1OUT OF THE BLUESaid
“Can Said Hossain please report to the principal’s office?”
I glance up at the speaker hanging off the ceiling in the classroom, wondering if I just didn’t hear correctly. But from the way Julian is looking at me with a raised eyebrow, I know that it was my name being called to the principal’s office.
I furrow my brow at Julian. In all my time at St. Francis Academy for Boys, I’ve never been called to the principal’s office. I’ve never gotten into trouble. I’ve been so good, in fact, that I’m on honor roll, and on track for early admissions to the best universities in the country. My parents often use these facts as dinnertime conversation to impress anybody and everybody.
“Can Said Hossain please report to the principal’s office immediately?”
Mr. Thomas glances at me from his desk. “Said?” he asks, motioning toward the door. He doesn’t seem too bothered about the fact that one of his top students is getting called to the principal’s office out of the blue, so maybe I shouldn’t be either.
Since class is almost over anyway, I gather up my things into my backpack and slip out the door. The hallways of the school are completely empty, but I can hear the sounds coming from different classrooms as I make my way down to the principal’s office. The near-silence would almost be peaceful, if worry wasn’t gnawing its way into my stomach.
I turn into the main office, and immediately I’m greeted by a familiar voice.
A voice that sounds a lot like my older sister’s.
The closer I get, the more sure I am that it is her. From the fact that she’s loudly trying to convince the principal that his rules are ridiculous, to her long black hair and her bright purple sweater.
“Safiyah?”
Saf turns to me, her eyes wide with … well, I’m not really sure what.
“Said!” she says. “Oh, finally. We need to go.”
“What’s going on?” I glance from her to Principal Carson, who has never looked so uncomfortable. Usually, he has an air of authority about him, the kind that will make any student here think twice about breaking any rules. But apparently just a few minutes with Safiyah can change all that.
“There’s been an inci—” Principal Carson is cut off with a small glare from Safiyah, but my stomach drops all the same.
“Ammu? Abbu?” My mind immediately jumps to the worst possibilities.
Safiyah shakes her head slowly. “It’s … Ms. Barnes.” And then, I just know. Even without Safiyah telling me, I know. Because I knew she was sick. I had even written to her. Sent her a get-well-soon card, like that would somehow help her deal with the cancer. But I’d never let myself consider the possibility that she might actually …
“I’m so sorry, Said.” Safiyah holds out her arms, and it’s like my body is working automatically. I walk into her hug. Safiyah wraps me up tightly in her warm embrace, and we stay like that for a long moment. All the while I’m trying to register it—Ms. Barnes is dead. Ms. Barnes, the woman who encouraged my love of reading. Without her recommendation letter, I probably wouldn’t have even gotten into this school. And now she’s just … gone.
“We have to go,” Safiyah says as soon as I pull away from her hug. “The funeral is tomorrow morning, and if we leave now we should be able to get back to Vermont with plenty of time to spare.”
“But…” I shake my head, because Safiyah’s words are barely registering in my mind. Ms. Barnes gone. Funeral. Back to Vermont?
“Said has classes,” Principal Carson chimes in when I’ve been silent for a little too long. “There’s still a whole week left until the semester is over and the summer holidays start.”
Safiyah scoffs. “Look at him!” She waves her arm at me like I’m some kind of a painting in a gallery. I blink at Principal Carson, because, really, I’m not sure what he’s supposed to be looking at. “You think he’s going to be okay going through classes for another whole week? He needs to be back home, with his family. He’s distraught.”
“This Ms. Barnes was … a family member?” Principal Carson asks.
Safiyah glares at him once more. “Is he only allowed to be upset when a family member passes?” she asks. Her voice doesn’t rise—Safiyah doesn’t shout—but there’s this way she has of making it all low and scary. When we were kids, Safiyah used to use this voice on me to make me do all the chores she didn’t want to do. I’ve grown immune to it now—a little bit immune, at least. But Principal Carson is obviously meeting Safiyah for the first time. He shifts uncomfortably in his seat.
“Well, no. It’s just, we don’t know a Ms. Barnes, and—”
“Check his school records. You’ll find Ms. Barnes’s letter of recommendation for Said. They were close. She was like a mentor to him.”
Was. That’s the word that echoes in my head over and over again. Ms. Barnes was like a mentor. Because she is no more.
“I just don’t know if—”
“We’re going!” Safiyah exclaims, throwing her hand up. “I’m taking Said, and we’re packing up his things and driving back to Vermont, whether you think his loss is important enough to warrant missing a week of classes or not.” She spins around and stomps out the door.
I stand there for a moment longer, because in her anger she’s obviously forgotten that she came here to get me.
Principal Carson heaves a sigh. “Said, you can go. I’ll send a message to the registration office,” he says. “And I’m … sorry for your loss.”
I swallow the lump in my throat. “Thank you,” I say.
* * *
Safiyah seems completely unimpressed by my dorm. Of course, my side of the room is perfectly intact. Everything in its place, and a place for everything. But Julian’s side is a completely different matter. There are clothes strewn all over, and his books are anywhere but on the little shelf above each of our desks specifically designated for our schoolbooks.
“How does Julian ever find anything in this pigsty?” Safiyah asks, clicking her tongue with disapproval as she eyes his side of the room.
“He gets by,” I say, while staring at my own side of the room. I figured I still had an entire week left to pack up for the summer. Now, with grief lodged in my throat like a rock, the idea of putting away all my things seems even more daunting.
Safiyah seems to almost sense this, because she slips past me and begins pulling clothes from my drawers and into an open suitcase.
“When did it happen?” I ask, after a moment.
Safiyah looks up at me, but she doesn’t stop in her one-track focus of packing up my things. “I’m not sure. A few days ago, I think.”
A few days ago. Shouldn’t I have known something was wrong? Isn’t there something in the universe that’s supposed to tell you when someone you love is suffering? Is … dead? But for the past few days, I went about my life like everything was normal. I went to my classes, played soccer with Julian, did my homework. All the while, Ms. Barnes was gone.
“How did you find out?” I ask Safiyah, instead of indulging my guilt for longer. I can feel the pressure in my throat growing, can feel the pinprick of tears behind my eyes. I’m definitely not going to break down in front of Safiyah like this. Not now.
Safiyah stops in her tracks for a moment. “Um, I just … someone from home told me.” She goes back to packing up my things like she didn’t hesitate to answer my question. But I immediately know: It must have been her—Tiwa. For all her faults (and she has many), Tiwa, at least, loved Ms. Barnes as much as I do. At one point in our lives, Tiwa would have told me as soon as she knew.
“Okay, all done!” Safiyah says, zipping up the suitcase. “The sooner we get out of here, the sooner we can get to … well, the funeral.” She glances at me out of the corner of her eye, and there’s sympathy written all over her face. She’s looking at me like I’m about to break, or something.
I duck my head and approach Julian’s unkempt desk. “I should let Julian know,” I say. “He’ll wonder … what’s happened.”
“Can’t you just text him or something?” Safiyah asks.
I shake my head, picking up a pen from his desk and unfurling a balled-up piece of paper. “We can’t check our phones in between classes. When he gets to our room, he’ll be confused.”
“Well, I’m going to get your things into the car,” Safiyah says, dragging my suitcase behind her. “So, I’ll see you there in a few minutes, okay?”
“Okay.”
“Don’t forget to add a Pokémon drawing to your note,” Safiyah adds as an afterthought.
I pause. “How do you know Julian likes Pokémon?”
Safiyah just glances pointedly at the dozens of Pokémon plushies lined up on Julian’s bed. “Every time I’ve spoken to him, he’s mentioned Pokémon half a dozen times,” she says before slipping out the door, and I realize she has a point.
With Safiyah gone, the rock in my throat seems to grow even larger. I swallow down the lump and tap my pen against the piece of paper. How do I explain to Julian exactly what’s happened, when he doesn’t know anything about Ms. Barnes?
I had to leave in a hurry because my hometown librarian passed away? But Ms. Barnes was so much more than that. She was my friend, my confidante.
My sister came to drive me back to Vermont early, I scribble down quickly, because … I stop there, unsure of what to say next. Because a friend of mine passed away. It doesn’t seem like enough, but I guess it’s all the information Julian needs. I’ll see you over the holidays, I add, and do a quick doodle of Psyduck, which is—for some strange reason—his favorite Pokémon. And just that two-minute drawing lets a strange relief wash over me. Like learning about Ms. Barnes’s death had twisted me into a knot of grief, and the ink against the paper was letting some of that grief out.
* * *
“You should cry,” Safiyah says once we’ve been on the road for a few hours. There’s been nothing keeping us company except for whatever radio station gets picked up by the car’s frequency. We’ve listened to everything from country music to heavy metal, and even a talk show about different kinds of potatoes.
“Why would I cry?” I ask.
“Well, because crying is good for you. You shouldn’t keep your emotions bottled up like this.”
I roll my eyes and stare out my window instead of looking at Safiyah. Ever since she started majoring in psychology at college, she thinks she knows everything. Well, she’s always been like this, but it’s just worse now because she has the promise of an undergraduate degree to back up her know-it-all attitude.
“Said … I’m sorry,” Safiyah says softly after a moment. And I thaw a little. She’s trying to help—even if she’s being completely and utterly unhelpful.
“I’m fine,” I say, even as pressure builds behind my eyes. I blink away the tears and keep my eyes trained on the window.
“You should share a happy memory you have of Ms. Barnes,” Safiyah says. “She would like that, right?”
Safiyah didn’t really know Ms. Barnes, but she’s right. She would like that. Ms. Barnes was the kind of person who liked to think about the positive things in life. She wouldn’t want me to spend this entire drive glaring out my window, being annoyed at my sister, and feeling guilty because I didn’t write to her enough during her time at the hospital.
I try to think of a happy memory. “Well, I remember when I got into St. Francis, and Tiwa was annoyed at me. She said she wouldn’t speak to me ever again if I decided to go.”
“That doesn’t sound like a happy memory…”
“Let me finish,” I say. “She was so annoyed at me. But then she went to see Ms. Barnes. She said Ms. Barnes invited Tiwa into her office, and made her tea in her little china cups. That’s what she did when she wanted to have a serious conversation. And she told Tiwa about how she had written the letter of recommendation for me, and all the reasons why I needed to go to St. Francis, and all the ways it would help me. And Tiwa was still annoyed, but when she came to our house afterward, she understood. She wanted me to go.”
“That’s a story about Ms. Barnes? It sounds like it’s more about Tiwa,” Safiyah says.
I scowl at Safiyah but I know there’s some truth to what she’s saying.
The thing is, every happy memory of Ms. Barnes somehow feels tied to Tiwa. Even every happy memory of home is tied to her. “It’s just that … that’s the kind of person Ms. Barnes was. She was always making peace between me and Tiwa, always helping us see each other’s side. I thought Tiwa would be angry at me the whole week before I left for St. Francis, but Ms. Barnes made sure that didn’t happen. She made sure I had the best last week in New Crosshaven.”
Because of Ms. Barnes, I knew that even though I was leaving, I would always have people back home. I would always have Tiwa. I would always have Ms. Barnes. But Tiwa and I aren’t friends anymore. And Ms. Barnes is gone. I don’t get a lot of time to think about that, though, because the next moment, Safiyah swerves the car so fast that I’m pretty sure I see my entire life flash before my eyes. A car honks in front of us, and misses us by just a few seconds.
Safiyah curses under her breath, and I turn to her with a glare.
“What the hell was that? You could have gotten us killed.”
“It’s dark,” she says. “I didn’t see that car coming. It’s fine, it’ll be fine.”
I pinch the bridge of my nose with my fingers. I always knew Safiyah was a terrible driver, but I didn’t realize how much worse she might be at night. I check my phone for the time. It’s already ten p.m., and we haven’t even left Virginia yet. It’ll probably be a few more hours until we’re in Vermont.
“I think we should pull over for the night. Get some rest somewhere.”
“We’ll be late to the funeral!” Safiyah says. “It’s just a few more hours.”
“You’re tired,” I say. “You’ve been driving for hours. You want it to be our funeral next?”
Safiyah sighs. “Okay, fine. We’ll find a place to stay for the night, but … we’ll have to be up at the crack of dawn if we want to make it back in time.”
I nod, already setting multiple alarms on my phone. There’s no way that I’m going to miss my chance to say goodbye to Ms. Barnes. Not even Safiyah’s terrible driving can keep me away.
Copyright © 2024 by Faridah Àbíké-Íyímídé & Adiba Jaigirdar
