Whenever she entered the classroom, Jameela felt like she had horns sprouting out of her head everyone stared at her strangely with wide eyes. She would sit quietly in the far corner of the classroom always feeling a light-year distance between herself and her teacher who never tried to speak with her, nor shake hands with her, during attendance. She thought her hands must be covered with millions of viruses and bacteria, which made the teacher hesitate to shake hands.
The teacher never called her name “Jameela Maseeh” during attendance like she did to other students. Instead at the end, she would glance over the edge of her glasses at the shadow sitting in the far corner of the class and mark “P” with her pen in the register.
The dust in Jameela’s black, curly hair showed she had walked two kilometres on foot to reach school. When she looked at her dress, she wished for the one decorated with butterflies and flower designs on it. She dreamed of having a fairy-like hair band in her hair. When she looked at her old worn shoes full of patches, she wished she had Adidas shoes instead of these.
During the break, everyone shared their lunch with each other but Jameela sat in the dark corner, eyes downward, counting the patches on her shoes. She felt hungry_ really hungry but for words, love and knowledge.
Yesterday when the teacher started a new chapter called “Equality and Humanity,” she did not ask Jameela Maseeh why she did not have a book or notebook. While all the other girls were writing the important points of the teacher, Jameela struggled with the nib of her nearly finished pencil. Jameela tried her best to write with a pencil on her palm but could not.
At last, she managed to make the nib of her half-inch-long pencil with her teeth and wrote the last words of the teacher’s lecture “We are Equal.”
