CHAPTER 7

I ran to the door when Charlie and Daniel arrived.

Daniel was sporting a red nose, because he had a cold. Dad looked horrified. He’s super scared of germs, because when he gets sick, he gets really sick. He says it’s a   that man flu is worse than the flu that kids and women get, but Mom says it’s only because we’re a lot tougher than he is.

My friends and I went straight up to my bedroom, and I shoved Esa’s toys under his bed to make space.

“Let’s brainstorm,” I said. “Mrs. Hutchinson always makes us do that to think of ideas.”

“OK,” said Charlie.

Daniel blew his nose and nodded his head.

So I got a piece of paper and my Sharpies and wrote:

“Right, guys. Shoot,” I said.

said Daniel.

“Lemonade?” I said.

“Yeah.”

I wrote it down.

“My uncle sells things on eBay,” Charlie said.

“Like what?”

“Like earphones and fans and stuff like that.”

“Cool. But where can we get those from?” I said.

    said Daniel. Charlie and I must have looked confused, because he tried again. “You bow—we dob’t have aby. We’re brying to babe bongey.”

“We do have $42.53,” I said, figuring out his blocked-nose secret code. “I wonder how many earphones we can buy with that.”

“Or we can just make stuff to sell,” said Charlie.

I wrote that down.

Then I told them my idea. “Let’s hold a talent contest and charge people money to come and see it! It would be so great!”

“Cool!” said Charlie and Daniel both at the same time.

“How much should we charge, and where will we have it? Maybe I could ask my parents if we can have it here in the backyard or something . . .”

“Or maybe at the mosque?” said Charlie.

“Oh yeah. Good idea. They have a huge room.”

I wrote down and we kept thinking.

“Do chores for bongey,” Daniel suggested.

“Like cleaning our rooms,” said Charlie with a cheeky grin.

We all

at the thought of asking our parents for money for cleaning our rooms.

Daniel laughed too hard before he managed to grab a tissue and got snot all down his face.

“Ewwwwwww, Daniel!”

I couldn’t breathe anymore from laughing. Ouch, ouch—it hurt!

There’s something about snot that is funny and disgusting at the same time. Like farts.

Anyway, by the time we were done, we had lots of ideas to get started on:

I was starving after all that thinking! Or maybe it was more because Mom has been making these funny healthy muffin things for breakfast. They are and  . Dad pretends that he likes them so that he doesn’t hurt Mom’s feelings, but once I caught him smothering one with peanut butter when Mom wasn’t looking. Before we went to the mosque, I had put mine in the pocket of my bathrobe and just pretended I’d eaten it.

Have you ever been so hungry you felt like you had a huge hole in your chest? I don’t understand it, because it should be my tummy that has a problem with being hungry, but for some reason it feels more like my chest needs food to fill it up. Sometimes it feels like the hole is so big it could be a  , ready to suck in anything I walk past! I imagined Charlie jumping into it and ending up in some other dimension. I wondered whether he would find me and Daniel in that other dimension and what we would look like there . . . Probably completely different, with green hair or something.

Luckily, Dad had made his famous spaghetti Bolognese as a treat, since my friends were staying to eat lunch with us. He puts stuff in it that he won’t tell us about, but I don’t mind, because it makes it taste deeelicious. I’m OK . . . as long as he’s not adding

I guess it wasn’t just me who was super hungry, because Charlie, Daniel, Maryam and even Esa shoved down the Bolognese without saying a word from start to finish. When I had eaten every last bite, I looked up and realized

I’m such a that Mom doesn’t let me order spaghetti if we go out to eat. Also, it’s not usually halal at restaurants.

As soon as Daniel’s and Charlie’s parents had picked them up, Mom said, “Right, who wants to do the grocery shopping with me?”

Perfect opportunity, I thought, and volunteered myself super quick.

“I’ll do it with you, and I’ll pack the bags and unpack them back at home. All for $2.50!”

“Don’t be so cheeky!” said Dad. “Since when do you get paid to help out?”

I shrugged. “It’s part of the plan to raise money for the mosque.”

That made Dad change his mind pretty fast. He said he was really proud of me and my friends for being such stars. And then he said of course I could have $2.50 for helping with the shopping. In fact, I could have $5.00.

Maryam said, “Humph. That’s so unfair,” and she stormed off to get her coat.

I like doing the grocery shopping with my parents, because I can get stuff that they wouldn’t normally buy when they go on their own. Sometimes I ask them if I can have this or that, but sometimes I just sneak it into the packed cart.

Esa is too big now to sit in the cart like he used to, so I also have to put up with him following me and picking stuff up. Once, he even dropped a jar of pasta sauce on the floor and which was

I wasn’t sure if I should run away and pretend I didn’t know him, or stick around and help Mom deal with it.

This time, he started flinging sausages into the cart at the speed of Dad’s motorcycle.

“What are you doing, chipmunk?” said Mom. “You can’t have all those; they’re not halal.”

Esa is still learning all about the food he can’t eat when he’s at preschool or restaurants and things, because of being Muslim and needing to

which has been prepared in a special way. It can be confusing for little kids, since chicken is OK at home, because we get the halal kind. But at school, it’s not halal, and Esa doesn’t always understand.

Maryam teases him for being such a but I feel a little sorry for him, because he gets sad when he can’t eat things he’s chosen. Like after the sausages, he chose some that had gelatin in them, so he got told they weren’t halal and he almost burst into tears. I helped him find some halal ones that said they were vegan and got a pack for myself, too . . . Well, I deserved them for working so hard on this chore.