Drawing a Veil

Lari Don

This book is dedicated to every girl's right
to make her own choices.

1     Staring at Amina

2     Do Best Friends Share Everything?

3     Mugshot

4     What Is Normal Anyway?

5     Musical Statues

6     Hard Questions

7     Driving Boys Wild

8     Running, Together

Some Year 10 boys were fighting at the end of the corridor but, for once, no-one was looking at them.

Everyone was looking at Amina.

“Why didn't you
tell
me?” Ellie whispered. “I'm your best friend!”

Amina shook her head. “I didn't want you to talk me out of it.”

Mr MacIver opened the door to the Art Room. “Come in quietly,” he said, but no one moved. Everyone was still looking at Amina's scarf.

It wasn't a striped school scarf. It wasn't a woolly scarf like your gran might have knitted. It wasn't a trendy glittery scarf from the shopping centre.

Amina was wearing a tight black headscarf. It was pinned around her head, covering her hair, her ears and her neck.

Of course, everyone had seen women wearing headscarves before. But they had never seen Amina in a headscarf. Yesterday, Amina had had a ponytail swinging at the back of her head, just like every other girl in the class.

Amina walked into the Art Room. Ellie and the rest of the pupils came in after her.

Mr MacIver had put the tables and chairs in three rows around an empty stool in the middle. Everyone sat down.

“Today we're going to draw a portrait,” said Mr MacIver. “Who would like to be our model?”

Three or four people put their hands up. Amina was one of them.

“Amina?” said Mr McIver. “Do you want to be the model today?”

“I may as well,” said Amina. “Everyone is staring at me anyway!” She went to sit on the empty stool.

After fifteen minutes, Ellie had drawn Amina's body, but she couldn't draw her face.

Ellie knew Amina's face almost as well as her own. Amina had a slim nose, dark eyes and a wide mouth. Ellie had drawn Amina's face loads of times. But she had always drawn it with lots of long hair. Now she was trying to draw Amina's face in a frame of black scarf, with straight lines on each side.

Ellie gave up on her first drawing. She turned the paper over and started again. This time she drew Amina from memory.

Mr McIver stood behind her. He said, “That's a good drawing. But are you looking at your model?”

“This is what she looks like!” Ellie said.

Mr McIver laughed. “Look again.”

Ellie looked up at her friend, then down at her picture. She had drawn Amina without the headscarf.

Ellie turned to Carlie, who was sitting beside her, and asked if she could borrow her rubber.

“Sure,” said Carlie. “Why is Amina wearing that headscarf?”

Ellie looked hard at the drawing. Maybe she could turn some of the hair into scarf. She just had to rub out the wavy bits.

“I said,” Carlie whispered, “why is Amina wearing that scarf?”

“How should I know?” Ellie said.

“Didn't she tell you?” asked Carlie. “I thought you were best friends now. I thought best friends shared
everything
! Remember, in the last year in primary school, you and I used to text each other about what
socks
we were going to wear, to make sure we always dressed the same.”

Ellie blushed at the memory.

“Don't you know why she's wearing it?” asked Carlie.

“Of course I know,” said Ellie. Really, she had no idea. “It's… em … it's to hide her hair from God. From Allah. It's her religion. Like not eating bacon. It's no big deal.”

“No big deal?” snorted Carlie. “It's like she's wearing a big sign saying, ‘Look at me, I'm different!'”

Ellie looked at her picture. There was Amina with a scarf on her head and a grey halo around it, where Ellie had rubbed out the hair.

“Yeah. Well,” Ellie said. “She is different. We're all different. And it's her choice, isn't it?”

The door opened, and Megan and her sidekick Kate slid in.

“Sorry we're late, Mr Mac, the bus broke down,” said Megan.

She walked round to her seat, and swung her bag off her shoulder, knocking Liam's pencil case onto the floor. Megan looked at it. Then she stood on it. Everyone heard it crunch, as pencils broke under her boot.

She grinned, then said, “Sorry, ginger,” as Liam went bright red.

Kate giggled. “What are we drawing today?” she asked Liam.

But before Liam could answer, both girls looked up at the stool in the middle. Ellie saw Megan's pale face change as she saw Amina.

Megan looked for a long time at Amina's scarf, then she began to grin nastily.

At the end of the double period of Art, Mr MacIver said, “Ellie, can you please collect the drawings, and put them on my desk? Everyone else, pack up.”

Ellie walked round, picking up the sketches. Most of the pictures were pretty good, but Megan had scribbled two cartoons of Amina's head, one facing forward and one side on, like police photos of criminals. And under the cartoons Megan had written: ‘Wanted: suicide bomber'.

Ellie put out her hand to pick up Megan's drawing but Megan pulled it out of reach. “This is for the notice-board.”

Ellie dived across the desk and grabbed the paper. “You did it in Mr Mac's class, so he should mark it.”

Megan tried to grab the picture back, but Ellie stepped behind Liam's chair.

Megan started to chase after Ellie, but Liam stood up and pushed his chair back to block Megan's way. Ellie put the pictures on the teacher's desk, with Megan's nasty cartoon right at the bottom.

As Ellie walked back to her seat, she heard Lauren, the quietest girl in the class, whisper to Amina, “You look really grown up and elegant in that scarf.”

Once Ellie and Amina were alone in the classroom, Amina reached for her big purple bag. “Have you ever been the model for art class?” she asked Ellie. “It's quite weird. What were the pictures like?”

“They were a bit weird too,” Ellie said, “because for some reason, everyone drew you with a headscarf on.”

They walked into the empty corridor.

Ellie turned to Amina. “Why are you wearing a headscarf? And why didn't you
tell
me? I'm your best friend, and I didn't know. I looked like an idiot, standing there with my mouth open, when you turned up this morning in that… whatever it is.”

“It's called hijab. And it's part of my religion,” said Amina.

“Did your mum make you wear it?” asked Ellie.

“Have you ever seen my mum in hijab? She's not going to make me wear it when she doesn't wear it herself! It was my idea. I'm old enough to cover myself, so I'm wearing it to show my support for my sisters.”