I woke up, early this time. I checked my phone. It was 7:03. School starts at 10:30 so I will have time to text my friends.

Salamzzz y'alllllll

Raya: Salamzzz! So excited for school! xD xD

Sameee

Dalia: You guys just woke me up w ur texting! How r u guys?

Raya: Great! Wait where is Kareema??? :(

Prob slept in Lmaooooo

Dalia: Heyyyy

Raya: Wha

Dalia: We don't say lmao...It is a bad word :0

Oh lol I say "Laughing My ARMS Off"

Raya: Hahahaha

Soooooo....LMAO LMAO LMAOOOOOOOOO!

Dalia: Kay let's get ready 4 school. Kareema's bro is driving us he's 15 but in London Ontario they say dat u can drive when ur 15...It's just like in Michigan! dat means we can drive!

my dad is taking me. He always likes 2 take us the first few days..U know dads! o_o Omg n I am soooo excited 2 drive!

Raya: K Bai! C ya Latur!

Dalia: Correction: LatEr

After I turn my phone off, I go take a shower and change into a pink dress shirt with skinny jeans and a pink Hijab. I also make wudu and pray Subh with Mohamed, May and my dad. "Come on! Grab your bags and lunch!" My mom tells us as she puts Kushari 'An Egyptian dish' inside our lunch boxes. Ahmed tugs on my mom's dress, wide eyed with tears. "Mama?" He starts and rubs his eyes. "What will I do while they are at school? Tala will be there too so i'll have nobody to play with." He sniffles. My mom smiles and picks him up. "How would you like to be my little helper today Ahmed?" She asks him. He puts his hands into fists and starts shaking them, excitedly. My dad comes over and ruffles his hair as we come and get our lunch boxes. We all head outside and pile into the car with May and my dad in the front while Mohamed, Tala and I are in the middle. "Hey what school are you, May and Tala going to?" I ask Mohamed. "May and I are going to the same one as you, Oakville and Tala's going to Frontview." He answeres. I hear my phone beep. It's Kareema. She sent me a snap of them captioned: You're missing out girlll! There is a third person blurred out. I look closely but can't make out who it is. Probably her brother. I think to myself. Then I notice Mohamed, looking at Dalia of course. I furrow a brow at him. He blushes a bit and quickly looks away. I smile teasingly. "Hey Baba?" I start. My dad looks at me through the mirror. "Did you know that Mohamed likes-" "Painting?! Yes I LOVE painting." Mohamed interupts me putting emphasize on the word 'Love', angrily. I snicker at him.

In a few minutes, we find ourselves outside of a great tall building that has a sign saying, "Oakville High School: GO FALCONS!" "Bye Tala. Bye Baba. I love you both." I tell my dad and Tala as I hug them. "Bye Mariam. Have fun at school. And pay attention Mohamed, eh?" My dad tells us. May sits in the car and opens up her pocket mirror and pulls out a tube of tinted pinkish purplish lip gloss. "Ah ah ah. You know what your mum said May." My dad tells her. May huffs and puffs. She can huff and puff all she wants, but she ain't putting tinted lip gloss on at school. I walk away from the car as my dad and May are arguing about the "Makeup Lecture" that they always talk about when May wants to wear makeup. She's only aloud to wear it at certain times.

"Hey Mariam!" Kareema called out to me. "Hey guys! Sorry I missed the ride." I told my friends as I gave them each hugs. "Oh don't worry, you didn't REALLY miss out on the chocolate peanut butter bars, the Sour Patches, Twinkies, Pop and other delicious stuff." Dalia told me, listing them all off. Then Raya handed me a bag of all those things that Dalia listed off. "Omg guys thank you." I say as I open the bag up. A boy starts walking up behind Kareema, Dalia and Raya. He taps Kareema on the back and she says hi and then says, "Oh Mariam, I forgot to tell you. This is my older brother, Kareem. Kareem this is Mariam. She's the girl I kept telling you about. Kareem's in our grade. Except he's older. We're irish twns." Kareema explained. I felt like I was melting away and my cheeks were starting to heat up, but I forced myself not to blush. He had curly hair atop his head (I LOVE curly hair on guys! It just looks so fluffy I want to touch it!) and had light chocolatey skin, just like me but it wasn't too dark or too light- just PERFECT. His dimples stuck out every single time he smiled. Oh my God! Mashallah he's so cute! I thought to myself. Mariam! Snap out of it girl! I felt a warm feeling and a blush krept up my neck. "Oh hey...I'm Kareem. Nice to meet you Mariam." He said. "Hey..." I said a little shyly. "Oh hehe..Um she's a little shy. Come on guys! We'll be late for class!" Kareema said pulling us into the girls washroom. Dalia, Raya and Kareema formed a circle and started giggling. I was confused. "What's going on you guys?" I asked them, chuckling a little. "Somebody has a crushhhh!" They said all together. I shushed them. "No I don't I just...Fine. I do." I told them. They giggled, gleefully. I rolled my eyes and joined in the giggling. Just then, we heard footsteps. High heel footsteps heading towards the washroom. We hid inside the stalls t'ill the teacher left. Or so we thought. "That was a close one." Raya said as we stepped out. "Yea we should get to class before we get caught." I peeped in. "You're dang right you should!" A teacher stepped in from behind the washroom door. We were so scared, we almost lost our breath. "Bismillah 'In the name of God'!" Raya screamed. "What are you girls doing in here? You should be in class." The teacher said so rudely. She wore a white shirt with a mid length black cardigan and some tights with a skirt. She wore very high black heels and had dirty blond hair with hints of gray in it. You could tell that she was in her late thirtys. She fixed her glasses up. "I asked a question. WHAT are you doing here?!" She yelled at us. Eww that's nasty. She spit on us! I wiped my face, very gently so that I wouldn't offend her. I kind of cringe when people spit on me. It drives me nuts but this is a teacher that's talking to me and I don't want to ruin my reputation on the first day. "Sorry Mrs-" "Read. MISS Read. I'm not married, sadly. There was once this man I loved. So much. But he left me. Thought I was ugly." She interupted me putting emphasize on the word "Miss." She started crying a little. "I wonder why." Kareema mumbled with a really cheeky smile. I elbowed her. not too harshly though. Kareema giggled and Miss looked back up again. She said nothing. Just pointed her hand to the door. As I was about to head outside of the bathroom door, Miss Read stopped me. "You RUDE and UGLY Muzlims. How dare you mock me?! Listen to me clostely ARAB GIRL. You and your MUZLIM friends better stop!" She screamed. She pulled my Hijab too. And it's MuSlims not MuZlims. I'll just try my best to ignore her. Oh class! I have to get to class! Ok next I have social studies which I am pretty good at. As I entered the class, I saw Kareem. Oh my gosh I want to hide so badly! My thoughts were interupted by a teacher, Mr. Raynolds. "Hello. Mariam right? Please have a seat in the back row Beside Shary." He told me. I nodded and headed to the back to class.

Mr. Raynolds didn't seem even half as rude as Miss Read is! Kareem was sitting in the row infront of me but not directly infront of my face so I could kind of see the side of his face. As I sat down on my chair, the only thing I looked at (Well person actually) was Kareem. I have such a major crush on him! Just then when he caught my gaze he looked right down and so did I. I had to get it together or else he'd eventually find out! At the end of the day, I headed to the parking lot where my dad was parked. "Salam Baba! Can I please just go say bye to my friends?" I asked him. He nodded and smiled. "Oh my God did you guys know that she pulled me by the Hijab?!" I told them. They all exchanged looks. "Like who does that?!" I nodded in agreement. "Anyway you guys, I gotta go. Baba's waiting and we still gotta go pick Tala up." I told them. "Yea. I'll start a group call when I get home, kay?" Kareem a told us. I headed back to the car when I was stopped by Principal Vermont with a stern look written all over his face. What did he want?

-Hey guys! So what do you think about the story so far?! I wonder what's going to happen with Principal Vermont...What do you think? Also, special shoutout to for amazing inspo for this book! Thank you so much! I love your writing! Please make sure to vote you guys!!!!