Out of Nowhere

by Maria Padian

  “Cheese curds. You mean like cottage cheese?” Ellen.

  “No, it’s … you can’t get it here. The closest thing I can think of is those mozzarella sticks you get at the grocery store. But cheese curds are way, way better than that. They sort of squeak in your mouth when you bite them.”

  “Damn.” Jimmy. “You’re making me hungry.” Everyone laughed again. I saw Liz glance at the clock on the wall.

  “Next,” I prompted.

  “I’m Jimmy Price and I like orange. My favorite food is anything Italian, especially spaghetti. I like to listen to music.”

  The Somali girls were up next.

  “I am Fatuma Hassan.” We could barely hear her, she spoke so softly. Everybody sort of leaned forward a little.

  “Speak up, girl,” Jimmy said. She looked at him. He nodded.

  “I like red,” she said a little louder. “I like sambusas. I like to read.”

  “Yeah, those are good. I like them, too,” Jimmy said.

  “Sam … what?” Ellen asked.

  “Sambusa,” Fatuma repeated. She formed a triangle with her fingers. “Is dough, like this, and you put in spices, and meat. And fry. Is very Somali.”

  “Goat meat,” Jimmy said. “I like ’em with goat meat.”

  “Yes, that is best, but you can make with other meat, too,” Fatuma said. A little louder. She smiled at Jimmy.

  “Ewww!” Devon. Or maybe Cherisse. Unclear who said it; they both made these grossed-out faces. “You eat goat?”

  “Whoa!” Jimmy exclaimed, throwing himself back into his metal chair. He flashed me a what-you-gonna-do-now-man look.

  “Okay, that was totally inappropriate,” Liz sputtered. She’d been holding a clipboard with some papers on her lap, and dropped it. I got out of my seat to pick it up for her. After I handed her the clipboard, I remained standing.

  “Maybe we should have gone over the ground rules first,” I said calmly. Fake calmly, actually. Fatuma’s expression had gone blank, almost as if the comment weren’t directed at her. She slouched in her chair, sank a little lower into the loose folds of her clothes. “And the first rule is respect. No matter what anyone says, we all have to listen and respect their contribution to the circle.” This was right out of yesterday’s leader training.

  “So we’re not supposed to say what we think?” Devon replied. “She says goat and I’m supposed to say yum? Is that it, Tommy?”

  “No, she says goat and you’re supposed to listen. Not judge, not mock,” I replied. For once in your life, I managed to not add.

  “Like I said. Don’t say what we think,” she replied, just under her breath.

  “Have you ever eaten goat?” Jimmy challenged.

  Devon smirked at him.

  “No, and I don’t plan to,” she said.

  “Okay,” he said. “Then instead of ‘ewww’ ”—Jimmy raised his voice a few octaves in a dead-on imitation of Devon—“maybe you should say, ‘I’m too closed-minded to try new foods, like goat, so I’m going to spend the rest of my life making fun of other people who love this delicious meat.’ ”

  “Okay, that’s not it, either!” I said. Not fake calmly.

  Jimmy put his hands up in surrender.

  “You’re right, you’re right. Sorry.” He looked at Devon. “And I apologize to you. That was out of line.” He said this politely. A little too politely, but what was I gonna do? Devon stared back at him, silent.

  “Maybe you could apologize to Fatuma?” I said to her. She aimed her glare at me and remained silent.

  Then: Saeed.

  “Tom … is okay. Is good question.”

  Every head swiveled in his direction. Saeed leaned eagerly forward in his chair, looking intently at Cherisse and Devon.

  “You don’t like goat. Okay! Peoples all different! Maybe if you eat sambusas maybe you like goat! I don’t know. So now I ask: you eat pig? Somali peoples, we say to that … ewww!”

  He smiled broadly. No meanness on his face. He was just trying to make a point. You think we’re gross? Hey, that’s all right. We think you’re gross! It’s all good.

  Jimmy burst out laughing. He got out of his chair and leaned toward Saeed.

  “Dude,” he said, and held his hand up. Saeed slapped his palm. “Couldn’t have said it better myself.” Jimmy sat.

  “Is okay, Tom,” Saeed repeated. I glanced at Cherisse, who was staring at me so hard I could feel two holes boring their way through my helpless skull. I sat.

  “Okay, who’s next?” I said. It was supposed to be the Somali girl next to Fatuma. But then Cherisse stood.

  “Hi, everybody. I’m Cherisse Ouellette. I like Chamberlain blue. I love bacon.” It seemed like she directed the bacon comment to Saeed. “And I’m outta here.” With her foot she shoved her chair from the circle. It teetered and almost tipped over backward. She scooped up her backpack and walked quickly out. Devon followed her.

  “Good riddance,” I heard. But whether that came from Ellen or one of the other girls, I couldn’t tell.

  “I’m sorry, but are we going to just let them get up and walk out?” Liz, accusingly, to me.

  “Pretty much,” I told her. “Unless you can figure out a way to get them back in.” I was imagining a wrestling, scratching match in the hallway between Liz and Cherisse.

  “Next,” Liz said instead. Wise girl.

  After we limped through the rest of the introductions and finally went over ground rules, we played this Apples and Oranges game. Everybody was an apple, except one person, who was an orange. The orange had to convince the apples to let him join their group, even though he was … well, orange.

  Liz, still annoyed about the Cherisse and Devon walkout and somehow blaming yours truly, picked me to be the orange.

  “I don’t know,” I said. “I think Jimmy here might have some untapped leadership potential. Plus it’s his favorite color.”

  Jimmy shook his head.

  “No, I think you should take a turn at being in the minority. If you know what I mean.”

  “Okay,” I began, less than enthusiastically. “Hi. I’m Tom the Orange.”

  Half of them went, “Hi, Tom.”

  “Can I, uh, hang out with you guys?”

  “No way!” Liz exclaimed loudly. A bit too enthusiastically.

  “Why not?” I replied. “I mean, I’m a fruit. Just like you.”

  “Yeah, he is a fruit,” commented one guy. Snickers. Great. I walked right into that one.

  “But you’re a different color from us!” Liz continued.

  “Well, that’s because I’m a citrus fruit. But hey, I like apples.”

  “You’re not from around here,” commented Jimmy. “Where are you from? Portland?”

  “No,” I said. “I’m from Florida.”

  “That’s too far away. Beat it,” said some girl. Friend of Liz’s.

  “You smell funny,” said John.

  “You look funny,” said Ellen.

  “You ooji,” said the Somali girl next to Fatuma. Nasra. Everybody looked at her.

  “Huh?” somebody asked.

  Nasra seemed very sorry to have spoken. She directed her eyes at the floor and didn’t answer.

  “Is that, like, a clan?” Liz.

  “What’s a clan?” John.

  “Clan is like … family group,” the third chimed in. Khadija. “In Somalia, everybody from a clan. You know who you are, who you will marry, where you belong.”

  “Well, I’m from the Orange Clan,” I said, “and I’d like to join your Apple Clan.” I flashed Liz what I imagined was a pretty smug look. Thought I was doing a pretty good job “bridging the cultural divide,” a term they’d told us in leader training the day before.

  “Ooji is not clan,” said Nasra. “It mean ‘hard hair.’ It what Somali people from the city calls us. It not nice. Somali people from the city is different from Somali people from the country.”

  “Bantu, right? Isn’t that the word for country people?” Liz. Just dyin’ t
o show off what she’d learned in Civil Rights Club.

  Nasra shrugged.

  “Bantu is white people’s word, but okay,” she said.

  Then Saeed spoke.

  “When I come to Chamberlain? On … arrive day? Other Somali boy?” He glanced at Fatuma. “Mustafa,” he said to her. She nodded knowingly, eyes wide. She was obviously familiar with this Mustafa person. “He go up to me, right here, Tom.” Saeed pointed in the direction of the hallway. “He say, ‘Jarerah!’ ” He sat back in his chair, arms folded across his chest. Like he’d made some big point.

  “What the fuck?” I heard the fruit joker whisper. More snickers.

  “It also mean ‘hard hair,’ ” Nasra explained. “Like ooji. It what Somali people from the city calls us.”

  “So, like, this Mustafa dude, he doesn’t know you, but he takes one look at you and thinks hard hair. Bantu. Ooji. Am I right?” Jimmy asked.

  Saeed and the three girls nod: yes.

  “Damn,” Jimmy said.

  “Why?” John asked Fatuma.

  “They think we are like slaves,” Fatuma said. “Adoon, they says. Long time ago, Somali people have slaves, from other part of Africa. They say that who we are.”

  “They don’t want us to be same as them,” Khadija said. “Even here. They still carry this with them here.”

  “Not all,” Nasra said to her.

  “Many,” Fatuma replied firmly.

  “Can I make a suggestion?” Ellen asked. “Can we ditch the game and just talk? I mean, this is actually interesting.”

  “I don’t know—” Liz began.

  “Absolutely,” I said, cutting her off. “The whole point of the stupid games is getting people to talk. So let’s do it.”

  I’ll admit: the workshop got pretty cool after that. It was almost like playing Truth or Dare: you tried to think up things you really wanted to know but had always been afraid to ask. Some of it was stupid, like when John Gagne asked Saeed what he ate for breakfast and he answered “Frosted Flakes,” which made everyone laugh. But then they told us they also ate this sweet bread called anjera, which was like a thin pancake with sugar. They also drank tea, which they liked super-sweet, almost syrupy. And dates. They ate a lot of dates.

  Liz got Khadija to talk about why she wore a hijab, and Jimmy tried to get Liz to say whether she had a boyfriend or not, but she wouldn’t go there. Ellen wanted to know if Muslim kids were allowed to go to prom. I wanted to know what really happened on the bus the other day.

  Nasra knew; she’d been on that bus. She said a couple of ethnic Somali guys had been teaching Jake and Roger a few curse words in Somali. They convinced Roger that it’d be really funny to go behind a couple of Bantu Somali kids (or is it ooji? I don’t know) and say, “Uf!” Which Roger, not being the sharpest tool in the shed, went ahead and did, even though it turned out to mean “you smell,” but in a super-insulting way. The Bantu Somali kids started swinging, which brought Jake to his feet to help Roger. Meanwhile, the ethnic Somali kids had a good laugh, especially when the Bantu kids got suspended for fighting.

  “So they started it, but the other guys got in trouble?” Ellen said when Nasra finished her story. “That’s not fair!”

  The Somali kids all looked at each other with these surprised, semi-amused expressions. They said nothing; one of them shrugged. Since when, their faces seemed to say, is anything fair?

  The bell rang, and it was time for us to move on to the next planned activity: a “trust walk” set up in the gym. As we moved in a herd along the hall, I could see, through the big plate glass windows, a bunch of the phys ed teachers outside, setting up a ropes course. More games.

  “D’you think that was okay?” I heard. Liz, walking alongside me. “That we ditched Apples and Oranges? I mean, I thought the conversation went well, don’t you? You don’t think the—”

  “It was okay, Liz,” I told her, smiling. Shiva the Cross-Stitching Destroyer was wound way too tight, but what the hell. The girl tried. You had to give her credit for trying. “You did good.”

  “Thanks,” she said gratefully, then scurried on ahead of me because she had Trust Walk duties. I was off the hook, at least as far as leadership stuff, for the rest of the day.

  Where I was very much still on the hook was in dealing with Ms. I’m-Outta-Here Ouellette. Who, to use Donnie’s word, was most definitely in a league of her own.

  Chapter Eight

  After practice that day we were scheduled for our first team pasta party of the year, at Mike’s house. Coach took me aside.

  “I’d like you to make sure the new guys feel welcome at the pasta party tonight,” he said.

  I shrugged.

  “I’m not sure they’ll come, Coach. They keep pretty much to themselves outside of school.”

  “They’ll come,” he said confidently. “I told them you’d drive them.”

  The Turcottes always host the kickoff pasta feast of the season. Mike’s got a totally amazing gaming basement. Xbox and Halo, Ping-Pong, foosball, and a wide-screen TV. Plus his mom always makes the pasta and she’s a really good cook. Most of the parents just heat up this thin Hannaford-brand red sauce from a jar, but Mrs. Turcotte cooks real sauce with meat in it for us. She calls it spaghetti Bolognese.

  My parents had let me take the Subaru to school, not only so I could finally pick up the “untampering” supplies (the trip Donnie and I had been planning to take to the hardware store having had a bit of a fight delay) but also so I could transport to the party. Grounding didn’t extend to team building, service, and other punishment-related activities. When I came out of the locker room, Mike was waiting for me. The four Somalis stood with him.

  “Tommy, you got room? These guys need a ride.” I nodded, and Ismail, Ibrahim, Saeed, and Double M fell into step with me. Double M was this guy named—seriously—Muhammad Muhammad, but we told him that was way more Prophet than anyone could handle, so Mike came up with Double M. He seemed to like the nickname.

  I motioned Saeed to the front seat.

  “Saeed gets to ride shotgun for that corner kick the other day,” I told them. They looked confused. A little startled.

  Right. Note to self: references to guns are not a good idea around people who fled war zones. And are still figuring out English.

  As we pulled out of the school parking lot, I took another stab at conversation.

  “That corner kick at practice on Tuesday? Amazing.” I put my hand out to Saeed, palm up. He grinned, slapped.

  “I do better with no shoes,” he said.

  Okay. So he did understand. Some stuff, at least.

  “What, barefoot? You kick better barefoot?” He nodded.

  “Yeah, in Kenya? He don’t wear shoes,” one guy commented from the back. Ismail.

  “You mean, like, ever?” I asked.

  Ismail laughed.

  “No, for soccer.”

  I tried to get my head around the idea of playing without any protection on my feet.

  “Yeah, when I come? To America?” Saeed said. He pronounced it Am-ree-ka. “I want for to play soccer. But I need shoes, you know? And …” He paused. Pointed to his leg below the knee.

  “Shin guards?” I suggested. He nodded.

  “Yes! And guards. And socks. But they are, you know, lot of money?” His voice went up at the end of each sentence. Like he was wondering if he was getting it right.

  “So what’d you do?” I asked him.

  Ismail answered. “Yeah, so, the guys on JV, we say, ‘What size are you? Put your foot out. You look like you got the same foot as Saeed and me.’ And, so, they do. So we get the shoes, and when the JV practice is done they give us the shoes. But if varsity practice is first, then we give them the shoes.” Saeed nodded. I wasn’t sure I got it.

  “Saeed and Ismail share cleats with a couple of the JV players,” a third guy explained. Ibrahim. This was his second year on the team, and he was rockin’ the English in this group.

  That explains why they’re
late.

  The thought blossomed in my head. Or maybe not. Maybe the angel that carried the ball into the corner of the goal yesterday just whispered in my ear. They’re late, stupid, he whispered, because they can’t afford their own stuff, so they share with other players. They pull sweat-soaked socks over damp shin guards, then shove their feet into already hot, wet shoes. It wasn’t the grossest thing I could imagine. Donnie and I once had this contest to think up the grossest thing you’d never want to do but might for a million dollars, and we came up with drinking a glass of your own spit. Now, that’s gross.

  But wearing someone else’s wet, smelly gear comes close.

  And once you’ve got the stuff on—hurry, hurry, hurry, you’re saying to the guys who are trying to untie, fast—you jog over to the team, where now you’re late, and Coach is mad at you and everyone else is mad at you. And the captain of the team is mad at you. Because you made him run laps.

  I didn’t ask any more questions for the rest of the ride. I just drove us to Mike’s house.

  Saeed and I sat side by side on the beat-up couch in the basement playroom. It sank low, bringing us to eye level with the Ping-Pong table, where Ibrahim and Ismail smacked the ball at Mike and Evan DeLoach. Ibrahim and Ismail hadn’t ever played before, but Mike and Evan pretty much sucked, so it was fair.

  We always ended up here after we ate. We’d stuff ourselves, then game. I actually had no interest in playing Ping-Pong. I was waiting for my turn at Halo.

  Down there, just playing stuff, felt pretty normal. The Somali guys turned out to be awesome at Xbox, and pretty much no one “plays” foosball—you just spin the handles. But earlier, when we were eating, it got a little awkward.

  We were lined up in the kitchen to get food, and I heard them speaking quietly to each other in Somali. They watched the guys ahead of them ladle sauce over heaping plates of pasta, and they seemed really interested in it, but also nervous, which seemed weird. When it was Double M’s turn to take some, he just shoveled spaghetti onto his plate and shook a little parm over the top. He was moving right on past the salad when Mrs. Turcotte intercepted him.