—call her racist names and yell at her to Go home! It was 1979 and she was a second grader. I can’t get over that. An adult getting in the face of an eight-year-old kid because, what? Her tiny brown hands were a threat? My parents may be on the quiet side, but their eyes are wide open. They were the ones who taught me about complicity and finding the courage to speak up. I was sure they’d understand. I made myself think so, anyway.
I paused before I opened the door to our store to watch my parents for a moment.
My mom was busy helping a customer. She had a smile on her face, and her navy-blue chiffon scarf was gently drawn over her shoulders and around her salt-and-pepper bun. My dad was restocking teas. Our tea selection absolutely rocked. One of my favorite things to do when I was helping around the store was to refill the tea testers—the small round containers that held a couple teaspoons of loose leaf tea so customers could take a whiff. After a while they would lose some potency, and my parents always liked them strong. It was a source of pride, especially for my dad. If any customer was willing to listen, he’d wax on about, say, different types of Darjeeling teas. Or why he preferred the more floral first flush (spring) Darjeeling versus second flush (summer) and wouldn’t even carry a monsoon tea (too oxidized). Why his recommended temperature for steeping a fresh first flush was lower (195 degrees) than a later first flush (205 degrees). The oxidation! The bitterness! And how steeping his beloved Darjeeling for over five minutes was a crime against tea tradition. Once a customer asked Dad if he took his tea the “British way,” and, well, my dad never lost his patience with a customer, but the smile on his face was so strained in that moment, I thought he would burst.
You know how in holiday movies, they signal coziness with a roaring fire and a cute couple cuddled under a throw knit by someone’s grandma? Well, that’s what looking at my parents felt like. It had been a weird, scary week. It was winter outside, flurries falling, a bite in the air. But inside it was warm.
Maybe Mirza Emporium was only a store, but it was also home.
My mom spied me outside the door and scrunched her eyebrows at me as she finished bagging a customer’s groceries. She wasn’t expecting to see me, obviously. Then I saw her look down at her phone, and her jaw dropped. I watched as she yelled for my dad and gestured at her screen. My heart raced. Was it the school? They sometimes texted confirmations of absences, but this was unexcused, and I’m sure Hardy would be calling them to express his extreme disappointment in my behavior. God, I hope he wasn’t going to threaten to take away my scholarship. No. He wouldn’t send that in a text. That couldn’t be it.
I slipped my mittened hand into my coat pocket. I hadn’t heard my phone buzzing at first, muffled as it was by all my layers. I yanked out the phone, nearly dropping it as it slipped against my mitten. I checked the screen:
AMBER ALERT
Chicago, IL
Jawad Ali
14 years old
Brown hair
Brown eyes
5’6”
Dark blue or black four-door sedan
Last seen near 47th Street and Stagg Avenue
That’s near here. That’s this neighborhood. The name… it’s familiar. Snowflakes fell on my face. The wind stirred, and I got cold all over. Oh my God. It’s him. I swear it’s him. The kid with the jet pack. Bomb Boy.