one perfume monster tries to drown me, fighting to push me down underwater.
We start playing a game of ball and whoever drops the ball has to go underwater for ten seconds and the seconds keep rising the more the ball is dropped. I donât mind going underwater because I know if I donât have a house, I can live underwater like the prince. I donât know if the story the teacher told us is real or not, but I know I can live underwater and even try to pretend Iâm a fish. I wonder how fish think though. Will they know Iâm human pretending to be a fish or will they think Iâm a fish? We have one Spanish girl in our class who has been brought up in Syria and she thinks sheâs Syrian but everybody else knows she isnât. Is that how I am going to be underwater?
After playing the game for long enough for all of us to get tired and our fingers wrinkly from the water, I sit on the sand and start to build a sandcastle.
âYasmine look, do you like my sandcastle?â
Yasmine is sitting on a lounge chair with Baba under a parasol, she doesnât like getting red, I love it though.
âKeep going Adam.â
I get up quickly to drink some water and suddenly a pain that I have never experienced flies through my body and I scream and fall to the ground. I close my eyes and everything turns purple. Did I press a purple button in my body by accident? Yasmine says I twisted my ankle.
I spend the rest of the day sitting on the sand by Yasmine with ice on my ankle. There are many people around that are speaking a different language to us and look very different. A woman wearing her underwear in the water has purple hair. I didnât know people could be born with purple hair. I guess sheâs from somewhere far like America. Isa comes and sits by us after swimming. He puts some music on his phone and we all sing along.
I see two kids speaking a fast weird language running up the beach and laughing and I get upset that I pressed a purple button in my body and now I canât run around.
Chapter Seven
YELLOW
W E HAVE SPENT three days away from home and the sun only went away today. The moment we get back into Aleppo a dark square rests on my heart, pushing it down. I donât know if itâs because of the dark skies or because these three days have really changed our town, but everything looks like the shadow of a black angel. One of the buildings with a car parked outside resembles an angel with his head down. Maybe bad angels haunt our town, or maybe this is the bad angelâs town.
I hold Yasmineâs hand for the first time. I whisper the prayer that Baba taught me under my breath. I feel a spider weave his web around the linings of my heart. I repeat the prayer under my breath waiting for a release of good thoughts. Our taxi isnât far from our house. I can feel Yasmineâs eyes on me for holding her hand, but I donât look at her. I am afraid I might notice something around me I donât like. My feelings are usually right; I am hoping this feeling is nothing close to a bad premonition this time. Baba opens the window and lights a cigarette. I look at his hand reaching for the window and I donât recognise the lines on it.
I start to feel a little better after repeating my prayers. We arrive outside our house and as soon as the car stops I run. My ankle feels better. I speed down the small alley leading to our door on the right and to my surprise the door is open a little. I shout out to Yasmine to ask if someone forgot to lock the door before we left. Isa comes running, swearing he locked the door and checked twice before we left. He pushes the door slowly and walks inside, I follow him and run back out. I see a black angel running towards me, I run to Yasmine and tell her to come in and see. Yasmine follows me as I run. She walks inside slowly and sees Isa picking up our furniture from the floor. Yasmine screams and falls to the floor. I try to pick Yasmine
We start playing a game of ball and whoever drops the ball has to go underwater for ten seconds and the seconds keep rising the more the ball is dropped. I donât mind going underwater because I know if I donât have a house, I can live underwater like the prince. I donât know if the story the teacher told us is real or not, but I know I can live underwater and even try to pretend Iâm a fish. I wonder how fish think though. Will they know Iâm human pretending to be a fish or will they think Iâm a fish? We have one Spanish girl in our class who has been brought up in Syria and she thinks sheâs Syrian but everybody else knows she isnât. Is that how I am going to be underwater?
After playing the game for long enough for all of us to get tired and our fingers wrinkly from the water, I sit on the sand and start to build a sandcastle.
âYasmine look, do you like my sandcastle?â
Yasmine is sitting on a lounge chair with Baba under a parasol, she doesnât like getting red, I love it though.
âKeep going Adam.â
I get up quickly to drink some water and suddenly a pain that I have never experienced flies through my body and I scream and fall to the ground. I close my eyes and everything turns purple. Did I press a purple button in my body by accident? Yasmine says I twisted my ankle.
I spend the rest of the day sitting on the sand by Yasmine with ice on my ankle. There are many people around that are speaking a different language to us and look very different. A woman wearing her underwear in the water has purple hair. I didnât know people could be born with purple hair. I guess sheâs from somewhere far like America. Isa comes and sits by us after swimming. He puts some music on his phone and we all sing along.
I see two kids speaking a fast weird language running up the beach and laughing and I get upset that I pressed a purple button in my body and now I canât run around.
Chapter Seven
YELLOW
W E HAVE SPENT three days away from home and the sun only went away today. The moment we get back into Aleppo a dark square rests on my heart, pushing it down. I donât know if itâs because of the dark skies or because these three days have really changed our town, but everything looks like the shadow of a black angel. One of the buildings with a car parked outside resembles an angel with his head down. Maybe bad angels haunt our town, or maybe this is the bad angelâs town.
I hold Yasmineâs hand for the first time. I whisper the prayer that Baba taught me under my breath. I feel a spider weave his web around the linings of my heart. I repeat the prayer under my breath waiting for a release of good thoughts. Our taxi isnât far from our house. I can feel Yasmineâs eyes on me for holding her hand, but I donât look at her. I am afraid I might notice something around me I donât like. My feelings are usually right; I am hoping this feeling is nothing close to a bad premonition this time. Baba opens the window and lights a cigarette. I look at his hand reaching for the window and I donât recognise the lines on it.
I start to feel a little better after repeating my prayers. We arrive outside our house and as soon as the car stops I run. My ankle feels better. I speed down the small alley leading to our door on the right and to my surprise the door is open a little. I shout out to Yasmine to ask if someone forgot to lock the door before we left. Isa comes running, swearing he locked the door and checked twice before we left. He pushes the door slowly and walks inside, I follow him and run back out. I see a black angel running towards me, I run to Yasmine and tell her to come in and see. Yasmine follows me as I run. She walks inside slowly and sees Isa picking up our furniture from the floor. Yasmine screams and falls to the floor. I try to pick Yasmine
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