Why were Hands and Feet angry with Head, Marwa remembered her mother beginning. Marwa would answer, ‘Because they had to do all the work, and Head just sat still on the neck.’ Then Ummee would speak in Head’s very low voice, ‘I keep all in order. I see, I hear, I speak.You Hands are strong and proud. I am your Queen, and I shall punish you…’ That was the shortest Egyptian fairytale that Marwa knew, and she also knew her classmates wouldn’t let her get away with it. Because it was a fragment from a schoolboy’s copybook, 5000 years old, it had no ending.

The color of her mother’s bedtime stories was Crayola Apricot. In Marwa’s bedroom in Far Rockaway, if the window was open, you could smell the ocean. Her mother tasted of peaches. Marwa heard the Egyptian word, khukh. She called Ummee Khukh, and Ummee called Marwa Plum, Berkuk. Marwa’s mother didn’t read to her from books. All the books were in her mother’s head.

No one had told the Egyptian version of Cinderella yet, so Marwa knew she could do that one. In it, Rosy-Cheeks’s sandal is stolen by an eagle that drops it at the Pharaoh’s feet. “As sure as I am Pharaoh, I will wed the maiden who can put on this little sandal.”

When Rosy-Cheeks’s stepmother dragged her to try it on after it didn’t fit any other girl, Rosy-Cheeks recognized it. The grand ladies of the kingdom didn’t believe that poor Rosy-Cheeks was telling the truth, but then she pulled the matching sandal out of her pocket. The Pharaoh silenced the grand ladies. “The word of Pharaoh cannot be broken,” he said as he took Rosy-Cheeks by the hand. “I will wed this pure maiden.”

Marwa much preferred to tell The Road to Damascus.
“‘What are you looking for?’ said an Arab to a man rushing across the desert.
‘I’m looking for my friend,’ the man said. ‘We were traveling together, but this morning I slept late and he started without me. I can see him nowhere, and I have almost given up.’
‘Was your friend,’ said the Arab, ‘a lame and heavy man?’
‘Yes! Have you seen him?’ said the stranger.
‘Since sunset last night,’ said the Arab, ‘I have seen no man until you came along. But your friend — was he lame on the right leg? and did he carry a stick in his left hand?’
‘You must have seen him!’ cried the stranger. ‘He limped badly because he had hurt his foot. Which way did he go? Tell me, for without him, I will die.’
‘Your friend,’ said the Arab, ‘I have not seen. But three hours ago such a man as you describe, wearing a blue galabiyya, was leading a pale camel blind in one eye, laden with a burden of dates. He passed this spot on his way to Damascus. There, if you hurry, you will surely find him.’
‘Are you a wizard to know all this?’ cried the stranger. You describe my friend, but you have never seen him. You tell me all about his old camel and where he has gone. How do you know all about him?’
‘Stranger,’ said the Arab, ‘Allah has given all men eyes, but to only a few has He given all the power to use them. All that I have told you, you might have seen for yourself if you had but used
your eyes.’
‘Say not so,’ replied the other, ‘for I have looked everywhere and seen nothing.’

The Arab said nothing, but with a sign he motioned the stranger to follow him. As they walked a little way they came to the fresh track of a camel, and on the right-hand side the track of a man.

‘See,’ said the Arab, ‘there are the footprints of your friend and his camel.’

‘Of a man and a camel, truly,’ said the other, ‘but how do I know that the man was my friend?’

The Arab walked on the sand by the footprints. ‘Look,’ he said, ‘do you see any difference between my footprints and his?’

‘Your feet sink equally into the sand, but these are not equal.’

Then the Arab said, ‘We all walk lightly on a lame foot, and a heavy man sinks deeper into the ground on one leg than a thin man on two.’

‘But how do you know the color of his camel and the color of his clothes or the burden the animal was carrying?’

‘Is it so difficult, then,’ said the Arab, ‘to see the color of the fragment of cloth caught by these thorns or the hairs that were left on the sand where the camel rested?’

‘But how do you know the camel carried dates and was blind in one eye?’

‘Can you not see,’ said the Arab, ‘the flies feasting on the date juice that dropped on the sand by the side of the camel’s track? And wherever the camel grazed, it was only on the one side, the side on which it could see.’

‘Truly, I see you are a man of wonderful perception,’ said the stranger, ‘but tell me also how could you know it is but three hours since my friend passed this particular spot?’

‘Have you eyes, then, and see not?’ said the other scornfully. ‘See where they rested in the shade of this spreading palm. The shadow of the palm tree is as the hand of a dial. It was three hours since any shade was possible on that spot. Goodbye. Hurry along the road that leads to Damascus. There you will find you
friend.’

Which is exactly what he did.”

Then Marwa’s mother would kiss her goodnight and tell her to follow the stranger on the road to Damascus, the way to Dreamland. But of course, looking for more clues along the way kept Marwa from falling to sleep. She could end the story like that in class.

But how could she disobey her father and lie about going to Prix’s party? How could she involve her friends in such a lie? In some Social Studies class, she had learned ‘the technological imperative’ — knowing how something could be done invited doing it — but this was the first time she understood how truly subversive it could be. She had been asking herself ‘how’, not ‘if’. How was halfway to hell…

Joey’s curls showed at the threshold of Marwa’s bedroom door before he continued crawling in on his stomach, inching his forehead and eyes to peek at her. Marwa was relieved to be distracted.

“Homework question?” she said.

“I already did my homework. Banana’s got the sidekick on.”

“Psychic, Mrs. al-Banna,” Marwa corrected.

Joey knew his mother didn’t want Banana to watch that TV show when he was around.

“You can hang out with me,” Marwa said, “but I haven’t finished my homework yet. I’ve got loads.”

“You always have loads. I don’t want to go to high school.”

“You’ll be the king of high school.”

“I don’t want to be the king. I want to be a vice president.”

“Just like Daddy.”

“Well, I don’t want to be Mommy.”

“You couldn’t be a mommy.”

“I don’t want to be one.”

“So you’re lucky. You don’t have to do something you don’t want to. A lot of people in the world can’t say that.”

“It’s a free country. I’m the boss of me,” Joey emphasized by jumping up and down on Marwa’s bed.

“If you fall over and break your neck, you’ll be the boss of a broken neck, and I will be in so much trouble–”

Joey stopped jumping. “You’re supposed to know better,” he said.

“That is the law according to Mommy.”

Joey didn’t jump, but he allowed himself a dramatic collapse onto the bedspread then flailed it into a snow angel.

“Joey. Mr. Entropy. I’ve got work to do here, please,” Marwa said.

“But I can’t go inside. She’s listening to dead people.”

“So go play in your room.”

But Joey’s face reddened. “I saw the movie with the boy who could see dead people.”

“Oh. When, Joey? Where?”

“At Ositadimma’s. He had the tape. Don’t tell Mommy.”

“Oh, Joey, you know you weren’t supposed to see that.”

“Why not?”

“Mommy explained. It would — bother you.”

“It didn’t bother me. It was just weird. Osit’s big brother does this thing, when the scary music comes, he mutes it and says stuff. If I saw a dead person, I’d ask him what it’s like, if he wasn’t too ugly. If he was too yoo-glee, I would stop, drop, and roll!”

A recent school field trip, uptown to the Fire Department’s Fire Zone Museum had impressed Joey. He demonstrated what he’d learned. When he popped up from the floor, ghosts were forgotten. “I want to be a fireman. They’re big.” Joey paused. “I’m gonna tell her to turn it off.”

“Find a nice way. Be diplomatic,” Marwa said.

“I’ll say I’m hungry.”

Marwa signaled thumbs up to Joey, who saluted her and walked very tall out of the room. Good, she thought. My seven year old brother can come up with a plan, and I can’t. She IMed Judy:

Mars429: Is the universe a hologram and 3-dimensional space nothing more than a compelling illusion?

Judy replied:

YAM: ‘Zup?

Mars429: Houston, we have a problem.

YAM: Copy that. Which is?

Mars429: Prix invited me – us – to a party my dad says no.

YAM: Us?

Mars429: ‘Bring as many friends as you want.’

YAM: What do you want to do?

Mars429: That’s the prob.

YAM: Copy.

Mars429: Which priority, disobedience or desire?

YAM: You ask the good question. If dad said yes, would you?

Mars429: You ask the good question.

YAM: And yet we have no bananas today.

Mars429: Bananaless.

YAM: Go back to us.

Mars429: Dangerous territory.

YAM: Marcus and Biren, you and Sunny, me and Jimmy.

Mars429: You’d ask Burro?

YAM: Hypothetical. He did ask me to his prom.

Mars429: Also Vivian and Lem? You’re sharing the limo.

YAM: Harlem, if you please.

Mars429: Since when?

YAM: Since Vivian.

Mars429: I can’t.

YAM: Call him Lem when V’s not around. She goes orbital.

Mars429: I live for that.

YAM: You can’t what?

Mars429: You are quick.

YAM: Your dad knows the time/date.

Mars429: Bingo.

YAM: Sleepover?

Mars429: Obvious. No qualms?

YAM: Having qualms. Count my qualms. Devil’s Advocate here.

Mars429: Appreciate.

YAM: What friends R 4.

Mars429: Get back 2 U.

YAM: Copy. Chill.

Closing IM, Marwa sat back in her desk chair and stared at the screen image of a page from a medieval Arabian medical text. She had no energy to continue searching and just printed one copy with color
and one without, satisfying half of her art homework assignment. Ignoring the original’s colors, she chose crayons to fill in the blanks. The impulse to color outside the lines was so strong and laughably similar to wanting to disobey her father and do unspeakable things with Prix that Marwa had to put down the Hot Magenta Crayola and press her rebellious left hand against her forehead.

She got up from her desk and went to her closet, knelt, and reached under the shoerack for the hidden Divine Box. Sitting cross-legged on the floor, she opened the box in her lap and took out the blue bottle cap from the water bottle Prix had kissed. This is madness, Marwa thought, putting the bottle cap to her lips. But she closed her eyes and swayed, pretending. Oh, the colors – a kaleidoscope!

“Whatcha doin’?” Joey said, standing in the doorway, dripping milk-soaked raisin cake. “Banana gave me umm ali cold. I like it better hot.”

“Mommy will be furious. You’ll spoil your appetite.”

“You said be a mechanic.”

“Diplomatic.”

“Want some?” Joey offered his palm as a plate.

Marwa had put the cap and box away quickly as Joey peacefully ate and observed.

“You don’t have to hide it,” Joey said. “I know what’s in it.”

There was a pause.

“You don’t know anything!” Marwa screamed. “Get out of my room!”

Joey’s eyes filled. “I do know,” he said, backing out, his voice growing stronger as he left, “I do too know something!”

Marwa looked coldly at the empty doorway. Then she shut her door without slamming it and lay down on the bed. She closed her eyes, felt her nostrils flare, and smiled.