The Green Bicycle (4 page)

S
trutting down the street, finishing her sandwich, Wadjda took a shortcut that passed within a block of the boys' school. The other girls in her class steered clear of this area. They wanted to avoid being accused of bad, or worse, immoral intentions.

Wadjda couldn't have cared less. The best parts of her day in Riyadh were spent roaming the streets, exploring new shops and neighborhoods, poking her head into forgotten corners. Last week, she'd explored the new strip mall Abdullah's politician uncle was building. When it was finished, he would lease the many storefronts to vendors. But for the time being, most of it was empty. Wadjda had tiptoed through the vast space, imagining what it would look like when it was done.

The world's so big
, Wadjda thought. Like that cavernous mall, with its sky-high ceilings. And she wanted to see all of it.

She darted through the garden gate of the closest home, passing swiftly across the expanse of land surrounding the house and slipping out again through the exit in the back
wall. Her favorite part of this particular shortcut was how quiet it was. The path was her own world—a secret Riyadh no one except Abdullah knew existed. And this morning it felt especially serene. Only the occasional rumble of an engine broke the silence. In the distance, Wadjda could just make out the shapes of passing cars and minibuses. Each one was filled with indistinguishable black figures—female students and teachers.

As Wadjda walked, she tallied one more time the sales she hoped to make. If she could unload at least half the bracelets she'd produced last night, she'd almost certainly pass the twenty-Riyals mark. And that didn't even count the tapes—

Whoosh!

Wadjda gasped, her hands darting to her head. Abdullah had spotted her near the boys' school and reappeared! He snatched the top of her veil and unfurled it from her head as he zipped past on his bicycle. The thin cloth stretched, billowing between them, forming a black line from him to her.

But the veil was tucked too tightly around Wadjda's throat. Abdullah's momentum pulled her forward, and she fell to the ground. Stunned, she shook out her stinging palms, mortified. Her hair was exposed. Again! Instinctively, she raised her hands to cover herself.

A few meters ahead, Abdullah slid his bicycle to a halt. He turned and blinked in disbelief, surveying the strange collection of bows and colored clips knotted randomly across the top of Wadjda's head. He'd known her forever, so he wasn't shocked to see her hair. She'd only started wearing the veil last year, and it was always falling off when they played. In fact, Abdullah sometimes had a hard time recognizing Wadjda when she was veiled. She seemed more like herself without it.

Now, though, he couldn't help laughing. “What's all this?” he asked, pointing at her hair. He tried to gesture to all the bows and clips, but there were too many, and it looked like he was trying to wave away a swarm of bees.

Wadjda stood and turned to face him, uncovered head held high. Lifting her chin, she tossed her head back the way her father did.

“It's totally in fashion. Not that you'd know anything about that!”

Her words fell on deaf ears. Abdullah continued to guffaw, practically falling over the handlebars of his bike. In spite of herself, Wadjda reached to the top of her head and tried to pin some of the loose clips back into place. Surely she didn't look that silly!

While she was distracted, Abdullah kicked his bike back into motion. Catching the flash of sun on metal, Wadjda
spun and saw him pedaling off. Her veil dangled from his hand. He held it out mockingly, letting the end trail in the dirt.

“I'll get you, you jerk!” Wadjda shouted. In a burst of pure rage, she took off after him. Abdullah looked back, saw her sprinting furiously, and started to slow down. He did it partly out of pity—and partly out of fear. You did not want to mess with Wadjda when she was angry. And he'd already messed with her a lot that morning.

Just as Wadjda reached out and ripped the veil from his hands, she tripped and fell to the ground—harder this time
. Ow!
Pain shot from her knees, from her elbows. To make matters worse, she'd splashed down in the only mud puddle in all of dry, dusty Riyadh.

The puddle was notorious to Abdullah and Wadjda. Every day, a handsome young man stood at this spot, washing his car. He washed it right when the girls' high school bus passed by the end of his street. He was there every morning, and again in the afternoons. The second wash was for safe measure, Abdullah always joked.

Wadjda figured that the guy must really like his car clean. Either that, or it had something to do with the big smiles and long gazes she'd watched him exchange with the older girls. It seemed to Wadjda that they were able to communicate quite a bit while showing nothing but their eyes.

Although the handsome young man didn't know she existed, Wadjda liked him—usually. When he washed his car, he blasted music from the speakers, and the bouncy songs gave her walk an upbeat sound track. Today, though, wiping mud off her face and clothes, she cursed him under her breath. Her once-neat black veil lay submerged in the swampy mud.

Ahead, Abdullah screeched to a halt and stood, one foot on a pedal, one on the ground, eyes wide. Smeared in mud, hair a mess around her face, Wadjda looked terrifying. She sat up and shot him a fiery glare.

“You moron! You're so stupid! How can I go to school like this?”

He'd gone too far. Abdullah's shoulders slumped. He was about to get off his bicycle to help when some boys emerged from a nearby store. They were the same guys he'd seen at the intersection. Like him, they were dawdling on their way to school.

As the boys unchained their bikes, Abdullah caught the nearest one's eye. He knew he looked embarrassed, so he struggled to disguise his guilt with a mocking smile. “Did you really think you could catch me?” he shouted.

He didn't look at Wadjda, and he used a barking, unsympathetic tone she wasn't used to. Caught off guard, Wadjda looked at him in utter confusion. Then, composing
herself, she snapped back, “I did catch you! Even on your stupid bicycle, I'm faster.”

The boys were clowning around on their bikes in front of the shop now, spinning in circles, trying to catch one another with great bursts of speed. Part of Abdullah wanted to join the game. Another part wanted to help Wadjda. He looked back and forth, torn.

“Yeah, right. Seems to me like you're late and covered in mud. Hey, maybe if you had a ‘stupid' bicycle, you could go home and change! Oh wait: you don't. So I guess you can't.”

With that, he stood up on the pedals and kicked his bike forward, pumping his legs hard. In seconds, he'd covered the distance to the group of boys.

The dust from his departure blew slowly toward Wadjda. She stayed where she was, sitting on the ground, keeping her face steady and still. If her lips trembled, or if the tears fell from her eyes, Abdullah would see how hurt she was.

The boys pedaled off, Abdullah riding in circles around the tallest one, showing his skills. He didn't even glance back over his shoulder.

Wadjda let her head drop down against her chest. Time for school. She was going to be late
and
dirty. She took a shaky breath, counted to ten, and hefted herself off the
ground, dragging her veil up after her. It felt like an iron chain, impossibly long, almost too heavy to lift. When she tried to squeeze out the water, she only got more mud on her hands and arms. The veil was too grimy and wet to even imagine wearing.

With a sigh, Wadjda started to run. In the distance, she could still make out the boys, weaving their bicycles back and forth across the street, happy and free. They moved so fast on their bikes. They flew through Riyadh like birds.

“I'll get one,” Wadjda said out loud. It sounded like she was challenging herself.

W
adjda crouched in a sliver of shadow cast by a building around the corner from her school, frantically considering her options. How could she sneak in without being noticed? There had to be a way!

She couldn't see beyond the school's front gate, but she knew from experience that Ms. Hussa would be directly inside. Somehow the principal was always there, waiting to catch Wadjda when she messed up. If the devil had a name, Wadjda thought, it would be Hussa.

Images of the principal slinking through school like a Siamese cat darted through her mind. Wadjda shuddered. Each day, Ms. Hussa stood at the entrance and inspected the girls, raised up on her sleek stiletto heels, gazing down from on high. Wadjda's mother had told her Ms. Hussa's shoes were designer, and very expensive. It made sense. The principal's style was as legendary as her terrifying reputation. Each day, Ms. Hussa pulled her hair back tightly to accentuate her perfect makeup. The style set off her sharp, unmerciful eyes. She seemed to have new clothes every
week, and the girls were always gushing about her many different outfits.

Not Wadjda, though. She didn't like expensive stuff, and everything Ms. Hussa wore practically had dollar signs scribbled all over it. To Wadjda, Ms. Hussa looked like a dummy in a shop, not a real person with her own style. Of course, no one cared what Wadjda thought, especially not about fashion. She was the starkest contrast you could imagine to the glamorous Ms. Hussa.

But it wasn't just the fancy shoes and clothes that put the principal above it all. It was the way she talked—like she was smarter and more interesting than Wadjda. It was the way she walked—like she always had somewhere better to be. It was the way she looked for an excuse—any excuse—to put someone down.

Ms. Hussa won't need an excuse today
, Wadjda thought, examining her filthy clothes. If she had a good enough story, she could get away with a warning about the muddy uniform—
maybe
. Coming to school without a veil was something else. Wadjda had been warned about the casual way she covered her hair three times already. But she'd never forgotten her veil altogether.

And it wasn't just the punishment Wadjda feared. It was Ms. Hussa's mean comments, which would burn through
Wadjda like tiny sparks on her skin. The whole school would look on as she squirmed beneath the principal's disdain. Ms. Hussa was the head enforcer when it came to labeling misfits, to relegating anyone who made the slightest misstep to a lifetime of insults and social pariah status.

“Why does she have to be so
awful
about everything?” Wadjda whispered to the empty street.

The wind whistled by, as if suggesting answers. Maybe, it said, it was Ms. Hussa's deep-rooted sense of superiority. She was the daughter of one of the town's most influential leaders. They had more money than Wadjda could imagine. Throughout her childhood, Ms. Hussa's father had probably told her that the family was better than anyone else's. That she was better, too.

Or maybe Ms. Hussa had been hurt once, and now she was alone and angry. Though she was very beautiful, Ms. Hussa didn't have a husband. And everyone knew why. Even Wadjda had heard the rumors. Supposedly, when she was young, Ms. Hussa had been in love with a boy. But the boy was from a different tribe—and even worse, he was poor. Still, they liked each other, so they snuck around. Apparently, they'd been caught together at her house. To avoid punishment, Ms. Hussa had claimed her love was a thief, and said that he'd broken in.

No one knew if the rumor was a hundred percent true,
but everyone whispered about it anyway. So maybe that was the answer to Ms. Hussa's meanness. Still, Wadjda didn't understand how the ultimate bad girl had grown up to be the biggest defender of the same moral code that made her look so bad.

“You'd think she'd give people chances instead,” Wadjda murmured. This time, she spoke loudly enough for the last few girls going through the school gate to hear. One turned her head, and Wadjda shrank back against the opposite wall.

Enough. She needed to get inside. Sighing, she mapped out her options. There weren't many. Could she scale the school's walls? No. She didn't even have to look up to know that was a stupid idea. The gigantic, brown concrete barrier was almost two stories tall. Unless she magically transformed into Spider-Man
,
Wadjda wouldn't be able to hoist herself that far. And that wasn't going to happen, at least not in the next few minutes.

Maybe she could bribe one of the other girls for their veil?
No.
The thought of parting with the money it would take stopped her cold. Besides, everyone else at school was scared of Ms. Hussa, too. Even for money, they were unlikely to risk her wrath.

The final bell was ringing. She'd have to run the gauntlet and hope for the best. Dashing forward, Wadjda mixed in with the group of girls rushing to get through the gate
before it closed. With any luck, she could duck below some of the taller ones and slip past Ms. Hussa's incredibly sharp eyes.

As Wadjda passed through the shadow of the front gate, she saw Fatin and Fatima up ahead. As expected, she saw Ms. Hussa, too. The principal was in her usual spot, wearing a beautifully embroidered black top over a perfectly fitted long, black pencil skirt. Her arms were crossed over her chest, and she leaned easily against the fence that ran along the interior of the school. This large wooden partition was meant to ensure privacy for the girls during the brief minutes when the school gates were open. A huge image of a fully veiled woman had been splashed across its surface in vivid paint. Underneath, a caption in bold letters read,
This is the perfect
hijab
for all schoolgirls.

Behind the partition, which formed the final barrier between the all-female school and the outside world, Wadjda could see the girls starting to take off their
abayahs
and veils. Some of her classmates took it to the next level: they wore the
shayla
, a sheer silk garment that covered the entire face. But at school, they removed that, too. Because the school was only accessible to women, the girls were free to shed the extra layers of clothing that kept them safely out of sight from the men and boys outside.

As she looked at the laughing, chattering group, Wadjda
felt her heart clench. The overcrowded school yards of Riyadh were probably the only big social gatherings she and her classmates would ever be part of. Nothing else was allowed. And awful as it could be, school was the only place where girls her age were in direct contact with life on their own terms. Here alone they could get away from their homes and families and be themselves.

Wadjda inched forward. The girls ahead of her cheerfully exchanged morning greetings, shared the latest gossip, and combed their hair into place as they removed their head coverings.
I wish I were like them,
Wadjda thought. Her classmates always seemed to be having so much fun. Was it possible that they didn't worry about their mothers and fathers fighting? That they didn't hear their mothers fretting about bills at the end of the month? Did they not dream of surfing waves or joining a band and playing music like the kind she danced to on the radio? Wadjda blinked, watching the shapes of the girls go blurry and indistinct in the sun and dust. Was it possible, really possible, that they were happy to live the lives everyone told them were acceptable?

In most ways, it seemed like the answer was yes. Sure, when no one was looking, some of the girls might apply lip balm or spritz on perfume. They might sneak a look at themselves using little mirrors mounted on pencil
sharpeners. This had been popular since the removal of all the bathroom mirrors, which Ms. Hussa called “a profane distraction.” Wadjda had rolled her eyes pretty hard at that one. Luckily, no one noticed.

Aside from these tiny rebellions, though, most of the girls Wadjda's age were content to fall in line, follow the rules, and avoid the harsh social judgment that came with being labeled “immoral.” Wadjda knew that she risked this judgment each time she darted into a back alley seeking treasures or dashed off after Abdullah on an adventure. Sooner or later, she was going to get caught.

And Ms. Hussa might be the one to catch her. Wadjda's heart beat faster as she moved into the principal's line of sight. She saw Ms. Hussa squinting, trying to see past the two girls in front of her.

HA!
A loud bark of a laugh caught the principal's attention. She swiveled toward Fatin and Fatima, who were folding their
abayahs
and getting ready to go to class.

“Quiet, girls! You're just behind the front gate. You mustn't laugh so loudly. Do you want men to hear you? A woman's voice is her nakedness.”

A suppressed giggle from Fatin. Silent as ever, Fatima lifted her hand to hide her defiant smile. Twisting her shoulder, she gave Fatin a gentle bump, urging her to respond.

“Sorry, Ms. Hussa,” Fatin blurted.

Wadjda blinked. If she didn't know better, she'd say Fatin was being sarcastic. But surely even Fatin and Fatima wouldn't dare sass Ms. Hussa!

“It won't happen again,” Fatin added—with an equal amount of sarcasm.

As Ms. Hussa's quiet fury zeroed in, Wadjda made her move. Pivoting on the ball of her foot, she darted to the left, heading straight for the other side of the partition, where the girls were removing their veils. She could see her escape right in front of her. . . .

“Wadjda!” Ms. Hussa's voice sounded like a thunderclap. Wadjda stopped dead in her tracks. Her whole body slumped. Caught, she turned to face Ms. Hussa.

“Where is your head cover? Are you coming to school unveiled?” The words dripped with horror. If Ms. Hussa had asked, “Wadjda, did you just kill someone?” she couldn't have sounded more appalled.

But there was more to come. All of the other girls had stopped what they were doing to watch the spectacle. Suppressing a smile, Ms. Hussa paced toward Wadjda like a lion circling a wounded gazelle. With elaborate fake concern, she examined the mess of bows and clips scattered across Wadjda's head.

“And who put those awful clips in your hair? You look like a groomed donkey!”

Most of the girls were giggling now. They stared at Wadjda and whispered to one another behind their hands. Wadjda seethed with frustration, twisting the soaking, useless veil in her hands.

Only Fatin and Fatima shot her a look of sympathy.