Ghada was throwing paper balls into the rubbish bin. She was a decent shot. Wejdan was sitting at her feet, smelling the oud. They loved the sweet incense that burned from their electric incense burner.

"Have you ever heard of netball?" Ghada said to Wejdan. She got nothing from the small girl. Wejdan was playing pubG with the boys and girls of the school they both attended. there wasn't a thing more important to Wejdan than top spot.

"Netball?" said Ghada again, tossing another ace into the rubbish a full 3 meters away. Wejdan snapped away at her Barrett .50 Cal in the Playstation, clicking her fingers with precision. "Wejdan, do you like taking pieces of lamb shawarma and sitting on them until the grease goes clear through your abaya and everyone starts calling you Lamb girl?"

Wejdan got nothing.

Ghada then balled up a crumple of her English homework and whapped Wejdan on the head. "Wallah! Ghada! I'm gonna do the same with this controller in a second!" Ghada laughed and grabbed another homework sheet. "What were you saying Ghada?"

"Oh nothing."

Wejdan spared a look, then got back to killing her classmates. She was having difficulty against Abdulwahab lately, and really wanted to lay it to him. That way he would have no defense against his bullshit when he came to class.

"Habibi, do you want to go to the desert tonight?"

"Amdalillah, you're full of ideas tonight Ghada," Wejdan said, doubling down on her game.

"No I'm serious. You really have to lay off with the att--"

"Yullah wait wait wait. Eskatu."

"Wejdan!"

"Lo Samakhty Eskatu! Yullah... Yullah. ALLAH!!!!!"

Wejdan threw the controller up jumping into the air like a rocket. Ghada looked up and saw the controller. In slow motion the watermelon-colored playstation controller arced up, and out, and lingered before settling into the rubbish bin, protected by reams of homework-paper balls.

"ALLAH!!!" Ghada yelled tackling Wejdan to the couch, "Netball. Wejdan, Alumdallah, It's a sign."

"ALLAH!!! What the hell are you talking about?"

"Look, Yullah. The garbage." Wejdan skipped over and grabbed for her mouth.

"You did that!" Wejdan said.

"I'd never," Ghada threw back.

"Allahu Akbar! Habibi, I just killed Khaled."

"La, la, la!" Ghada said.

"Nam! I won. I kicked his ass, and to add, there were at least 15 people from our class watching."

"We have to celebrate!" The girls stopped, then cheered and danced around the carpeted room. Ghada picked up Wejdan clean over her head, then holding her screamed, "I know what we should do!"

"Ghada!"

Ghada snuck over to the incense burner and reached into a box that held the incense, the matches, the prayer beads, and a whole world's worth of coins from her Baba's collection. Ghada gave Wejdan the shh sign, then quietly pulled up an obnoxiously large set of keys.

"Lala!" Wejdan whispered, "Put those back. Do you have any idea--" but before Wejdan could finish, Ghada grabbed her mouth and was a whole centimeter away from the girl's nose.

"Wejdan, I'm so tired of sitting around. Look at what Allah's told us. Do you want to be the coolest girl in class, or the coolest girl in this town?"

The lights of the Mustang opened up, as the two girls unlocked the door. "Allahu Akbar" Ghada whispered for the car to not beep into the silent night as well. The girl's abayas masked them very well in the night, and against the lights of the date farm, they were almost invisible. Ghada knew that her brother was going to be up watching his movies for at least the next hour. More than anything, his car wouldn't be missed at that time.

"Ghada, I swear, if we get caught,"

"Shut up and help me push the car," Ghada said, tugging at the bumper. With Wejdan's help, and almight Allah, the wheels started turning. It was hard work against the gravel road, but the car moved on, down the farm road, out of distance, and once it was far enough, Ghada jumped in and started the car. She thanked Allah again that it was an automatic.

"Get in Habibi," Ghada said to Wejdan, and they were off into the night.

They came upon Lama's house. She couldn't believe what she was seeing, but she decided after a win like Wejdan's, there was no way not to celebrate with some fun after midnight. Then they picked up Reem and Reema and with the car packed, they started listening to Abdul bin Abdulaziz and drifting the desert roads.

"You play have to shoot the ball while you're in the lines. You have to have really long arm to guard. That's why you'll be our star defender Reema," Ghada said.

"Oh, so now you like my freakishly long arms?"

"I knew they'd come in handy. Inshallah."

"Bitch," Reema said, using the English that their teacher taught her in class. Ghada hit the breaks and the whole car came to a stop. The girls couldn't believe it, and then a holy laughter erupted.

They cruised the car all the way to the top of Lion Mountain, the unknown lookout for Afkaz. The girls got out and looked upon their city. It was a little jewel in the desert.

"I'll get the carpet from the trunk," Ghada said letting the girls pack on top of the hood to view their city.

"Anti! You are my hero," said Lama, running her hands on Wejdan's scalp, "I think I rewatched it at least 5 times."

"You're going to be a stonecolder killer after that one Habibi," said Reema.

"I just can't wait to see his face. That's what I can't wait for."

"Yea, so you can kiss it."Reema replied.

"Yullah," said Ghada from the back. The girls ignored.

"Reema, Wallah, you're going to pray 5 times a day that you didn't just say that." Wejdan said.

"I think I know what this is really about." Reema said.

"Yullah!" Ghada replied, closing the trunk.

"Reema, don't start anything you can't finish."

"Yullah," said Reem, tapping at the rest of them.

The girls on the hood turned to see Ghada, holding a slick, black AK47. She was holding it like Wejdan's blue-haired scout would hold it in pubG.

"Wallah! What's that?"

"AK47, modified you idiot," Wejdan said in shock.

"Don't call me that," Reema said.

"Don't be an idiot," Wejdan said.

"Yullah!!" Ghada said, "will you two bitches shut up?"

They did.

The girls stood there impressed and afraid all at once. Everyone knew Ghada's brother to be a cocky asshole, and a Salafi, but they didn't think of him as the casual AK47 type.

"This is scary," said Lama.

"Hamdalillah," said Ghada. "You want to fire it?"

"Inshallah," said Wejdan stepping towards the gun.

"Lalala, we can't just go playing with a rifle!" Reem said.

"That's literally the only reason we're out here tonight. Wejdan played with a rifle so good that Khalid doesn't even have balls anymore," Ghada replied.

Wejdan grabbed for it, and Ghada stepped back. The girl's eyes met, and before they started bickering and fighting, they looked at the gun and noticed how absolutely stupid that would be. "I'm sorry," Wejdan said.

"It's not that," Ghada said, "It's just... I wanna try it first."

"Try it?! Wallah. We can't be playing around," Reem said.

"We won't then. We won't play. We'll be very serious and do a good job. Just like we do in class." Ghada raised an eyebrow, "Just like Teacher says, we're so much wiser than the boys. We'll do the right thing."

Reema shut up, and the girls concocted a plan to pick only big rocks to fire upon. That way they could never get caught even if someone was bored enough to inspect shards of glass bottles on top of a desert.

Ghada looked down the sights, at the rock Lama had picked out. It was freshly lit with the headlights. Ghada breathed then pulled the trigger. The girls started laughing. Except for Reem who was petrified. A whopping miss, but not Ghada saw what the bullet was doing once it sung past the rock. It started to drop.

Then something clicked in her head.

"Netball!" she whispered to herself, then took aim. She calculated the trajectory in her head, how much the bullet would drop, and she let another one off.

Dust became the rock.

The girls turned to Ghada, who nearly had a tear in her eye. They couldn't remember a better night in Afkaz.