Yusuf Azeem Is Not a Hero

by Saadia Faruqi

  Yusuf’s ears perked up. They’d been talking about the same thing at dinner with Uncle Rahman. “What do you mean?”

  Abba shook his head as if to get rid of ugly thoughts. “Never mind, forget I said anything.” He pointed a finger at Yusuf’s chest. “That Jared moved here from Houston recently. You saw how he looked—like a lonely, miserable cat. You should make friends with him.”

  Rusty meowed as if insulted.

  “I’m going to do my homework,” Yusuf told Abba, before any other customers appeared. He went back to the storeroom and opened his backpack. There was only one math worksheet, which he finished in ten minutes. Then he took out Uncle Rahman’s journal and settled down on the floor to read.

  Journal entry 2

  September 4, 2001

  This week we had our first elective class of sixth grade. I’d chosen art, only because being in band for an entire year didn’t sound like too much fun. I didn’t think I’d like art, but it’s actually okay. Mr. Levine lets us sit anywhere we want, and we use oil paints and canvas. Plus, nobody minds if I make a mess. Our first assignment is a landscape, and I’m painting Galveston Beach because that’s where we’re planning to go for next weekend. I can already imagine it: the sun, the waves, the smell of meat on our portable grill.

  It’s going to be AWESOME!

  Plus, I’m going to sit on the sand and read. Art may be fun, but I’d rather be reading, any time! Too bad library isn’t an elective.

  Farrah baji always tells me to be serious in my studies, like she is. She’s a senior in high school this year, and she’s thinking about college. She can’t decide which subject to choose as her elective this year, world literature or journalism. It’s strange to me . . . how can someone in high school decide what they want to be for the rest of their lives? I have zero clues about myself, although Amma and Abba keep telling everyone I’ll be a doctor when I grow up. I don’t want to burst their bubble, but the sight of blood makes me feel like throwing up, so I don’t think that’s going to happen.

  Jonathan says he’s seen a lot of blood on the football field. I don’t doubt it. Those guys are brutal. I’m so glad he’s my friend, though. I’ve known him since second grade, when he kicked a ball in the playground that landed on my head. “You cried like a baby for hours!” he always teases me. But it’s not really true. I cried for a minute, and then we became best friends forever. End of story.

  Some people think it’s weird that we’re friends. He’s a popular white kid with muscles and thick blond hair. I’m a first-generation Pakistani kid who wears glasses and reads a lot. And I don’t have muscles. But Jonathan says to forget those haters. We have a lot in common, because secretly he reads a lot too. He just doesn’t do it in public like me. He says he has a reputation to maintain.

  I don’t care. As long as we can hang out in school and do our homework together on the phone on weekends, I’m happy. Sometimes I can hear his mom grumbling about us in the background, but it doesn’t bother me too much. We’re going to be best friends forever and ever, even when we’re fifty years old. I guarantee it.

  7

  “Look out, beta!”

  “Stay out of the way, will you? Ya Allah, you kids!”

  The next day, Sunday, was construction day, as always. Yusuf and Danial ducked just as a group of men—uncles they knew—huffed past with wooden beams. “Can we help?” Yusuf asked eagerly.

  Danial pulled him away from the half-built structure that would one day be the Islamic Center of Frey. At the moment it was just wood planks and nails and Sheetrock. It was men and women and children of all ages milling about, carrying heavy things. It was noise and laughter. And some worried glances, like Abba’s as he asked nobody in particular for the tenth time: “Are we on schedule with the construction? Because it doesn’t look like we are.”

  Yusuf agreed with his father. It didn’t look like the mosque would be finished in another few months. He opened his mouth to repeat his offer of help.

  Danial gave Yusuf a hard look. “No, we can’t help right now. We need to strategize.”

  Yusuf looked around. “But we’re supposed to help. All hands on deck, remember?”

  Cameron walked over to them, his lip curled in disgust. “You’re such a Goody Two-shoes, Yusuf. Always doing exactly what the adults tell you to do.”

  Danial scowled. “Nobody asked you to be in this conversation, Kamran!” he said, stressing the correct Urdu pronunciation of Cameron’s name.

  Cameron shrugged. “Yet here I am.” He had a backpack on his shoulder, gray and dirty, and definitely old. Yusuf couldn’t help wondering what was in it. Something terrible, knowing Cameron.

  Danial strode away with purposeful steps. The others followed, going through a wooden fence that marked off the construction area. “My dad told me we have to help with lunch prep. That’s at least two hours away. So you can rest easy.”

  “Wait,” Yusuf replied. “Amma said if we have nothing else to do, we need to help with the medical table.”

  They stopped at a clearing that would one day be a parking lot, but was only grass and mud and trees for now. One of the Muslim doctors had set up a little table with a few supplies and a row of folding chairs. A pregnant woman was getting her blood pressure checked. Razia Begum, Frey’s oldest Muslim, sat snoring in her wheelchair. She wore a yellow cotton sari, and her brilliant white hair was tied into a straggly bun at the nape of her neck. A fly buzzed around her, but she didn’t seem bothered by it.

  Danial waved. “See, everything is under control. We’re not needed.”

  Yusuf looked around for Amma, but she was busy talking with a few other women in a far corner of the lot. Everything did seem under control. He could help out a little later, he decided.

  The boys wandered to the shade of a giant oak tree and sat cross-legged under it, making sure they stayed away from the muddy bits. Cameron collapsed on the tree’s exposed roots as if he was made of foam. Yusuf passed around some cinnamon gum, and they relaxed in the sunlight, looking at the workers in the distance. The uncle-workers they all knew as their neighbors and friends’ fathers, and most had zero knowledge about building things. The aunty-workers assembled sandwiches and babysat the little ones and cleaned the worksite in the evenings.

  The railway tracks gleamed in the distance as the sun shone over them. Yusuf checked his watch. The ten o’clock train would pass in exactly thirteen minutes.

  “So, did you talk to your mom about the Saturday club?” Danial asked.

  Yusuf nodded glumly. “Yes. You were right. She refused.”

  “Told you.” Danial stared into the distance with a pleased look on his face. He loved being right.

  There was a rustle from the other side of the tree. Cameron was poking a centipede with a stick, not forcefully, but just hard enough to make the centipede curl up in protest. They both watched for a minute, fascinated. “He better not hurt that thing,” Danial whispered in Yusuf’s ear.

  “What will you do?”

  “Something. I don’t know.”

  They watched some more. Cameron left the centipede alone and began writing in the mud with his stick. Yusuf couldn’t make out the letters. Were they English or Urdu? Or Arabic perhaps? He whispered again to Danial, “We need more people for TRC,” and jerked his head in Cameron’s direction repeatedly. “Mr. Parker said so.”

  Danial lost his pleased look. “No way.”

  “We don’t have a choice,” Yusuf said. “We have to sign up a team soon or we can kiss the LEGO competition goodbye.”

  Cameron turned his head, pointing the stick in his hand at them. “LEGO? What are you guys, ten?”

  “TRC is not for kids,” Yusuf informed him. “It’s a competition for middle schoolers, with regionals in Conroe every year.”

  Cameron went back to his sand letters. “I know what it is. It’s stupid.”

  Yusuf sighed. Cameron had been their friend until fourth grade. They’d played catch in Danial’s backyard on the weeke
nds, or LEGOs when it was too hot to go outside. Cameron could build the most complicated thing in minutes, his hands moving so quickly over the LEGO pieces they seemed blurry.

  Danial stood up and went around to stand in front of Cameron. “Forget the LEGO part. It’s actually a robotics competition using Mindstorms. You’ve heard of that, haven’t you?” It was a challenge that came out in a sneer.

  “Mindstorms, huh?” Cameron pursed his lips as if he was thinking. “No thanks.”

  Danial made a frustrated sound in his throat. “You are so . . .”

  Cameron looked up, an amused smile on his lips. “I’m so . . . what? Not interested in being bossed around by you anymore? Not into your childish games anymore? What?”

  This wasn’t the first time the two had bickered. Yusuf quickly stood up between them, taking care not to step on the poor centipede curled up in the middle. “You may be interested in the prize.”

  There was a screech in the distance, and they all jumped slightly. The train. It came like clockwork three times a day, pulling graffiti-painted cars filled with oil. Ten o’clock, two thirty, and five thirty-five. Yusuf knew the schedule because he’d checked the city website when the mosque construction had first begun. The little kids shouted and ran to hang on to the fence, watching with wide, excited eyes. The train chugged closer with a deafening roar. It took twenty-six seconds for it to pass, and then it was gone.

  “What prize?” Cameron finally asked.

  Danial’s face resembled a thundercloud, but Yusuf ignored him. “It’s a pretty sweet prize,” he told Cameron with a coaxing smile. “Cash. Video games. A laptop.”

  Cameron’s expression eased. “A laptop, huh?”

  Yusuf nudged Danial with his elbow. “We’ll give you the laptop if we win. All you have to do is sign up for Mr. Parker’s robotics club after school.”

  Danial opened his mouth to protest, but Yusuf gave him a warning look. “Yeah, sure,” Danial finally choked out.

  Cameron grinned, and his earring glinted in the sunlight. “Well, that sounds like fun. How do I sign up?”

  Lunch was chicken salad and jalapeño sandwiches assembled by Amma’s team of volunteer aunties. The food was arranged on a long white folding table, along with big bags of potato chips and gallon-sized recycled water bottles. Everyone sat around the table, either on folding chairs brought from home, or on the ground.

  Yusuf gazed into the distance. A few houses were being built on the far end of the road. Close by was a church with a white steeple and a playground in the backyard. People stood in the yard in clumps, and a loud laugh rang out here and there. Yusuf imagined them talking and eating sandwiches. “I wonder if they also built their church themselves,” he said.

  Danial laughed. “Of course not. You only do that if you don’t have enough money to hire a crew. My dad said that’s the proper way.”

  Yusuf looked around. “Where is your dad anyway?”

  “He had to work. His company has an important deadline coming up.”

  Yusuf chewed his lip. “I thought everyone had to be here on Sundays to help.”

  Danial frowned. “Look, they’re coming this way.”

  It was a weekly ritual. The church people ended their Sunday services at exactly twelve noon, and by twelve thirty they made their way slowly in twos and threes down the street, past the construction site. Only a few came in cars that they parked on the side of the road.

  “Hello.”

  “Good morning.”

  “Howdy.”

  Yusuf always smiled and waved. So did Abba and Amma and several others. But the church people mostly looked at their feet, as if they were worried they’d stumble if they didn’t watch where they were going.

  Something made Yusuf look back at the church. Only the pastor was left, standing at the door. And a tall boy with long hair. The boy saw Yusuf looking, and offered a small, reassuring smile. It wasn’t even really a smile, because it vanished before Yusuf was sure it was real. He realized he’d seen the boy before.

  “That’s Jared,” Yusuf breathed.

  Danial frowned. “Who?”

  “Nobody.”

  8

  Yusuf had almost forgotten the entire note-in-his-locker situation over the weekend. He opened his locker on Monday morning with a smile, telling Danial about the cinnamon French toast Amma had cooked for breakfast. French toast was his favorite, because Amma had a secret recipe: fry the toast in a spoonful of ghee. “Ah-may-zing!” he sang.

  Anything cooked in ghee was a hundred times better. It also added hundreds of unnecessary calories to the food, but who cared?

  “My mom says ghee is a delicious killer,” Danial said from behind him.

  “Your mom needs to eat some of my amma’s food,” Yusuf replied. It was true. If there was ever a cooking competition among all the women of Frey, Farrah Azeem would be crowned queen.

  “Whatever.”

  The locker door swung open, and the paper floated out to the ground gently. Yusuf tried to grab it, but Danial was quicker. “‘We hate you,’” he read slowly. Then he looked up and stared accusingly at Yusuf. “Why did you write this? Who is it for?”

  Yusuf swallowed the bile rising up in his throat. It didn’t help that he could taste cinnamon. “I . . . it . . . I didn’t write . . . Give it back.”

  “Then who did?”

  “I said give it back!” Yusuf knew he was too loud. A few kids passing by looked at him curiously. “Someone wrote it about me,” he finally admitted, hanging his head.

  Danial looked aghast. He handed over the paper hastily, as if it was contaminated with a horrible disease. “Sorry.”

  Yusuf crumpled up the paper without looking at it. He wanted to sink into the ground, or slam the locker door and run away. But where would he go? “It’s just a joke,” he finally said.

  “A joke? This doesn’t look like a joke.”

  Yusuf threw the crumpled ball into the back of the locker, stuffed his backpack inside, and slammed the door shut. “Never mind. Forget it.”

  But he couldn’t forget it. We hate you, the paper had said. Who was we? Why would they hate him? What had Yusuf ever done to anyone?

  In science, Mr. Parker had to call his name three times before he looked up. “I’m sorry, sir. Can you repeat that?”

  “I’m asking for an example of an insulator.”

  “Um, I’m not sure. . . .”

  Mr. Parker waved toward the whiteboard and frowned. “It’s right there, if you care to pay attention.”

  Yusuf focused on the whiteboard. He knew insulators inside out. He’d used rubber sheets to pad the wall he shared with Aleena’s room so he couldn’t hear her coughing at night. “Metal?” he read from the whiteboard.

  Wait, that didn’t seem right.

  “Wrong column, Mr. Azeem!” Mr. Parker practically yelled.

  Yusuf hung his head. “Sorry,” he mumbled. He felt like puking.

  Thankfully, he didn’t. He kept his eyes fixed on the whiteboard the rest of science class, nodding like a broken robot every few minutes and making zero eye contact with anyone. Jared sat three desks away, and he gave Yusuf a little nod, as if to say, “It’s okay, these things happen.” Yusuf relaxed. It was true. Giving the wrong answer wasn’t the end of the world.

  Jared was also in Miss Terrance’s social studies class, sitting right next to Yusuf. Miss Terrance handed out class copies of Ancient Civilizations and worksheets full of comprehension questions. “Read the first chapter, and then we’ll discuss the questions,” she told them before going back to her desk, her heels clacking on the classroom floor. She had shoulder-length hair that was dyed purple, and long nails that matched.

  Yusuf turned the pages of the book, but all he could see was the paper from his locker. We hate you. We hate you. He pressed a finger under his glasses, touching his right eyelid. “Focus!” he hissed to himself.

  “You want to say something?” Miss Terrance looked up, annoyed. She’d been writing something on
her computer, her eyebrows scrunched together like an angry line of soldiers.

  “No. Sorry, ma’am.”

  Jared leaned over as soon as Miss Terrance went back to her work. “You okay?” He had a raspy voice, so low it was almost a whisper.

  Yusuf nodded. “Sure. Thanks for asking.”

  Jared looked at him for a second. Two seconds. Then he whispered again, shyly, “Many people think the ancient pyramids were actually built by aliens.”

  “That’s a conspiracy theory,” Yusuf told him. TNN was always full of people with conspiracy theories.

  “Is it?” Jared shot back. “Or is it a truth that everyone just covers up?”

  “I’m warning you, boys,” Miss Terrance called out.

  Yusuf didn’t look up from his book until it was discussion time. But he hadn’t read a word. And Jared didn’t talk to him again all day.

  At dinner, Amma wanted to know how school was going. “Mrs. Khan said they need volunteers in the library. I was thinking I should sign up.”

  Yusuf shrugged. “I haven’t had library yet.” He’d memorized the times for all his core classes, but not library and PE. Of course he could check his schedule to see when those were, but the schedule was in his locker, and he was pretty sure he wasn’t going to open that door ever again.

  Amma gave him a long look. “Is everything okay? Are you upset about the robotics club on Saturday?”

  “I’m not upset.”

  Aleena spilled water on the table just then, so Amma stopped asking him so many questions. “WAAAHHH!” Aleena wailed. “Water gone!”

  Yusuf gobbled up his leftover roti and vegetables and went off to his room, saying “Homework” over his shoulder. He wasn’t lying. He had another sheet of math problems, plus a science video to watch for Mr. Parker. It was after eight o’clock when he logged into Scratch. Aleena’s game was almost complete, and a bunch of users had sent comments. He clicked through the site. He loved browsing other people’s projects to see what creative things they came up with.