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"Ahlan wasahlan!" Samia's joyful exclamation of welcome as she opened the door startled me, but I quickly got over it, stepping into her warm house and kissing her cheeks.

"Salamu Alaykum, Samia, kifik?" I greeted her as she moved onto Zeinab, followed by my mother, brother and father.

"Wa alaiku musalam, Mariam. I am good, Alhamdulillah," Samia replied with a beaming smile. She greeted Baba and Nasr as well, commenting on Nasr's height, even if she just saw him last week at the mosque.

I had just slipped off my shoes when Yasmine bound up to me looking beautiful in a turquoise green hijab and a black dress that nipped her waist and flowed down to her ankles. "Salam, Mariam!" she wrapped me into a tight hug, and I inhaled her familiar perfume.

"Salam, Yasmine," I held her at arm's length, admiring her hijab. "I love your scarf, where did you get it from?"

Yasmine grinned. "It was a gift from Immi. Does it suit me?"

"Everything suits you, Yasmine," I complimented as we entered the heart of the house – a.k.a. the kitchen, where aromas of falafels, fatayer and warak aneb wafted from. The sitting room was situated next door, and though I was starving, we had to pray Maghrib first.

The sitting room had a space of carpet enough for all of us to line up, with the men in the front row and the women behind. Yusuf and Nasr stood beside Hameed and my father, Ali, while I was squeezed between Zeinab and Yasmine. This was our second time praying together, and it felt good to be beside my best friend, worshipping Allah. Now this was what true friends should be like, in Islam anyway.

After prayer, we practically ran down the hall to the dining room, which wasn't anything fancy, just a room with an eight seat oak table and an oak cabinet filled with glasses and plates. We had something like that at home, except we never touched the china in there, only when we had guests over. My mother and Samia went to serve the food, since us kids would probably drop the plates onto the carpet because of how hungry we were.

"Samia cooked us a real feast tonight," Hameed told us with a wide grin as my mother returned holding a bowl of –

"Falafels!" Zeinab exclaimed, licking her lips and eyeing it like a lion eyes its prey. I almost felt bad for the falafels, however we had to wait for everyone to sit down before we could dig in.

Soon the table was laden with all sorts of my favourite Lebanese cuisine, such as chicken shawarma, spicy kibbeh, spinach and cheese fatayer, a whole platter of warak aneb (stuffed grape leaves), as well as plenty of pita bread to dip into the bowls of hummus.

"I am going to murder this food!" Nasr bellowed, and instead of getting told off my mother smiled, because Samia was smiling.

"In Sha Allah," she said, making us chuckle. We read the du'aa before a meal, the long version instead of just muttering, "Bismillah" like I usually did, and then it was finally time to murder the food.

"This is the best hummus I've ever had," Zeinab groaned.

Mama frowned. "Better than mine?" she asked teasingly.

Zeinab nodded without a second thought, chewing her food passionately. Samia was all smiles as she watched us eat, occasionally nibbling on her own food.

"I am so glad you like it," she said. "I was worried."

"Well, worry no more, habibti," Hameed said kindly to his wife. "You cook masha'allah food."

I chuckled at that as I tried not to swallow my warak aneb whole, since it was so slippery and soft it was tempting not to just gobble it down without chewing. I hadn't eaten since lunch time, which was six hours ago – probably not a good idea to fast for that long. But I had to finish my homework before we drove to Yasmine's house, since we would be staying here for a couple of hours at least. The best part about today was it was Friday, so even if we stayed here all night, I could still return home and sleep in.

"We heard you're going to do volunteering at a hospital, girls," Hameed brought up, glancing at Zeinab and I. We both nodded in response.

"Yes, that's right," I replied.

Yusuf raised his eyebrows. "Are you going to be a doctor, Mariam?" he asked me. I glanced across at him, noticing how much he resembled Hameed, but also noticing how he had the same eyes as Yasmine, so it was a little freaky looking at him and seeing Yasmine at the same time.

"In Sha Allah," I answered. Who knows? I might change my mind and be a dentist, though the idea of looking into people's mouths all day sounded sickening.

"We want our daughter to become successful, unlike us," Baba chuckled. "I mean, being an accountant is not bad, but a doctor is better."

Typical parents wanting their children to be successful. But I knew I would want the same thing for my children, In Sha Allah.

"Anything is better than an accountant," my mother joked. I loved seeing her tease my father, whether it was about his weight or his beard, you could see they had a good relationship. "Speaking of, how is your job as an engineer, Yusuf?"

"It can get hard sometimes, but it's good, alhamdulillah," Yusuf replied after swallowing. At least he had better manners than my brother, who would speak with his mouth full and traumatize us every evening.

"How about you, Yasmine? What is your dream job?" My mother asked my friend, and I inwardly groaned. Were we really going to be talking about careers at dinner time? It was so typical, but I was curious to know what Yasmine would reply with.

"I've always wanted to be a fashion designer, honestly," I wasn't surprised to hear this. Yasmine always had a thing for clothes. "And now that I wear hijab, I want to focus on designing clothes for Muslim women, you know? Because let's face it, some of the abayas are plain ugly."

That sent us into laughter around the table. "I have to agree with you there, though there are a lot of beautiful designs too," I said.

"But I want to add my own style to it, and maybe become famous," Yasmine aspired, eyes gleaming with her dream. I rolled my eyes in amusement. Yasmine had dreamed of being famous for as long as I could remember.

"That's a wonderful idea, habibti," Samia hadn't stop smiling this entire time. "You should lead the Islamic fashion world, and maybe even start a chain of clothes shops here in Melbourne. We definitely need more of them."

"In Sha Allah," Yasmine said, grabbing a fatayer.

"And Nasr's studying to be an architect," Baba added, clapping his hand onto Nasr's shoulder and beaming proudly at his son. "We're going to have a variety of careers in the family soon."

"How about Zeinab?" Yusuf asked, smiling at my little sister. "What do you want to be?"

I knew Zeinab had been secretly sad that no one was asking her what she wanted to do as a job, so I shot Yusuf a grateful look for including my sister in the conversation. "Oh, um, I guess maybe a therapist?"

"A therapist? Interesting," Yusuf nodded. "I have a friend who's studying to be a psychiatrist. I guess they're the same thing?"

Zeinab shrugged, looking down at her food and focusing on eating. Sometimes Zeinab got a little embarrassed when too much attention was on her, I guess because she was the youngest and she didn't expect anyone to pay attention to her, but when they did, she got a little overwhelmed.

"Yusuf, you are twenty six, right?" Yusuf confirmed my father's question with a nod, so he continued. "Shouldn't you be looking for a wife now?"

Beside me Yasmine choked on her food, coughing, while I just bit my lip to keep from laughing at Yusuf's horrified expression. "A wife?" he pronounced it as if it was a dreaded thing. Maybe it was, for him.

"We're trying to find him a suitable Muslim girl but he refuses to meet them," Samia tutted.

"It's not that I refuse it's just that I simply don't have the time, mama," Yusuf interjected.

"You have time now," Yasmine teased, earning a glare from him.

"I think you're just making excuses, ibni," Hameed smiled knowingly. "It's okay to be scared."

"Scared?" Yusuf laughed mirthlessly. "I'm not scared, I'm just –"

"A chicken?" Nasr held up a chicken wing with a mischievous smirk, waving it in Yusuf's face before tearing his teeth through its flesh. "Yusuf, you're not that much older than me, and yet here I am, eating you."

Zeinab and Yasmine laughed while Yusuf's parents just exchanged looks. My parents were frankly a little embarrassed by Nasr's immature behaviour, because though he was supposed to be twenty years old, he was acting half his age half the time.

"How about you, huh? Shouldn't you be getting married?" Yusuf shot back, making Nasr lower his chicken, colour flooding his cheeks.

"Oh, um..." Nasr swallowed, suddenly finding his shawarma wrap extremely interesting to stare at.

"Nasr's focusing on his studies first," My mother saved the day, and Nasr nodded, silently thanking her.

"It's never too early to start looking," Hameed winked at Nasr, making his eyes widen slightly.

Yasmine exchanged a look of amusement with me. "I hope he doesn't mean us too," she whispered.

"As long as you get over 70 for your ATAR, you'll be fine," I whispered back. "Don't forget you're already halfway there," I gestured to her hijab, referring to how she had promised to wear it after she got married. Yasmine had this fantasy that she'd meet her husband without a hijab, and once she tied the knot and settled down, she could wear the hijab. She used to view it as something that stopped her from having fun and feeling beautiful, and though she never said it, I knew she thought that she wouldn't be able to find a husband while wearing it, just because her mother wasn't wearing it until Yasmine was born, so she met Hameed without it.

Yasmine lifted a hand to her turquoise green veil, as if she forgot she was wearing it. "Oh, yeah." Looking at her now, I could see that wearing the hijab was the best decision Yasmine ever made in her life, and it enhanced her beauty rather than dimming it. If only she had known earlier.

My stomach was so stuffed that I felt I could empathise with a stuffed charcoal chicken. The problem with me was that when there was too much good food in front of me, I was tempted to eat as much of it as I could, even if it went beyond my capacity. So with a few muffled burps, and a chorus of 'Alhamdulillah's, we helped clear up the table. Samia declined my offer of helping with the dishes, but I insisted, forcing Yasmine and Zeinab to help too, along with my mother of course, who loved cleaning (don't ask me how that was possible) I only offered out of politeness, so the five of us cleaned up the clusters of utensils and scraped away crumbs from the plates. The men were in the sitting room chatting about manly things.

I put away the dishes on the rack while Yasmine and Zeinab worked together to scrub them with the sponge. Samia and Mama were next door wiping down the dining table, but I could hear them loud and clear.

"Nasr and Yasmine?" I heard my mother say in Lebanese.

"Nasr is a good boy, very focused, he would be good for Yasmine. Alhamdulillah, she has become better now after wearing hijab. Before she was a crazy child," Samia chuckled.

"Masha'allah, she has improved. I was worried about her always going out. But didn't you try to stop her?"

"I tried my best but she's very sneaky. I believe respecting your child will mean they respect you back, so I let her have a little fun, hoping she would calm down on her own," Samia said. "And I was right, wasn't I?"

"Mariam was always a good child, very religious, Masha'allah," hearing my mother speak about me always made me smile, because she usually spoke highly of me to her friends and family. "I never had to worry about her, and I am so proud of her."

"Mariam is a good influence on Yasmine," Samia said. "And I think Nasr will be a good husband for Yasmine."

"When Yasmine is ready, of course," My mother laughed. "We don't want to rush her into marriage. Those types of arrangements never work out."

"Yes, yes, of course. Yasmine will be eighteen this August, and if she goes to university, they can get married after she graduates. Nasr will have a job by then, right?"

"In Sha Allah. We won't tell them yet," Mama's voice lowered so I could no longer hear her over the rush of the tap, and I grabbed the plate Zeinab held out to me almost subconsciously, the movements becoming second to nature.

"Hey!" Yasmine giggled as Zeinab and her started a bubble fight, smearing white frothy soap onto each other's faces. I watched them in amusement, until Zeinab flicked some at me, landing on my scarf, so I retaliated by spraying my wet fingers at her face. The fight was broken up by our mothers, who walked into the kitchen with mixed expressions, as if they couldn't decide if they should tell us off or join in.

"Mariam, Zeinab, kifaya!" my mother decided to scold us, which wasn't fair, because –

"Yasmine started it!" Zeinab pointed a soapy finger at Yasmine, whose jaw dropped at the accusation.

"It doesn't matter who started it, let's just finish the cleaning so we can relax," Samia was the ultimate peacemaker.

Yasmine dragged us up the stairs to her room (she lived in a double story, lucky girl) and we collapsed onto her bed, rubbing our stomachs and sighing, feeling exhausted from all the cleaning which I volunteered us to do. If I didn't feel obligated as a house guest, I wouldn't have even bothered to help.

"Okay, now that we're all here," Yasmine got up from the bed and wandered over to her desk, lifting up a rolled up piece of A3 paper.

"What's that?" I sat up, crossing my legs on her soft king size bed while Zeinab shifted beside me, rocking the mattress. Yasmine grinned as she unrolled the paper, revealing...

"Mission Impossible: Converting the Bad Boy," Yasmine read out, the words in bright red Texta. Around it were scattered bubbles with different ideas, one of them being 'stories.'

"Stories?" Zeinab was confused. Yasmine rolled her eyes. "You know, like stories of the prophets, stories of other Muslim reverts, etcetera," she outlined. "Tonight is our first official CTBB meeting, which will be held every Friday night at my house."

"Why your house? Why not our house?" I asked.

"Okay, we can do it at your house next time," Yasmine relented. "But I get to keep the brainstorm."

"Your brainstorm looks kind of...empty," Zeinab pointed out the large gaps between each bubble. I counted five in all. "Only five ideas?"

"I'm not exactly an idea popping machine, Zeinab," Yasmine replied in her defence. "Which is why you guys need to contribute."

"Why is it called mission impossible?" I inquired, because I was pretty sure it wasn't impossible, as we had last discussed.

"Because it sounds cool," Yasmine shrugged. "But by the end of our meeting, this mission will seem less impossible once we discuss what we're gonna do."

I nodded. "Okay, then. We have five months, anyway."

"Why five months?" Zeinab asked.

I had gone to the liberty of interrogating Damian on this at the lockers after recess today, since there were a lot of things about this so-called 'bet' that were ambiguous.

I recalled the conversation now, in order to answer Zeinab's question...

"Okay, so about this bet..."

Damian smirked. "Are you backing out?"

I shook my head. "No. I just have a few questions, like, why do you want me to convert you?"

"I never said I wanted you to convert me. I just challenged you, because if your religion is worth it, you could convince anyone, even someone like me," Damian replied.

"That still doesn't answer my question," I crossed my arms.

"I'm a blank slate," Damian blurted in response. I arched an eyebrow, waiting for him to elaborate. "I have nothing to lose. Actually, scratch that, I have everything to lose. My mum's getting weaker, and I don't know what to do anymore. I can't pray, I can't hope, I can't do anything. So Mariam," he leaned a little closer, and I leaned the same amount of distance away from him. Why was he always trying to get in my face? It was a little intimidating, but all I could smell was his minty cologne as he said huskily, "Do what you want with me. Because either way, I'm lost."

"Lost?" That's exactly what Allah S.W.T. described the disbelievers to be in the Quran: lost. They didn't know what to do with their lives, they had no spiritual guidance, nothing to look forward to except the impending day of their death.

"I don't give a shit about my life anymore, did you know that? I only come to school to make my parents happy, but then what? I graduate, go to uni, get a job, buy a house, get married, have kids then die. We all die in the end, so what's the point of all of this? Can you tell me that?" his questions weren't said in bitterness, rather, they were pronounced gloomily.

"Are you having an existential crisis?" I teased.

Damian didn't crack a smile as he slammed his locker, holding his books under his arm. I couldn't understand how boys did that, it was seriously uncomfortable.

"You have five months to prove to me that a 'God' exists. Prove to me that there's a point in this f***ing life. You said Islam is the religion of hope? Give me hope, then," Damian had turned bitter again, and the mention of the time limit reminded me of my other question.

"Why five months?"

"What?" Damian was caught off guard by my question.

"Why do I have to "prove" to you in five months? Why can't it be six months? Or less, like two months?" I inquired, though I didn't think I could work with two months. Two months in school time went by quickly.

"Because..." Damian glanced down at his books, shifting them in his grip. "That's how long the doctor said my mum has to live."

"That's so sad," Zeinab remarked after I had told them.

"Well, I guess that just makes our mission all the more important," Yasmine declared, grabbing a handful of Textas and settling onto the bed. We placed a giant atlas underneath the A3 poster so we could write on it comfortably and began to brainstorm ways to showcase the beauty of Islam.

"The Quran is the only true piece of evidence," I said as I scrawled The Holy Quran in purple calligraphy. "If we show him verses of the Quran, and maybe even get him to listen to it..." I remembered being on the bus a couple of weeks ago, listening to Surah Maryam when Damian stole one of my earphones and listened for a brief few seconds. He had reacted as if it were something foreign and alien to him, but if he familiarised himself with it, he would surely find truth in its verses.

Yasmine tapped her blue Texta against her chin, thinking. "There are a lot of aspects of our religion, and to cover it all in five months would be hard," she said. "There's some things about Islam even I don't know."

"Yeah, there's a lot to teach him about," Zeinab agreed. "Like the five pillars, and how to pray..."

I waved their worries away with a hand, saying, "That'll come later, but first we must fight fire with fire, meaning we have to get to his level."

"I can't go that low," Yasmine joked. "We'd all be under the ground."