Does My Head Look Big in This? (5 page)

She sounds like she needs a ventilator. She draws in a huge breath of air, leans back in her chair and gazes intently at me: “Well now, Amal Mohamed Nas – Nas – Nasru—” I cut her off. It’s too painful to watch. She never fails to stutter like the Rainman when she takes a shot at my surname.

“Mohamed Nasrullah Abdel-Hakim,” I complete for her. I smile, trying to send off a million happy vibes with every spasmodic twitch of my facial muscles. I’m under no delusions that she’s going to take this easily. After all, she has a reputation for popping a painkiller from the trauma of seeing a student wearing the wrong socks. No chemist will have sufficient supplies for her now.

Instead, she half smiles, half winces and runs her fingers through her hair. I momentarily feel sorry for her because I’m not about to pretend that this is the equivalent of mismatched socks or the wrong coloured hairclip. There seems to be something almost X-Men-like about this piece of material on my head. Too many people look at it as though it has bizarre powers sewn into its micro-fibres. Powers which transform Muslim girls into UCOs (Unidentified Covered Objects), which turn Muslim girls from an “us” into a “them”. Ms Walsh probably wants to deal with detentions, board meetings, curriculum changes, teachers’ pay rises. Figuring out how to deal with a Muslim kid wearing the veil at her stuffy old grammar school is probably the last thing she expected to pop up in her job description. But although I understand her viewpoint, I’ve got to stand up for myself. As much as I would like to live a comic-book character’s life, I really would rather not be treated like an UCO.

“Amal . . . hmm. . . I don’t want to – I mean, I want to tread delicately on this . . . sensitive issue . . . hmm. . . Did you speak to anybody about wearing . . . about abandoning our school uniform?”

“I wouldn’t exactly call it abandoning.”

Her eyes narrow. One thing about teachers and principals. They hate to be contradicted.

I bite my lip, worried she’ll erupt, and then quickly say something before she has a chance to. “I would have spoken to you earlier except today is my first school day wearing it. I made the decision during the holidays.”

“Hmm . . . now let me see.” She presses her fingers down on her temples. “So your parents have made you wear the veil permanently now? Starting from today? Your
first
day of term three. Couldn’t it wait until tomorrow? After they’d spoken to me?”

I stare at her in shock. “My parents? Who mentioned my parents?”

“The veil, dear.” Her voice is annoyingly phony. “So you’ve been made to wear it from today?”

“Nobody has
made
me wear it, Ms Walsh. It’s my decision.” I shift in the chair, my bum numb from the hard wood.

“
Your
decision to cover yourself up?” she asks with the faintest hint of scepticism.

I look at her with a bewildered expression. “Yes, it was my decision.”

She gives me another
ahem
.
“Well, Amal. I’m not sure what to do here. I hope you appreciate that this isn’t Hid—Hida – your old
Coburg
school. This is a reputable educational establishment. We have more than one hundred years of proud history. A history of tradition, Amal. Of conformity with the rules and policies of this institution. We have a strict uniform policy. And you have walked in, on your first day back from holidays, and been so presumptuous as to alter it without authorization.”

“But Ms Walsh, it’s not like I’ve put in an eyebrow ring or grown a mohawk or dyed my uniform pink. I’m still in school uniform. I know it’s the first time a student has worn it but couldn’t you make an exception? I’m not doing this because I’m trying to rebel against the rules.”

She looks uncomfortable and leans back in her leather chair. “But you’ve made no effort to seek the school’s permission. This certainly wasn’t raised at your enrolment interview. I recall your parents. They seemed like very decent, straightforward people. I’m rather disappointed they never mentioned this. I saw your mum wearing the veil but I never suspected you would be wearing it too.”

“But my enrolment interview was more than six months ago! I didn’t
seriously
start to contemplate going ahead with this until last week. And even
then
I was still unsure. I only made my final decision four days ago!”

“Why didn’t you at least approach me when you were thinking about it? You should have consulted me first.”

It takes me a solid minute to realize my jaw is hanging down.

“Er . . . it was personal. . .”

“Well, obviously not. It’s rather public, don’t you think? Personal is something tucked under your shirt. Personal is rosary beads in your pocket. I would submit, Amal, that your veil is not, of all things, personal. Now don’t get me wrong; I respect your religion. We live in a multicultural society and we should accept and tolerate people no matter what their creed, race or colour. But you must understand that I have an educational institution to run and there are certain guidelines. I’m sure your parents will appreciate that.”

“I’m not going around preaching or anything. It’s something . . . for myself.”

She looks at me incredulously.

“My parents had nothing to do with it. They found out last week. They were even concerned for me—”

“Concerned?”

“Yes, they were worried I wasn’t ready. Actually, they were freaking out more about how I’d be able to cope. Being the only one in the school with it on.”

“Let me get this right.” She sits up straight in her chair. “They were actually opposed to this decision to cover up?”

“Well, not
opposed
.
Just, I don’t know, cautious. Worried for me. Because of the reaction I might get.” I look at her, but she ignores my tone and is suddenly shuffling papers on her desk and flashing me a large, friendly smile.

“Well, Amal. Let’s discuss this later, shall we? You’ve got class to attend.”

She scribbles out a late note and hands it to me.

“Here you go. Now have a wonderful first day and I will speak to you soon.”

She gives me a fake smile and resumes writing, an invitation for me to leave pronto. I nod back, careful not to slam the door behind me as I leave.

I end up entering English with everybody already comfortably seated. I close the door behind me and am confronted by an instantly silent classroom, lines of faces staring up at me from their desks.

Mr Pearse is standing at the front of the class. I can tell my hijab has taken him by surprise. I wait, holding my breath, for his response.

Tell me off for being late. Give me detention. Scream, yell, be normal.

“
Ahem!
First day of school, Amal. I hope you have a note.” His eyebrows are raised and his hands folded across his chest; he taps his fingers against his arms impatiently.

He is inaugurated into my hall of fame of all-time favourite teachers.

“Here you go, Mr Pearse.”

He scans it and then smiles at me, nodding at me to take a seat. My friends, Simone and Eileen, are grinning proudly at me. Everybody else is staring like I’ve dyed my hair green or showed up to school wrapped in toilet paper. Tia Tamos, Claire Foster and Rita Mason look at me and then snigger amongst themselves. Predictable. After all, they were top of the right-hand columners in my To Wear or Not To Wear List. As I walk past the desks my eyes meet Adam’s and he looks taken aback. He wriggles in his seat and is suddenly fascinated by the corner of his desk. I feel like somebody has got a stapler and started punching holes all over my guts.

I met Adam Keane in Chemistry a couple of weeks into my first semester. We were paired up as lab partners, and we were assigned together many more times throughout the term. As this is high school, it’s important to understand what type he is. He’s not the loner type. Not the ostracized-nerd type or stuck-up brainiac type. He’s not the pot-head type, just-wants-to-bonk-girls type, teacher’s-pet type, personally-unhygienic type. He’s pretty popular, as any guy who’s good at sport usually is. In that sense, he’s a sporty type. Plus, everybody knows he wants to be a doctor and needs to pretty much ace every subject to become one. So he’s also an ambitious-but-retains-coolness type. He’s just one of those guys who seems to have it all. Back then I wasn’t really that impressed with him. We hung out in Chem, did the hi/bye thing in the hall, and that was pretty much it. We had the “classroom relationship”. The kind that ends when the bell rings. There’s no recess or lunch time thing happening.

Then at approximately 11.45 a.m. on Friday, 24 May, we’re in Chemistry and Adam’s passing me a gauze mat and bunsen burner when I suddenly notice his sleeves are pulled up and I get a glimpse of his forearms.

I’m telling you, I’m usually a 1) smile, 2) eyes, 3) skin, and 4) six-pack kind of girl. But the sight of Adam’s forearms, with his veins bulging against his muscles and his shirt sleeves begging for oxygen just about made me dizzy. I started to notice his eyes – a deep navy-blue. His hair – a dishevelled mess of brown and sandy blond. OK there’s a bit of dot-to-dot acne and he almost has a monobrow dilemma, but his imperfections are what kept me up all that Friday and Saturday night as I fantasized about cuddling up to his forearms, stroking his hair and listening to him tell me I’m the most beautiful girl in the world.

So I’ve been in official crush mode since May 24.

Hence the absolute gastro-inducing experience of being snubbed by him.

I take a seat next to Simone and Eileen and wait for a comment during class. But nobody approaches me and nobody says anything. So I wait for people to say something in-between classes. But nobody does.

In English, Simone and Eileen furiously write notes to me.

You look great!

Boy have you got guts!

Fill us in at recess.

At recess I sit with Simone and Eileen in the northern courtyard overlooking one of the ovals. Simone and I hit it off from my first day at school. I’d walked into home room and approached the closest free seat, next to a gorgeous girl with jet-black hair and cat-green eyes. She was all haughtiness and glamour and took one look at me and told me she was saving the seat for a friend. She’s a scanner. You know the type, the kind who looks you up and down, head to toe, and makes it so obvious. Never mind the fact that you’re wearing the same uniform every day, she’ll still do her scan, as though she’s trying to detect if you’ve put on a gram of fat or something. She’s also into the sexy hair tossing thing. Every time she speaks her hair gets tossed from one side to the other. It’s a wonder her neck doesn’t crack. Anyway, Simone was sitting in the back and waved me over. I sat next to her and she told me I’d had my first encounter with Tia Tamos, aka hair-spinning bitch, and asked me if I watched
Friends
.
We’ve hung out ever since.

I met Eileen Tanaka after the “living off the dole” incident with Tia. Eileen’s parents are Japanese. Not Chinese. Or Asian. Japanese. She doesn’t have much patience for people who are too lazy to make the distinction.

“So let me get this right,” Eileen says. “You don’t have to wear it in front of family, kids and females?”

“Basically that’s it.”

“So it’s not like you wear it all the time,” Simone says.

“That’s right. Of course . . . I wear it in the shower.”

Eileen and Simone roll their eyes at me. “Like we’re
that
naïve, Amal.”

“Seriously, I do. Helps with the conditioning treatment.”

“
Please
do us a favour and audition for the Melbourne Comedy Festival.”

“Anyway, what did Ms Walsh say about it?” Simone asks, offering me a celery stick.

“What’s with the celery?” I ask her.

“New diet,” she groans. Simone’s incredibly self-conscious about her body. She doesn’t understand that it’s all in her mind. OK, so she’s not a size eight, can’t feel her ribcage and doesn’t have toothpicks for legs. She’s about a size fourteen and really voluptuous and curvy and gorgeous with big blue eyes, creamy, radiant skin and lips that look like she has permanent red lipstick on. When she smiles, her cheeks squash up and her eyes twinkle. But tell that to her and you’re up for a fight given that when she looks in the mirror she’s seeing one big lipid molecule. She’s on a new diet almost every week, but they never last, and then she goes through a binge/purge cycle and comes back on Monday morning with a new celebrity diet that she got from
Women’s Weekly
.

“No-carb?” Eileen asks.

“Who knows.” She takes another reluctant bite of her celery stick. “So tell us, Amal. Did she crack it?”

“She nearly had an aneurism. She was raving on about breaking tradition and this
institution’s
proud history. Why do all principals do that? Make you feel like you’re in a mental asylum?”

“Did Adam say anything?”