Promising Azra

by Helen Thurloe

  To the students and staff of Birrong Girls High School

  This book was developed with the support of a fellowship from Varuna, the National Writers House.

  Published by Allen & Unwin in 2016

  Copyright © Helen Thurloe 2016

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or by any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher. The Australian Copyright Act 1968 (the Act) allows a maximum of one chapter or ten per cent of this book, whichever is the greater, to be photocopied by any educational institution for its educational purposes provided that the educational institution (or body that administers it) has given a remuneration notice to the Copyright Agency (Australia) under the Act.

  Allen & Unwin

  83 Alexander Street

  Crows Nest NSW 2065

  Australia

  Phone: (61 2) 8425 0100

  Email: info@allenandunwin.com

  Web: www.allenandunwin.com

  A Cataloguing-in-Publication entry is available from the National Library of Australia

  www.trove.nla.gov.au

  ISBN 9781760113278

  eISBN 9781952534584

  Teacher’s notes available from www.allenandunwin.com

  Cover design by Debra Billson

  Typeset by Midland Typesetters, Australia

  Contents

  RAJAB

  I PRECURSOR

  II CATENATION

  III DIFFUSION

  IVBUFFER SOLUTION

  V ACTIVATION ENERGY

  VI PASSIVATE

  VII MASKING AGENT

  VIII CAPILLARY ACTION

  IX CATALYST

  X NODAL PLANE

  XI THERMAL CRACKING

  SHA’BAN

  XII SUSPENSION

  XIII HYDROPHILIC

  XIV END POINT

  XV IONISATION ENERGY

  XVI CHEMILUMINESCENCE

  XVII SOLVENT

  XVIII HYPERGOLIC

  XIX HALF LIFE

  RAMADAN

  XX CORROSION

  XXI REDUCTION

  XXII FLASH POINT

  XXIII EXOTHERMIC

  XXIV EQUILIBRIUM

  SHAWWAL

  XXV DISSOLUTION

  XXVI NUCLEAR FISSION

  XXVII DENATURE

  XXVIII FLUORESCENCE

  XXIX CONDENSATION

  MUHARRAM

  XXX SUBLIMATION

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I

  Precursor

  a compound in a chemical reaction that makes another compound

  Layla couldn’t wait. She was already bringing in ripped-out pages from bridal magazines to show us all at recess. And she couldn’t shut up about them either.

  ‘Check this one,’ she’d say, stabbing a square-tipped fingernail at a girl in a chiffon headpiece and a flowing dress. ‘Like this, but with more pearls stitched on here, you know? In a heart shape. Or a daisy. Like that.’

  Then at lunchtime, she’d be the first one on the benches near the netball courts, busy tagging the daily fashion updates on The Modest Bride. Photos of thin models with downcast eyes, leaning on ornate railings, like they were waiting for something.

  ‘Don’t you want your lunch?’ asked Bassima, pointing at Layla’s unopened lunchbox on the bench. ‘You’ll faint at the wedding if you skip it every day.’

  Layla laughed. She looked super-dressy today. Thick brown eyeliner, glossy mascara that stuck her long eyelashes together in pointy clumps, and an extra-high bun lifting the back of her white scarf.

  ‘I’m working on skinny; pretending I’m starting Ramadan early. Reckon I’ll get to size eight by November?’

  ‘November?’ I said. ‘Aren’t you doing Year Twelve anymore?’

  ‘Size eight?’ asked Bassima, talking over the top of me. ‘Seriously? You look fine already.’

  Layla was curvy, with dimples in her cheeks when she smiled. Well covered, as my Auntie Shakeela would say.

  ‘No,’ she said, creasing her dimples. ‘No more study for me. Not after Year Eleven. Azra, you can have my chem notes for revision. And maths, if you want, though you probably don’t need them. B, you can have all of my size twelve clothes. In November.’

  I caught Bassima’s eye. She pushed out her lower lip, like whatever.

  ‘But isn’t that a bit soon?’ I asked. ‘I thought the wedding wasn’t until next year? Just ’cause you’re promised doesn’t mean you have to get married straightaway. Hardly anyone does.’

  Layla shrugged. ‘Yeah, I know. But we changed our minds. It feels right, so why wait any longer? Don’t tell me you’re jealous, Azra?’

  I shook my head, and my ears pulsed hot. ‘No. No, I’m not. I want to do my HSC first.’

  ‘Yeah, well—you would. What with being so good at science and all that. But it’s not for me.

  ‘What do you think about this dress? Are the sleeves too puffy or what?’

  II

  Catenation

  the bonding of atoms of the same kind of element into chains or rings

  At the start of what was supposed to be my second-last year at Mount Lewis Girls High School, I thought there was a clear and predictable path ahead. One you could put on a map, or turn into a diagram.

  But I was wrong. It was like heating a volatile compound with a steady flame underneath. You know in your head that something must be happening, secretly altering what’s inside, but because it doesn’t happen straightaway, for a little while you give up and think that nothing will shift after all. Then bam! There’s fire and noise, and no way you can pretend it was how it was before. And no way of changing it back either.

  On the day of that assembly, halfway through term two, it felt like that. The slow-heating part, with no hint of anything different ahead. We waited outside the science lab, as we did six times a week, for Mrs Kaminski to unlock the door. Bassima repinned her scarf, as I’d seen her do a thousand times before. And while she was doing that, I noticed she had these flashy lacquered fingernails. Which wasn’t for the first time either. But it was still a surprise.

  ‘Hey—don’t tell me that’s a new manicure?’

  She hid her hands behind her back and pretended to whistle.

  ‘Not telling,’ she said. ‘What if it is?’

  I shook my head. ‘You know. Mrs K will go off her head.’

  Bassima rolled her eyes. ‘But it was a special offer! See the little diamantés in the middle?’ She flicked her hands wide to show off her long, glossy fingernails. ‘Aren’t they amazing?’

  I looked at them in astonishment. What was she thinking? They were amazing, but for all the wrong reasons.

  ‘All right,’ she said, getting impatient with my lack of enthusiasm, ‘don’t join my fan club. It wasn’t my fault those tongs in the lab were rusty and demented! And Vanessa shouldn’t have stood so close.’

  After that last accident, where she smashed a beaker, Mr Ridge, the lab assistant, had to close the lab to neutralise the acid spilled across the floor. Then, because it was a safety hazard, we had to do theory revision for the rest of the class. It was a complete waste of a chemistry prac.

  That was only the most recent time. Since the beginning of the year, Bassima’d had three other accidents in the lab. No wonder Mrs Kaminski stressed about us wearing proper shoes.

  ‘Bassima,’ Mrs Kaminski had said only last week, ‘we’ve discussed already that you need short fingernails to hold the equipment properly. Today, you’ve made two holes in Vanessa’s stockings with splashed acid, and we’re only ten minutes into the experiment. She’s lucky it didn’t burn
her skin.’

  ‘Yes, miss,’ said Bassima, but not like she meant it. She seriously didn’t like Vanessa anyway, not since the potassium permanganate incident. Which was not really Vanessa’s fault, because B was throwing her hands around at the time. Vanessa couldn’t have known not to walk past, at that second, with her tray. But when the beaker spilled everywhere, and after all the screaming and rinsing off in the shower, it was B’s hands that ended up looking like a botched henna job. Which totally ruined the effect of her newest manicure.

  ‘So, I have your agreement then? No fancy nails until after the HSC?’

  ‘Yes, miss,’ said Bassima again.

  Yeah, right, I thought. Mrs K doesn’t get it either. B is her nails. And her eyeliner. Like hydrogen and oxygen make water.

  Bassima and I went to Mount Lewis Girls High School with girls from forty-five different countries. Egypt, Afghanistan, Turkey, Tonga, China, Vietnam, Malaysia, Sudan, Syria, Ethiopia, Iran, Ireland, and a bunch more places you might know if you did geography. But I didn’t.

  There were also girls from Lebanon and Pakistan, like us. Bassima and I met in Year Seven, when we had the same classes for everything, but now we were in Year Eleven, it was only maths and chemistry we had together.

  Every time I checked my timetable and saw it was chem next, I’d feel glad. I loved being in the lab, with its clean industrial smell, and the rows of benches that had survived flames and acids and thousands of experiments, most of which had failed. And I liked that it was okay to try out something that mightn’t work, and to try to figure out why, instead of just being told what to write down in your notebook.

  The lab was the only place at school where you were fully expected to do dangerous things with fire and gas and toxic powders. And to learn to control them. Like the world wasn’t random, that there were secret rules that helped you find a way through. And to realise there was even more to find out, if only you paid attention.

  Mrs Kaminski liked to get us to do interschool science quizzes for ‘good practice’. She looked like a mad scientist herself, with frizzy orange hair and pale skin, like a match that’d just been lit. She’d get excited explaining complicated things to us, and when we eventually ‘got’ whatever it was, she’d grin, showing her over-large teeth.

  Some of the girls reckoned she was weird, but I didn’t. For Mrs K, science really mattered, because it helped you understand the world. Like why a slice of apple goes brown after you cut it. Or what chemistry happens when leaves change colour in autumn.

  And it was always okay for us to ask questions. Practically every lesson, she’d say, ‘There’s no such thing as a dumb question.’

  No wonder she liked science quizzes. Pages of questions about space junk and purple carrots, followed by diagrams of beakers, and water temperature charts.

  At least once a term, we’d scratch our pencils on the dots of multiple-choice answer sheets, and they’d go off to some computer centre to be marked. Sometimes we’d get certificates. So, by the time we had this regular Tuesday assembly, I’d pretty much forgotten about the Smart Science test we’d done earlier in the year.

  As usual, the principal, Mrs Bardon, talked from the podium on the stage. She had puffy grey hair, and always wore a navy jacket with the school badge on it. At every assembly, she droned on about sporting awards and community service, so no one really listened. But this time she said something else.

  ‘I’ve some exciting news about three of our Year Eleven science students,’ she said in her over-jolly voice. ‘About how well they did in the national Smart Science test last term.’

  I was busy drawing water molecules on the back of my hand with a blue gel pen. A bit like the face of Mickey Mouse, with hydrogen ears pressed tight on his oxygen head.

  Vanessa sat in front of us, chewing at her fingernails. Hers were nothing like Bassima’s. Lucky for her she was doing chem, because at least in the lab she wasn’t allowed to put her fingers in her mouth. Gave her nails some time to regrow.

  Then the principal said, in a suddenly loud voice, ‘Can I please have Vanessa Chan, Azra Ajmal and Bassima Hussain up here?’

  My stomach lurched. I tugged at my plait and willed gravity to suck me through the floor. I didn’t want to stand up in front of everyone. And for what?

  Vanessa jumped up first, pulling her skirt down over her skinny legs. She had already picked her way across the tangle of girls before Bassima yanked me up by the arm. ‘Come on!’

  My ears burned as I followed her up the stairs. At the top, my foot caught the lip of the stage and I stumbled, nearly headbutting the podium. Mrs Bardon caught me.

  ‘Easy, girl,’ she said.

  The girls at the front laughed. Then the hall murmured with explanations of what I’d done, with fresh bursts of giggles. My mouth went dry.

  ‘That’s enough,’ said the principal. ‘Settle down.’

  She turned to us.

  ‘Stand here, please,’ she said, gesturing to the front of the stage. I stood between Vanessa and Bassima, focusing on a poster at the back of the hall. I couldn’t look at the girls below, who were still giggling.

  Mrs Kaminski walked in from the side of the stage, green cards in plastic sleeves tucked under her arm.

  ‘Bassima,’ said Mrs Bardon. ‘Congratulations on a distinction award in the Smart Science test.’

  Mrs K stepped forward to shake Bassima’s hand and give her the certificate. A few slow claps started, then shrill calls from the African girls. The FOBs. Fresh Off the Boat, even if they came by plane. They made seriously freaky yells.

  ‘That’s enough now,’ said the principal. ‘Vanessa, congratulations on your award—our first high distinction ever in the Smart Science test.’

  Vanessa practically hopped on the spot. I think she even squeaked. Her friends, somewhere in the floor of girls, shouted, ‘Go, Nessa!’

  ‘And, finally, but by no means least, our second high distinction is for Azra Ajmal. Congratulations, Azra! Very promising.’

  Me? A high distinction? I knew I was good at science, but I didn’t think I was that good. As Mrs Kaminski walked up to me, the clapping seemed a long way away. Mrs K held me firmly by the arm as she handed me the certificate. I thought I might faint.

  ‘Well done, Azra!’ she said. ‘Well done!’

  I nodded and smiled. Her face wobbled in my vision. ‘Thanks.’ My knees went soft, but I willed them to hold me up.

  Then Mrs Bardon waved us to the front. ‘One more round of applause!’

  We stood there and held up our certificates, while the librarian, Mr Peterson, took a photo for the school newsletter. The girls clapped and cheered and whistled, though we all knew this was only an excuse to make noise. It wasn’t about us or any geeky science awards.

  After school, Bassima, Layla and I walked to the train station, part of a long string of girls in blue uniforms, some with linked arms. It reminded me of the diagrams of alkane chains in our textbooks.

  Four-wheel drives, engines running, crowded the edge of the road. In the drivers’ seats, mothers in hijab and chador waited for their daughters.

  Nearer the station, young guys in two-door sedans leaned back, Arabic pop and dubstep booming out. They peered through sunglasses, looking out for their sisters. Or their fiancées. But a few of them weren’t shy about looking at us as well.

  ‘He’s picking me up today. First time,’ said Layla.

  ‘Cool,’ said Bassima. ‘But that means you don’t get to hang out with the boys at the station anymore.’

  ‘Too bad,’ said Layla, rolling her eyes. ‘They’re all losers, anyway. But don’t worry, by the end of next year, you’ll all be promised too.’ She patted Bassima’s hand, like she needed reassuring.

  From up the road, came a toot from a red car with fat tyres. Layla peeled off, and opened the passenger door. As she tossed her bag into the back, Bassima pointed at them with her elbow.

  ‘Check him out. The new fiancé.’

  I looked across
, trying not to stare. The guy behind the wheel looked way older than my brother Rashid—late twenties, at least.

  ‘I thought her family wanted her to go to Lebanon. For an import?’ I asked.

  ‘Nah,’ said Bassima. ‘She wanted a local, though her sister says she’s a snob. Her dad had visitors to help with “home renovations”. Practically every Saturday night for five months! She had to make them all coffee, so they could check her out. No wonder she cracked!’

  Layla’s future husband revved up his car and accelerated the two of them towards the highway.

  ‘Impressed?’ I asked. He looked like a poser.

  ‘Not jealous?’ she said, her eyebrows raised.

  ‘Nuh! Though . . . a lift home might be nice.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Bassima. ‘Going for a guy with a car then?’

  ‘And a job! After I finish school. And uni.’ Ages away.

  ‘I’m gonna miss her,’ said Bassima. ‘But she doesn’t need algebra or Shakespeare to make falafel.’

  ‘Yeah, it won’t be the same. She’s always got something funny to say. And we even went to the same primary school. Wore matching plaits!’

  It was strange to think of Layla getting married this year. Like the grown-up world was almost here, even though we were still in our school uniforms.

  ‘I know, it’s hectic,’ said Bassima. ‘So, is your dad inviting over old dudes with big moustaches to check you out yet?’

  ‘No!’ I said, shaking my head. ‘He wouldn’t. Not yet. And not without asking me first. Besides, Rashid’s older than me and nothing’s happening there. That I know about, anyway. What about you?’

  ‘Not going to happen,’ said B. ‘My sister Alesha got to choose for herself. And not till after she’d finished uni. Way more civilised.’

  I felt a sudden knot in my gut. I knew that my family would be looking out for someone suitable for me. A Pakistani boy from a good Muslim family. But I didn’t know when they’d start looking. Or when they’d want me to meet him. Or how long I’d get to decide.

  But then, it wasn’t like we lived in Pakistan anymore. Things could be different here. There were plenty of choices for girls, the teachers were always telling us that. I wasn’t in a hurry like Layla; I wanted to wait. Until after a few more science awards, like the one in my bag. Awards that could remind everyone I should keep on studying.