Chapter 3

Mr. Henry, Marie and Steve began to make idle conversation about
their trip to Iran to fill the time waiting for Zaara to arrive while Josh
encouraged Narisa with a gentle hug and a kiss. A few minutes later,
Betty called on the intercom saying that Zaara was in the outer
office. Mr. Henry said to send her in.

There was a timid knock on the door and it opened slowly to reveal a
young girl about five-foot one, large brown eyes, dark brown wavy
shoulder-length hair and a honey-colored complexion. She was
surprisingly pretty - almost as pretty as Narisa - and she reminded
Josh of Doe Eyes. She had a slender figure with smallish breasts a
little larger than Narisa's and was wearing a pair of jeans with a
white blouse. The fact the she had a nice cute, small butt didn't go unnoticed by Josh either.

This being her first day at school, she was somewhat frightened to be
called to the principal's office and also at seeing a group of people
waiting for her. Timidly stepping inside and closing the door Zaara
thought, Oh my god! What are all these people here for? My parents
are gonna flip! Being called to the principal's office the first week of
high school.

Mr. Henry smiled and said, "Please come in, Zaara."

She entered the office with some trepidation and stood next to the
desk facing so that she could see everyone in the room. Betty brought
in another chair and she smiled and thanking Betty sat down. As she
sat, she silently surveyed the room's occupants. The girl looks like
she's Middle Eastern, and she's very pretty. Hmmm, he's pretty
darn cute! Zaara was lifted from her mental assessment when the
principal spoke.

"Zaara," Mr. Henry began, "first of all, let me say that you're not in
any trouble." She let out an audible Whew! "I need to ask you a favor
and it will probably mean some extra work for you, but you're the
only one who can help a fellow new student. Your file reads that you
speak fluent Farsi, is this true?"

"Yes sir, we speak it at home."

"Well," he began. "I'd like you to meet Mr. and Mrs. Williams and
their son Josh. He will be a sophomore here with us and this young
lady is Narisa Williams. She's just arrived here from Iran a few days
ago and doesn't speak any English yet."

Narisa and Zaara appeared to seemingly click instantly and smiled at
each other and began to speak in Farsi for a minute.

Narisa smiled and thought to herself, She's awfully pretty and she
sure noticed Josh. I hope she doesn't have her eye on him or I might
have to claw her eyes out.

"Hi!" Zaara said to Narisa, "How old are you? What grade are you
in?"

"Hi!" Narisa replied. "I'm thirteen and starting the ninth grade, just
like you. You don't know how relieved I am to meet another girl that
speaks Farsi. I think we'll be taking all the same classes and I hope
we can be good friends!"

"Me too! I think we're alike in too many ways. I think we can become very good friends. I just have a feeling. I'm so happy to have a Farsi
speaking friend. English is okay, but it's more natural to speak our
native tongue, don't you think?"

"Praise Allah! Finally, someone who understands completely. I can't
tell you how happy I am to meet you!"

Zaara thought, She reminds me of myself when I first came here —
scared to death. then she said, "We'll have soooo much fun this year,
I can tell all ready."

As Marie translated what they were talking about to Josh, Zaara turned
surprised and asked her if she spoke Farsi also. Marie revealed that
both she and Steve were fluent, but that Josh wasn't. Marie then took
over the conversation by asking Zaara, "What sect if Islam does your
family practice?"

"We are Shi'ite Muslims like Narisa I presume?" Narisa beamed a
bright smile and nodded vigorously.

"Yes she is. How old are you?"

"Fourteen. My birthday is in January so I had to wait a year to start
school."

When she said "birthday", Josh suddenly remembered that his
birthday was the following week. With all that had happened during
the past month he'd completely forgotten about it.

"Zaara," Mr. Henry cut in, "what I'd like you to do is to be a mentor
to Narisa. You and she would attend the same classes and you would
translate and help her get familiar with school and life here in
America. Is this something that you might be interested in doing? I
must warn you that this will require more work from you because
you'd not only have to do your own work, but you'd also have to help
Narisa with hers. Do you think you're up to the challenge?"

"Oh yes sir! I'd love a girlfriend I can speak Farsi with! I can tell
we're going to be very good friends already! My parents would be
overjoyed that I had such a friend. We are kind of isolated in that we
generally only get to speak our native tongue with other Muslims at
Mosque."

"Zaara," Marie interrupted, "now that you have said that you'd like to
help Narisa and it appears that the two of you seem to have hit it off,
there's something you need to know. This is private and you cannot
reveal this to anyone at school. This is very personal and could
cause Narisa, Josh, and the school serious problems if it ever got out
- not to mention our family - so this is very serious. Can you keep a
secret?"

"Yes ma'am, but I cannot hide the truth from my parents."