The Boy from Aleppo Who Painted the War Read Online Free PDF

move Adam!’ Yasmine shouts. I don’t know why she has been so bad-tempered lately. I wanted to put my umbrella on the man but Yasmine pulled me too hard to start running.
    We run to school and there isn’t any assembly going on in the courtyard. I look at the time, and it is usually the time for assembly. Maybe because of the rain we should just go to class. I go into school and up two flights of stairs and walk to my classroom, which is the third on the left. I look through the window and there are only five people and the teacher. Yasmine knocks on the door for me and tells me to go in while she talks to the teacher. Inside the classroom everybody is sitting apart and no one looks up when I enter the room. There isn’t a single sound in here apart from the wind from outside hitting the windows. Someone is sitting in my seat today. I don’t want to speak to them but I can’t sit anywhere else. I have been sitting there all year. I stand by my desk and the girl looks up. She has skin that looks so fragile and thin it could fall off her face. The veins are painted in the shape of chicken’s feet. Even though her cheeks look sick and unhealthy, her eyes are the darkest brown I have ever seen. You can see yourself through them without even meaning to. She gets up without saying a word to me and gives me my seat. Usually my classmates make fun of me before getting off my seat, but she didn’t. I like her. Yasmine calls me from outside the classroom before I even get to sit down.
    â€˜Yes?’
    â€˜Your teacher says it will be better to go home, everybody is waiting for their parents to pick them up,’ she whispers to me.
    â€˜But it’s not home time yet.’
    â€˜Yes Habibi but there isn’t school today.’
    â€˜Of course I have school.’
    â€˜Let’s make a deal. If you come back with me and listen to what your teacher says, I’ll take you to the market with me to choose the fruits you want to eat.’
    â€˜Really Yasmine?’
    â€˜Yes, come on, let’s go.’
    Yasmine says bye to the teacher and I look back at the girl in my class. She is still looking down reading. We walk out of the classroom and Yasmine looks at me in a funny way. Her eyes look huge and her smile feels like it is mocking me.
    â€˜What is it?’
    â€˜Who is that girl?’ Yasmine smiles for the first time since she got sick.
    â€˜I don’t know her name.’
    â€˜Ooo, you like her,’ she laughs.
    â€˜No Yasmine! I like her eyes.’
    â€˜Why her eyes?’
    â€˜They look like a tub of Nutella.’ I start to think about her eyes. I looked right into them. It was like jumping into a chocolate factory.
    â€˜Snap out of it Adam.’ Yasmine snaps her fingers in front of me and I’m dragged away from my chocolate factory heaven. We walk back on the empty streets we came on and nothing has changed, everything looks just as empty. We turn into the market road and at last I can hear some voices from afar. Yasmine suddenly pulls me towards her and tells me not to look to my right. I quickly look and see a man lying on the ground with his face towards the wall and his arms wide open. A bird is walking around his body and pecking at his fingers. It doesn’t wake him up. I look again and notice blood in-between his legs.
    â€˜Yasmine! The man is hurt, he’s not sleeping. He’s bleeding!’
    â€˜Walk on quickly Adam, I told you not to look!’
    â€˜But Yasmine if we leave him he will die!’
    â€˜Adam!’ Yasmine shouts at me and I look away and behind me at the guy who still doesn’t move. The bird is pecking his eyes. This is the second man we have seen today lying on the ground.
    We can hear more noises now and people shouting fruit prices out loud. As we take a right turn the market comes into sight and the busy atmosphere hits me after the lonely walk here. The fruits and vegetables on display paint the