CHAPTER 3
I’m silent for a second as Faiz veers us toward senior hall, showing me my locker. I look at the note card with my locker combination on it, but when I spin the lock it feels too loose, the numbers aren’t clicking, so I lift up the handle and the door opens—no combo necessary. The lock is busted. Awesome. Not that I have anything of value besides my phone, which I shove into my back pocket.
“You can put in a request to get that fixed. There’s a form in the front office,” Faiz says. “But, uh… they might not—”
“Get to it this decade?” I guess.
“Something like that.”
I shrug, resigned, and grab a notebook, my pencil case, and my schedule so we can continue the tour. We take a few steps, neither of us speaking. I take a breath and plunge into the deep end of conversation. “So did you get roped into giving me this tour because you’re… um, desi and—”
“Muslim?” he asks with a laugh. “Pretty much, yeah. At least Mrs. Wright didn’t ask if we were related. I agreed so I could save you from getting stuck with an overly peppy member of cheer squad who would’ve grilled you with a million questions to decide your social worthiness.”
I glance up at him with a wry smile. His brown skin is a shade or two lighter than mine, but his eyes are even darker and he’s got incredibly thick, long eyelashes. They’ve got to be hazards when he wears sunglasses. “And you can spare me the interrogation because you’ve already summed up my Thor-like worthiness?”
He grins, and we take another right turn, passing a smallish but cheery-looking school library. “I think I’ve got you sized up.”
“Please, enlighten me.”
We pause next to the book return depository, and he gives me a shy up and down. “Well, you’re wearing a tee from a band I don’t know with an oversize sweater, so you’re giving emo, but… the look on your face is telling me I should maybe shut up and continue the tour.”
I raise an eyebrow. Okay, this guy has a certain adorkable charm, but I’m not about to let him in on that. “So what does your flannel shirt and beanie say about you?”
“That I overslept, rolled out of bed, grabbed the first not-too-smelly clothes in reach, and that my hair is absolutely untamed under this hat.”
I laugh out loud. I can’t help it. This surprises me. He surprises me. I’d expected everything to suck about today. But Faiz definitely doesn’t suck.
We continue walking down the hall. Faiz has this unbothered, easy gait. It reminds me of when I was little and my dad would take me on city nature walks. Making us slow down and observe what was happening around us. Slowing down is good, he said once. You’ll be surprised what you can notice when you slow down. I suck in my breath. I hate how the good memories of him sneak into my thoughts like little fires I have to put out before they consume me. I clear my throat.
Faiz turns to me, eyebrows raised.
“Are we the only desi Muslims in the school?” I ask. It’s impossible to miss how not diverse the school is, how heads swivel as we walk by, like I’m an oddity on display.
He sighs. “Yeah, pretty much. There are a couple other Muslim kids in the lower classes, but you and your sister enrolling has seriously upped the diversity at the school. There’s maybe eight hundred students in the high school, and over ninety percent are white. And there’s only a handful of teachers of color. Like four, maybe five.”
“Damn.”
“Honestly? I know people are gaping at us as we pass by, but at least some of it is because you’re the new girl. I mean, two new students during last quarter? There’s probably going to be an article about you in the newspaper.”
I groan.
“Welcome to life in a small town.” He stops in front of two large doors painted blue and yellow, with glass cases full of trophies and photos of various sports teams on either side. “This is the gym. Avoid it and hardcore jocks if you can.”
“Duly noted,” I say dryly, then glance at the clock on the wall. Only fifteen minutes until classes start.
“Faiz! Hold up!” a voice calls from down the hall, and Faiz turns to look, a big smile crossing his face as he takes in the girl running up to him. Maybe she’s his girlfriend? Of course, I don’t know if he’s straight or bi or ace or if she… I force myself to stop speculating because I need to learn to mind my own business.
I glance away as a petite girl with a blond pixie haircut and bright blue bangs play-punches Faiz in the arm, then starts chatting with him a mile a minute. She’s wearing a glittery black skull T-shirt and sports thick silver rings on both hands. Her heavy eyeliner and silvery gray eyeshadow are perfect. None of this was what I was expecting, but in a good way. Still, I’m wary of the unexpected. It’s the unexpected things that can rip your heart out when you’re not looking.
“Hi, I’m Juniper,” the perky blonde says.
“Nice to meet you. I’m—”
“Noor. I know,” she interjects. “Faiz has been talking about giving the new desi Muslim girl the tour nonstop.”
Faiz rolls his eyes, then turns to me. “I, like, maybe mentioned it once.”
“Yeah, maybe. Once.” Juniper winks at him, then turns to me, eyeing my shirt. “Don’t tell me you’re an American Football fan?” she squeals.
I nod. “They’re only the greatest Midwest emo band—”
“Ever!” Juniper and I practically shout at the same time. “Wait. You know that house? The one on the debut album?” she asks.
“Totally iconic,” I say.
“It’s super close by.”
“Oh my God. I hadn’t even thought about that. So…”
“Road trip!” we say in unison again, and then laugh.
I think I’m going to like her.
Faiz clears his throat. “Uh, we should probably get going.”
Juniper shakes her head. “Never mind him. His musical taste falls between Midwestern Gen X dad and Disney soundtracks.”
“Hey!” Faiz says, and pretends to scowl. Juniper gives him a little side hug.
“No shame in loving a musical,” I say.
Juniper laughs. “Anyway, what’s your schedule?” She glances at the paper in my hand. “Cool. We have AP English together first period. Also gym, ugh, the worst. And you’ll eat lunch with us, of course. Ooh, maybe Faiz will even make lunch for you one day like he does for me,” Juniper says, elbowing Faiz.
I’m unnerved by how nice they are. Maybe I am as jaded as my sister complains.
“Definitely,” he replies. “Lunch. I can also give you the rest of the tour then.”
“By ‘rest’ he means custodial closets and the band room because this is pretty much it,” she says, gesturing widely, then looping her arm through Faiz’s, directing us toward AP English. “C’mon, let’s go find out if they’re still letting us read books in English class.”
I scrunch my eyebrows and follow behind them as they lead the way. What did that mean? I mean, I know books are being banned all over, but Illinois was actually trying to make sure it didn’t happen here. My dad told me about some new law that they were trying to pass in Springfield that was anti–book banning. But it hadn’t passed yet. And honestly, living in Chicago, going to a liberal school, book banning wasn’t exactly the first thing on my mind, especially since my life became a shit show. But here I am now in a different reality.
As I think about Juniper’s offhand remark, I hear my dad’s voice: Ask questions, beta. Find out what’s going on. What books won’t they let kids read in class? Dammit. He’s going to be in my head forever. Ironic since he obviously never spared me a second thought.
CHAPTER 4
Day two. One day down and way too many to go. I have a pretty light class load. Technically I only need English and PE to graduate. The school counselor pulled me out of lunch yesterday (which drew some looks; this school is seriously drama starved) to review my schedule and apparently only just realized that I’m basically in a physics class I’d already taken and that I have two study halls. She told me they don’t usually let kids have more than one study hall, but they made an exception for me. My cup runneth over.
I have study hall right before lunch, so I get a pass to go to the library to see Juniper—she told me she works in there during fourth period and that it’s a chill place to hang. I’m still getting glances from people who haven’t gotten the there’s a new girl bulletin, but I bet everybody will know my name by the end of the week.
I walk through the empty halls, lined with blue and yellow lockers, the buzz of fluorescent lights filling the silence. I pause at the library doors. When I was in ninth grade, I served on my school library’s Dewey Book Award committee—every year the volunteers read through a selection of young adult novels and choose a short list of finalists for the prize that was named after an old librarian. Then the entire ninth grade voted on the winner, who was invited to speak to us.
Yes. I was a nerd. Am a nerd. But we got free books, got to have lunch in the library, and the other kids on the committee became my closest friends and we’d freely quote from books to each other with zero embarrassment. But I’ve distanced myself from friends the last few months. I still had lunch with them—before we moved here—but I said no to every study group gathering and ghosted the group chat. It’s not that I suddenly disliked everyone; I just didn’t know what to say or how to react to the “I’m sorrys” and pitying looks and to the walking on eggshells around me. Maybe I should’ve tried harder. Sometimes I worry that the only thing I’m truly good at is doing the exact opposite of what’s good for me.
A month after Dad left, Amal got super depressed. I blamed myself for being so caught up in my own feelings that I didn’t even notice her spiraling. Never saw how bad she was hurting. I mistook her silence for her being okay. I vowed to never let that happen again, and that singular mission became my entire focus. By the time my mom dropped the bomb on us that we were moving, I was barely making any effort with my friends anyway. Figured I was doing them a favor, because who wanted to be around a perpetually snarky buzzkill?
My friend Nayeli still texts me, though, and sends me YouTube links where they’re singing gorgeous, acoustic versions of Taylor Swift songs, but I don’t know how much longer they’ll stick around when all my responses are red heart or flame emojis—the text equivalent of monosyllabic grunts. I feel kinda bad about it. But sometimes it’s like I can’t even think beyond this moment, right now in front of me. Sometimes it feels like it takes my all to make it to bedtime without exploding into a billion bits of blood and bone and rage.
I can’t let myself lose it. My mom barely feels present even when she’s in the room with us, and someone needs to be there for Amal. She says she’s fine, now, but how can she be? She turned fifteen two weeks after Dad left. What an asshole. Couldn’t even stick around for her birthday. Somehow she still isn’t that mad at him. I guess sometimes I feel like I have to be angry on her behalf, too.
I take a deep breath before walking into the library. I thought the one good thing about moving away was that everything wouldn’t be a reminder of home, of my dad, but I was wrong. Memories follow you like ghosts.
I push through the glass and wood doors of the “Media Center.” I’m taken aback by how small it is. Yes, my old school was private and funded by the university and housed the largest collection of folk, myth, and fairy tales in the entire state of Illinois, so I’m spoiled, but this place is only the size of about three classrooms. Like the rest of the school, it’s bright and modern looking. There are tables and a small computer lab area and even a few comfy blue and yellow couches.
Juniper is working the circulation desk. She waves me over when she sees me. I pass a bunch of empty shelves and library carts filled with books. “Do you have to reshelve all those?” I ask Juniper.
She harrumphs. “I wish. The butt cheeks on the school board made us pull all those books from circulation.”
“Why?” I ask, even though I’m pretty sure I know the answer.
“Subversive content or some bull—”
Juniper stops herself as a petite thirtysomething Black woman emerges from behind a door marked STAFF ONLY. “Ahem,” she says. “Juniper, language.”
“Bull hockey is what I was going to say, Ms. Clayton.”
“Sure.” Ms. Clayton smiles and her dark eyes shine. She’s wearing a cream-colored skirt with strawberries embroidered all over it and a green short-sleeve blouse that matches the strawberry leaves. Her medium-long locs are pulled into a low ponytail. She’s rocking a cherry-red lip.
She walks right up to me with a warm smile. “You must be Noor.”
A look of surprise passes over my face.
“Small town. Word travels fast.”
I chuckle awkwardly. “Yeah, still getting used to that.”
“You’re a transfer from Lab High, right?”
I nod. God, it must be hard to keep secrets here.
“I moved down here from the city about three years ago. I used to live in Logan Square.”
“No way! I’m a Hyde Parker,” I say. I’m oddly excited to meet another Chicagoan here. “Why did you leave the city?”
“To complete my MLS at the university, and then I stayed on when I got this job. And you?”
I’m not ready to give the real answer. I can barely even face the question. “My mom took a teaching job at the college—social sciences department.” I glance at Juniper with a pleading look in my eyes. She picks right up on my anxiety. Yesterday when Faiz had asked about my parents, I told the two of them that my dad didn’t live with us. I didn’t fill in any other details, but I’m sure the sound in my voice and the look on my face conveyed that it was a painful topic.
“I was telling Noor that the school board are a bunch of fascists,” she says, letting me have a moment to catch my breath.
Ms. Clayton gives us a neutral nod and then starts taping up butcher paper over the empty shelves. Seems like a weird choice, unless you’re trying to draw attention to the books being pulled.…
“So they decided that all those books are—” I can’t stop myself from asking more questions. This is what my dad would be grilling them about—the who, the what, the why. Figuring out if there was a case here. I cringe thinking of all the times people used to say my dad and I were alike because I have his chin dimple and I loved to argue in that exacting way lawyers do, even as a little kid. I can’t lobotomize myself and extract all the Dad influence from my brain.
“Obscene.” Juniper uses air quotes as she answers my question.
“That’s like what, a hundred books?”
Ms. Clayton sighs and turns back to us. “It’ll be closer to five hundred. District policy states that even a single objection to a book results in its removal from the shelves. It’s then reviewed by a committee before it has a chance of being added back to the collection.”
“Like I said, bull hockey.” Juniper shakes her head. “A parent finds some tiny thing offensive and they get the book pulled so no one can read it.”
My stomach churns. My old school library was the place my friends and I always hung out. If there was ever a book we wanted that wasn’t on the shelves, the librarians welcomed requests. “Have they even read the books they’re mad about?”
Juniper snorts. “Yeah, right. I think the only things those parents read are Facebook posts from alt-right news and trolls who know how to appeal to the Olds.”
“Does the district specify criteria? Is there a rubric?” I take a deep breath. I can feel the low rumblings of anger pulsing through me. I nervously pinch my scar as I hear my dad’s questions coming out of my mouth.
Juniper laughs. “Rubric? As if. The form is on the district website. Anyone can fill it out. They don’t need to prove that they’ve read it. They can literally write indoctrination as the reason for the objection.”
“It’s both more and less complicated than that,” Ms. Clayton sighs. I’m not sure what she means but what I’m hearing is I don’t want to get into all the details. “I became a librarian because I believe in the power of story and want to get books into students’ hands.”
We watch as she walks over to the now hidden shelves and tapes flyers in the middle of the butcher paper. They all have the words BROOKLYN PUBLIC LIBRARY along with a QR code on them. “I shared my thoughts with the board about pulling the books, but they passed the new policy and what they say goes,” she continues as she places a stack of the QR codes on a small table in front of the empty shelves. “If I refuse, they’ll find someone else to do it. Worst-case scenario, they shut down the library. Recently, a public library in Michigan was defunded and forced to close because of objections to a handful of graphic novels by queer and trans authors, and now there is no library within thirty miles of the town.”
“Oh my God. Do you think they could do that here?” I ask.
Ms. Clayton shrugs. “That being said, sometimes problems can be addressed creatively, via a side angle.” She hands me and Juniper the QR code. I quickly scan it, and when it takes me to the Brooklyn Public Library site, I see that I’m able to check out ebooks even if I don’t live in Brooklyn.
I show my phone screen to Ms. Clayton. Her eyes light up. “Welcome to Bayberry, Noor. Feel free to come by anytime during study hall. I’m always looking for volunteers,” she says before heading back into her office.
I walk over to the library cart that Ms. Clayton was working by and look through a folder that’s resting on top of the books.
“What are you doing?” Juniper whispers.
“Looking for…” My eyes fall on a spreadsheet, and I pull it out from the folder. “This,” I say. “The list of books that are being pulled.” I impulsively grab my phone from my back pocket and take photos of the hundreds of books that are on the challenged list. Then I realize why; it’s like my dad trained me. “Always get receipts,” I murmur.
“The list is on the district website, but I don’t know how often it’s updated.”
“Is anyone even talking about this? Trying to fight it? We should go to a school board meeting and…” I trail off when I see Juniper rubbing her eyes.
She sighs. “Yeah. Been there. Done that. People know it’s happening, but it’s like they don’t want to know. Like it’s too much effort to care.”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean to assume you hadn’t,” I stammer. “My dad works on immigration and refugee law, and he had this one case where a refugee family was being relocated to this Illinois town. A bunch of people tried to fight against it, but my mom worked with him to build community support for the family and get them safely resettled. My mom is big into the ‘all politics is local’ thing, and my dad…” Talking about my dad makes me feel as if I’m swerving into an emotional crash.
Juniper raises an eyebrow that gets lost in her bright blue bangs. “I get it. But there’s, like, maybe fifteen, twenty parents who are super well connected and have the time to complain and show up at every stupid board meeting, so they get their way. They don’t care what students have to say. And they object to a lot more than books.”
I lean over the circulation desk. Get all the facts before you jump to conclusions. How many times did I hear some version of that from my dad when he was working on a case? “What are other issues those parents go after?” I ask Juniper.
Juniper twists the silver snake ring on her index finger and then continues. “Last year, a couple homophobic parents got all ragey because two gay couples went to prom, so now I’m technically not allowed to take my girlfriend to the dance.” She pauses.
I bite my lip. So she’s not Faiz’s girlfriend. God. I’m the worst. She’s talking about rampant homophobia and my brain goes to cute boy. Shut up, hormones.
Juniper continues, unaware of the synapses misfiring in my head. “By that I mean my hypothetical girlfriend because I don’t—”
My anger finally meets my spiraling thoughts. “You should be able to take your imaginary girlfriend anywhere! Banning queer couples is massive discrimination. How is it not illegal? This is public school; they can’t do that.”
“They get away with it because they’re sly haters. And it’s not like the school cares about homophobia. I still get called the f-word sometimes. Once someone put a Post-it on my notebook with the d-word on it, and Carter seriously asked me if it maybe had to do with the Earth Science river embankment assignment.” Juniper rolls her eyes and grabs a pile of books to scan in as returned.
“What an asshole.”
“Yeah. Also, they didn’t technically ban same-sex couples from going to dances. They banned all couples because they know how to hide their discrimination. So now the school only sells single tickets to dances. Obviously, people go around it and have dates. But those parents along with Mr. Carter made their feelings about queer kids very clear between their dog whistles and talk about maintaining a wholesome culture at the school. I’m afraid it scared some kids to not be open about who they are or what they want.”
I’m silent for a second because whatever I say can’t express how shitty this all is. I give Juniper a sad smile.
“Look,” she continues, “I’m not letting anyone shove me into the closet, and my parents have my back. But, like, a ton of those books being pulled are by queer authors. And what if there’s some questioning baby queer that needs one of those books? When I read Leah on the Offbeat in eighth grade, I was cheering so hard for Leah and Abby to kiss, and it first sort of confused me, but then I was like, wait. Oh my God, my girl crushes make so much more sense now. I’m a lesbian! And then I was like, give me all the queer books. Now they’re all getting pulled.”
Lab High was the total opposite of this place. We didn’t even have homecoming or prom court because, like, a hundred years ago the student body got rid of them for being sexist and non-egalitarian. We had trans and nonbinary teachers. We learned about pronouns in grade school. What the hell kind of place had my mom moved us to?
I shake my head. “I’m glad your parents are there for you.” It pinches a little to say that, to remember what I’m missing. “I hate this all so much. Not to be all mushy on main because I know we just met, but I got your back… not that you need me to, or that you don’t have other friends, or that—”
Juniper interrupts me with a smile. “I appreciate you. And same.”
I wasn’t planning on making friends here, but I think that’s what I’m doing. Also, if people are being attacked, I can’t stand around with my fingers in my ears. It’s not just because that’s what my dad would want or that I’m used to protests because of the ones my mom took me to; it’s because it’s the right thing to do. Last year I read Kip Wilson’s White Rose, a novel about Sophie Scholl, who, along with her brother and a few other German college kids, protested Hitler’s horrifying laws by distributing leaflets condemning him. When she was captured, Sophie talked about why she spoke up. Her answer was so simple but totally crushing—somebody, after all, had to make a start. The Nazis executed her when she was twenty-one, only three years older than me. That totally guts me every time I think about it. I clear my throat and meet Juniper’s gaze. “Have the students ever collectively protested the, um…”
“The wildly fascist shit the parents and school board pull around here? Nah. I mean, Faiz and I went to the school board meeting Ms. Clayton was talking about. We freelance for the school paper and pitched a story about it. The adviser blew a gasket, saying it was controversial clickbait, not news. Weird that the journalism teacher is against reporting facts, huh?” Juniper shakes her head, a sour look of annoyance on her face.
“The less you know, the easier you are to trick and manipulate,” I say. I know that from experience.