Boy vs. Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

“Put your hand out!”
    Faraz swallowed hard as the
imam
made his way towards him through the rows of children. The room swam before him: the pea green walls, the single strip of neon light, the blackboard with undecipherable Arabic and Urdu letters, the benches stacked along the sides of the rooms, his sister Farhana’s face, miserable, ashamed for him, the carpet beneath his feet green, the colour of Jannah, Paradise.
    Then the
imam
was in front of him, a resignedlook on his face, his stick raised. Faraz’s fingers trembled but he dared not pull them away, knowing he would get an extra beating.
    The stick whistled through the air and landed with a thwack on his upturned palm and fingers. Heat seared his skin, more tears, dropping down his face this time, adding to his shame.
    The other children were subdued now, feeling his pain. They had all felt the
imam
’s stick at one time or another.
    â€œPractise your
surahs
, you lazy boy!” the
imam
shouted, furious at having to interrupt his lesson to deal with the boy again. He would just have to work harder at controlling his tongue, that was all. He would speak to his father after Friday prayers.
    Faraz knew what it felt like not to belong. He had never made much progress with
Imam
Shakir at
madressah
and had dropped out as soon as he was allowed to. He had tried to fulfil his father’s sporting dreams by being the cricketer his father had been but he couldn’t bat or bowl to save his life. He had tried with football but with two left feet, football stardom was not an option. He had tried hard to fit in at school but he had always been too shy, too sensitive, too pretty for the other boyswho had made it their mission in life to mess up his face as best they could.
    But in the art room, he didn’t need to try and fit in – he belonged there. He understood how colours worked, how to coax feeling out of a lump of clay, how to make a paintbrush sing. This was his sanctuary.
    Now, with quick, nimble movements his fingers attacked the page, stabbing, stroking, the charcoal dust rising off the paper, staining his fingers. He worked intently, furiously, adding lines, contours, shades, cross hatching, blending, the image growing all the time, until it filled the page.
    The assignment was one of his favourites: Imaginative Composition. Mr McCarthy had asked them to draw an imaginary landscape, a long shot for kids who had scarcely seen more than the inside of their estate and the town centre.
    Faraz had chosen his favourite medium – charcoal – and, while his classmates stalled and argued, hoping for the bell to ring, he poured himself onto the page.
    It was a landscape he had seen in a dream the night before.
    He was running, running in the dark. Somethingwas after him, something he couldn’t see, couldn’t hear. But he could feel it, gaining on him. The street lights swam and made mad patterns before his eyes as he raced by. The skyline was unfamiliar: what looked like the domes of mosques loomed high, jostling with high rise flats, pointed spires and spiky fence-tops, weird shapes from another time, from another world. The road began to slope upwards, up, up, steeper and steeper until he was climbing it like the side of a mountain, scrabbling for a foothold, a crack in the road, anything to keep himself from sliding backwards, backwards into darkness…
    The dream had been quite vivid and he was feverish with excitement as he watched his dreamscape come to life on the page. Everything around him blurred as he sketched, panting slightly, fearing the sound of the bell at any minute.
    It was only when he felt himself coming to the end, seeing what he had seen in his mind’s eye, that he became aware of the small crowd that had gathered round him.
    Then it was finished.
    He leaned back in his chair, let out a long ragged breath and threw his tiny piece of charcoal down, wiping the sweat from his forehead, leaving a dark