Grounded, page 16
Not gonna lie—when Nora and her mom hug and kiss, I get warm fuzzies inside. And I remember my mom then. I hope she’s still asleep. I hope she isn’t worried. I hope she understands.
Ruqi tugs my hoodie, interrupting my thoughts.
“We didn’t get Nora a birthday gift.” Her bottom lip, now stained with chocolate, pokes out.
“We didn’t know till late, Ruqi.”
“She’s our fwiend.”
“Yeah . . . yeah, she is.”
I watch Ruqi riffle through her pockets. When she doesn’t find anything, she touches her unicorn headband, and I know she’s thinking about it.
“No, Ruqi! Wait . . . maybe we can do something for her.”
“What?”
“We can . . . sing her a song, the birthday song,” I suggest.
And before I can say another word, Ruqi grabs Nora’s hand and pulls her up on a platform, a giant replica of a Crunchy Fluffy Dream Bar. She belts out at the top of her lungs:
“Happy birthday to yuh! Uh-huh!
Happy birthday to yuh!
Happy BIR-IRTH-day!
HAAAAAA–PEEEEE BIRTH–!”
She’s singing the other version. The one Stevie Wonder made for Dr. Martin Luther King. The one Black people sing. She’s doing it wrong too. Most people are confused, except Mr. Rock, who is also Black and chuckling. Nora is smiling awkwardly. I have to right this ship. I walk over to them.
“Hey, everybody, we’re singing the better birthday song. Clap your hands like this!” I shout.
I get everyone to clap, clap, clap, clap, and once we get a rhythm going, I start singing it.
“Happy birthday to yuh!
Happy birthday to yuh!
Happy bir-irthday!
Happy birthday to yuh!
Happy birthday to yuh!”
And what do you know? People are clapping along and singing with me. I do this part a few times before I say, “Okay, now time to stretch it out!”
“HAAAAAA-PEEEEE BIRTH-DAAAAAY
Ooh yeah!
HAAAAAA-PEEEEE BIRTH-DAAAAAY!”
The thing about this version is it doesn’t have a clear ending, so we just keep going and going with this louder birthday song and loud clapping. And as we keep going, others from the airport start to join us. It gets so loud, it’s hard to hear me, and Mr. Rock, who has been dancing and singing along, actually hands me his megaphone with a smile. It’s five in the morning, and there’s got to be at least a few dozen people in the aisles and in the entryway of the store, clapping and singing “Happy Birthday” to Nora. Nora’s smile is the widest I’ve ever seen. She whips out her camera, and when I see Congresswoman Najjar and Hanna also recording, I decide to switch it up.
“Go Nora! It’s your birthday! Go Nora! It’s your birthday!” I lead the crowd.
To this, she moves from the hip up, forward and back, and swivels her wrists wildly around each other. Too-cool Nora is doing that whacked-out dance Hanna showed us earlier! Hanna and Sami—yes, Sami!—start doing it too. Even Ruqi is trying to do it.
I pause. There’s no way to make this dance look cool. None.
But something gets into me. Maybe it’s the crowd that keeps growing. I close my eyes and let those wild moves come. I even add a stanky-leg step. I do it smooth.
The crowd roars, and now I hear Nora leading them in a chant. “Go Feek! Go Feek! Go Feek!”
I’m still dancing with my eyes closed when I hear Ruqi exclaim, “I’m his sister! I’m with him! I’m his sister! I’m with him! I’m his sister! I’m with him!”
“Ruqi!” I gasp. “Say it again.”
“I’m his sister, I’m with him!” Ruqi jumps up and down. She jumps in front of the rhymes in my head, but I suddenly hear her words aren’t ruining them. They’re adding to them.
I look out at the crowd, now even bigger. Nora left the platform at some point and is yelling with the crowd, “Go Feek! Go Feek!”
I whisper in Ruqi’s ear.
I turn to the crowd. My breath catches in my throat. The megaphone shakes in my hand when I think about what I’m about to do. I think about backing out, but Ruqi looks at me like I’m her hero. Has she always looked at me that way?
I take a breath and shout, “We need a beat, y’all!”
People actually cheer at this, and the way it’s so easy to get them to react—the way they’ve been reacting all along—it makes my it happen. The rhymes fall fast and hard. I catch them and throw them out to the crowd.
“It goes a little something like this . . . Boom, bap! Boom, boom, boom, bap!” I point to the crowd, and they repeat me like I knew they would:
“Boom, bap! Boom, boom, boom, bap!”
After we’ve said it a few times and we have a good flow going, I begin:
“I’m the words to the song
The hammer to the gong
The beats to this rhythm”
“I’m his sister, I’m with him!” Ruqi shouts into the megaphone when I point to her.
“Boom, bap! Boom, boom, boom, bap!”
“She’s the rhyme in the line
The music on your mind
The beats to this rhythm
‘I’m his sister, I’m with him!’ ”
“Boom, bap! Boom, boom, boom, bap!”
“We’re the bars in this rap
The boom to this bap
The beats to this rhythm
‘I’m his sister, I’m with him!’ ”
“Boom, bap! Boom, boom, boom, bap!”
I end and thank the crowd for their loud applause.
Ruqi is still shouting, “I’m his sister! I’m with him!”
I pull her into a tight hug and whisper in her ear, “And I’m with you. Always with you. Always.”
We leave the stage (I mean, the chocolate bar). I return to the ground. To my airport friends, who are squealing. Through the squealing, Nora shouts something about Doc Hoffa liking and resharing a video, but I know I’m not hearing her right, or anything else right, for that matter. I’m stunned speechless now, and the megaphone shakes in my hand again.
And then, I remember. Mom!
“The boom to this bap
The beats to this rhythm
‘I’m his sister, I’m with him!’ ”
I’m dancing all the way back to gate B10 to Feek’s song. Feek and Ruqi’s song.
I’m dancing Mom’s dance, a huge smile on my face as I think about everyone gathered at the Chocolate Garden joining in on the dance too and how Feek made it better with the steps he added. How he made everything come together perfectly—the feelings inside us and the vibes outside too.
I’ll never forget Nora’s face. It was like bubbles of joy were filling her up, and she had to let them overflow through her eyes and smiles and laughter. Congresswoman Najjar and I recorded it all, and she even gave me a special email address where I could send her my video. (And of course I’ll be sending her other important appeals from Animal Allies in the future.)
And Sami was so cool, the way he got to be the bravest of all of us just when we needed someone to step up. I’d seriously underestimated him. What a karate kick! And asking to get into the Chocolate Garden!
We all fell into a forever friendship tonight, I just know it. And that feels as good as finding Snickerdoodle.
The Fajr adhan goes off on my phone, and I stop dancing and scramble to turn it off.
It’s the only alarm I always have active because I’m usually at home at Fajr.
I unknot the hijab from my belt clip and pull it through slowly, thinking of talking to Dad about MONA. Like I practiced by the Rube Goldberg machine, with Sami, Nora, and Feek.
No, it’s not MONA that I have to talk to Dad about.
It’s moms. The mom I had before—the one I still have in my heart and will have forever—and . . . the new one Dad’s thinking about.
I look ahead and I can’t believe it.
Dad is sitting there with a huge smile on his face, staring at me.
Not upset, not impatient, not stern, the way he’d been before he fell asleep.
And not no-nonsense like in his texts when I was at the Chocolate Garden.
He wasn’t even just his normal content-Dad self.
Happy. Hugely happy.
Is he hugely happy with me?
“How is it that you’re dancing just like Mom used to?” Dad’s full-blown laughing now as I get to our chairs. “It must be in the genes!”
I smile back at Dad, and my shoulders let go of the scrunching up they’d started to do. “A long time ago, Adam showed me Mom’s dance, and I practiced it in my room until I got it right.” I demonstrate the original Mom dance. And then I add the foot movements Feek thought up. “And my friend Feek showed the world how to make it even better. Like this.”
Dad opens his arms wide, and I fall into him.
And it feels like all of me has permission to finally unscrunch after a whole weekend.
His arms tight around me, Dad whispers, “I’m proud of you for apologizing to the other kids. And for letting me know where you went. And for finding Snickerdoodle. But you’re still grounded, Hanna Amelia Chen.”
I sigh heavily and roll my eyes above his shoulder. “The airport thanked us, Dad. It’s going to be all over the media. Can’t I get a break for that?”
“Before you begin negotiating, let’s go pray Fajr.” He lets go of me, and I wrap the scarf around my head.
On the way to the bathrooms to make wudu, I tell Dad more details about the Snickerdoodle rescue mission.
It’s not to get me ungrounded that I tell him.
It’s to tell him that we all worked together, Feek, Sami, Nora, and me. That I didn’t need to do my mission on my own.
They were all there for Snickerdoodle.
After Fajr, after dhikr and dua, I reach out to Dad’s arm.
“Dad, I was mad at you the whole weekend.”
“I know, Hanna.”
“It’s because of that matrimonial thing you were doing at MONA. I saw it when I used your Facebook account to talk to the Hoffmans about Snickerdoodle.” I lower my head and stare at my knees, still in tashahhud pose. “I didn’t like that you were trying to get a new mom for me without telling me anything about it.”
Dad doesn’t say anything for a long time. Then he clears his throat. “I figured you knew. That’s why I’ve been trying talk to you these past few days. But”—he pauses—“I wasn’t trying to get you a new mom, Hanna.”
“That’s what matrimonial means. I looked it up.” I pull my phone out to show him, but he puts his hand up like a stop sign.
His face is splotchy with red parts. He’s embarrassed—like me.
Is it hard for him to talk about it too?
“Yes, if I got married again, it means you would probably have a mother figure in your life again. But, Hanna, you’d only have one mom, the one who handed down that dance.” Dad laughs, and then his voice suddenly breaks a little and he’s talking through a sob. “I’d never try to replace Mom for you, ever. She’s your mom forever.”
“But how come you hid the matrimonial thing from me then?” I’m talking through a sob too. And it hurts a lot.
“Because I didn’t want to tell you about something that may not work out. I was afraid of telling you that parents can feel lonely if they’ve been with a partner before and now they’re all on their own, and sometimes we explore how to find another partner who will be good to our kids too. If I told you all that and then went to the matrimonial events at MONA and didn’t find a good partner for me, for our family, then I was afraid you might get disappointed.” Dad reaches for my hand, and I let him take it. “I want only the best for you. And I guess in trying to save your feelings, I made it all worse. I’m sorry, Hanna.”
He whispers the last part, and I lean into his side, our hands clasped, and stare at the black vinyl travel prayer mat we just shared. “I’m sorry too, Dad. For thinking you’d replace Mom just like that,” I say.
We sit together for a moment, and then I lift my head from his shoulder and twist to get my backpack that’s resting on the floor beside the prayer mat. I was going to save the treat inside for the flight, but maybe now’s the best time.
I thrust my hand in and hold out a jumbo, one hundred grams, Crispy Caramel Toffeelicious Twirl Bar.
As he reaches for it, Dad’s eyes light up like he’s a little kid. Which makes me crack out in a big smile.
He’s happy. And I’m happy. Like it’s always been between us, until this matrimonial thing happened. Until I tried to run away and hide, like Snickerdoodle, thinking things were better if I didn’t face reality.
But, even though running away helped me find Snickerdoodle and new friends, things hadn’t felt better inside me.
I’m glad I ran back—I mean, danced back—to Dad.
Giddy, I take a deep breath and just let the question explode out of me, the one that storms my head every time I think about all this. “So who exactly is the partner you found at MONA?”
And can I approve her??? my brain screams.
“There isn’t anyone, Hanna,” Dad says, already unwrapping the chocolate bar eagerly. “I promise you that if I get close to thinking, this is a good partner person, I’ll make sure to tell you.”
“Can I help to vote her off if she’s not the right one?”
“Absolutely not.” He takes a bite of the Crispy Caramel Toffeelicious Twirl Bar and closes his eyes, savoring it.
I tip my head and narrow my eyes. “But what if she doesn’t like animals? And is like Cruella de Vil and makes coats out of dalmatian puppies?”
“And do you really believe I would say, ‘Ah, this is a good partner!’ about someone like that?”
“But what if you don’t know?”
“When the time comes, insha’Allah, we’ll do our research,” Dad assures me, wrapping the chocolate bar up. “We’ll share the rest of the chocolate on the flight. While we talk about this topic more.”
“Aha, you said WE’LL do our research!” I sit up, pleased, my heart lifting with hope.
I can help with the investigation of the partner person. Dad won’t even need to hire me. I’ll do it pro bono.
Because the client will be him and me.
Because, of course, I’d need to thoroughly vet any “mother figure” that comes into my life.
They’d need CIA-level clearance.
“Yes, we. That’s what we are, a WE.” Dad lifts up a hand for a high five, and I grant him one. “But you’re still grounded. For breaking rules at the airport and also—thanks for reminding me about this, by the way—for peeking into my private Facebook account.”
I groan, but then Dad pulls out his phone and shows me something that makes my heart dance.
He’d sent the heartbroken Hoffmans a message: I’m so happy Snickerdoodle was found. And I’m also happy that my daughter and her friends found her. Happy reunion!
I hug Dad for a long time to say thank you. For the message. For talking to me.
And for being so kind.
As Dad folds up the prayer mat, I pull off my hijab and catch a glimpse of my reflection in the glass of a perfume store.
In my MONA T-shirt and my hijab around my neck, I’m looking at a girl who solved a case with her friends.
Who saved a living being.
Two living beings, actually: Snickerdoodle and my heart.
I’m looking at a girl who accomplished two missions.
With another investigation to come: Dad’s potential partner person.
I can’t wait to open the file on that case.
I take Ruqi to the family restroom to make the lie i’m about to tell Mom (if she’s awake) at least partly true. I make wudu at the sink. (Fajr time is in, and I’m going to need to pray for forgiveness.) When Ruqi comes out of the stall, I see her eyes are droopy.
“Don’t worry. We’ll get back to sleep soon,” I tell her.
We walk past the Rube Goldberg machine, and I look for the opening in the panel, so unnoticeable if you’re not looking for it. I see the lever on the machine, and I can’t help it this time. I pull it. The pendulum balls start swinging back and forth! Clack . . . clack . . . clack . . . clack . . . clack. Ruqi and I squeal when, like magic, the gears inside start moving and the Rube Goldberg comes alive again. I scoop up Ruqi’s winter coat, throw it over my shoulder, and head over to Mom. Ruqi’s usual dance walk is now a drowsy sway.
As we near gate B8, I hear an announcement that the flight to Orlando is now boarding. I look across to where Sami is standing with his parents, and even from across the way, we lock eyes and I can tell he’s ecstatic. I cup my hands and raise them dramatically to show him I’m praying for him and then do my poor impression of a karate kick. He raises his cupped hands back at me. I can’t wait to hear how his tournament goes.
We enter the gate, and I see Mom sitting on my chair with a sleeping Hamza on her shoulder. Uh-oh.
“Hi, Mommy,” Ruqi slurs drowsily.
“I, uh . . . Ruqi had to go to the bathroom,” I say.
She smiles strangely at me but says, “I thought so. Hamza woke up, but now he’s rocked out again.”
“Ruqi’s about to be knocked out too.”
“She’s got to be exhausted. Thank you for taking care of her.” Mom gives me that strange smile again, then kisses Ruqi’s forehead and lays her down.
“Hopefully, she doesn’t snore again,” I say.
We exchange tired glances.
“It’s time to pray. I have to make wudu,” she tells me.
“Yeah, I just did mine. Go ahead. I got Ruqi.”
“You’re really growing up,” she says as she straps Hamza into the baby carrier. It looks like she might actually cry. What is going on?
After waiting awhile for her to come back from the bathroom, I remember to take out my notebook and try to recapture the lines that flowed so easily from me on that platform.
“We’re the bars in this rap . . .” I’m whispering when Mom hands me her phone. I was so focused I didn’t see her return.
“This might help,” she says.
I almost fall over. The volume is muted, but I see myself and Ruqi on the screen, dancing on a giant candy bar stage.
