Ten Things I Hate About Me (20 page)

This is what I love about Timothy. He understands me. He gives me space when I need it. He doesn’t take crap from me. I’ve talked to him, I’ve read him, and it’s been like fish and chips in butcher’s paper and fizzy lemonade in a glass bottle. All I want is for us to forget John and Jamie and start over as Timothy and Jamilah. But as best friends. This is my first test. And if being with Timothy means deceiving my father, then I’m willing to put that desire aside. It hurts to reject Timothy. Choosing honesty isn’t always easy. I just know it’s the right thing to do.

He takes a deep breath. “Oh boy,” he says, exhaling heavily and running his fingers through his hair. “Well, I can’t very well resent you for wanting to do the whole
true to myself
thing. Not after all we’ve been through.”

His smile is warm and sincere and it almost makes me want to cry.

“You’re special, Timothy.”

“You’re breaking my heart here, Jamilah,” he says, trying to sound cheerful as he shakes his head.

I lean over and gently place my hand on his arm. “Thanks for everything.”

There’s no need for words. We walk back to our table, enjoying the comfortable silence between friends.

Mustafa storms up to me and grabs me by the arm. I’m sitting with Timothy, Bilal, Amy, and Lindsay. We’re eating our main course, listening to Bilal’s stories.

“Here you are! Man, come on backstage! We have to go through some pre-performance logistics! I’ll see you there in five. You dig?”

“Yeah, I dig,” I say and he gives me the peace sign and hurries away.

Mr. Anderson gets up onto the stage and makes an announcement that the band will be performing in fifteen minutes. Anybody wanting to dance along to the performance is invited to the dance floor.

Peter is sitting at a nearby table. He makes a loud booing noise. Bilal looks behind and then back at me, rolling his eyes in Peter’s direction.

We all stand up. Everybody wants a good position on the dance floor. We head down, crossing paths with Peter, Chris, Sam, and Liz as we do. They have no problem sharing their lack of enthusiasm.

“What a frigging joke!” Peter cries. “Now we have to put up with these wogs and their desert music.”

Bilal’s eyes turn into slits, as narrow as two coin slots. I gently place my hand on his arm and shake my head.

Peter is oblivious. “I mean, this is
Australia,
not Iraq.”

“That’s it,” Bilal says, pushing my arm away and tapping Peter on the shoulder. We all stop to watch.

“Do you want to shut your trap or do you want me to do it for you?”

“Who do you think…?” Peter’s voice trails off as he turns around and notices Bilal’s size. “What’s your problem?” he asks, his voice slightly shaky.

“My problem is that you’re a racist idiot. I’ve just eaten two bowls of pasta. I’m on carb overload here, so connecting your face to the floor isn’t really going to take much effort. My sister’s playing in that
wog
band. She’s going to rock. And I’m going to seriously injure you if you don’t shove that tongue back down into that miserable throat of yours. Do you understand?”

Peter shrivels up. He looks over at me in astonishment and I fold my arms across my chest and stare back at him, daring him to say something. He looks back at Bilal, who’s towering over him, gives a feeble sneer, and quickly walks away. We all stare in awe at Bilal and let out a whooping cheer.

I hitch the bag containing my darabuka under my arm. Bilal gives me a quick hug. Timothy winks at me. Amy squeezes my hand. I smile at them and walk backstage. I know that I’ll never feel alone again.

Mustafa, Samira, and Hasan are anxiously waiting for me.

“The concert starts in ten minutes,” Samira cries. “We’re on soon! Are you all ready?”

“Yep!” I pat my bag and she smiles with relief.

I make a quick trip to the bathroom. I lean over a sink and put some water on my cheeks, careful not to ruin my makeup.
I take in deep breaths, shaking my hands and looking at myself in the mirror.

“You can do this,” I whisper to myself. I stare long and hard at my reflection but I slowly start to look distorted and lopsided and it freaks me out so I stare at the bath tiles instead.

The schizophrenia sets in about three seconds later.

Voice 1 (A mix of Timothy and Amy): Don’t panic. You have nothing to be ashamed of. It’s your heritage. It’s cool. You know the darabuka is awesome. They’ll love it.

Voice 2 (Jamie loud and clear): Don’t be such an idiot. How lame can you get? The darabuka? At your tenth grade formal? Run while you still have a chance to save your dignity. It’s woggy beyond belief. You will never live it down. They’ll know you’re Arabic! And then what? Do you seriously want to open up the way for all the towelhead and terrorist and camel-jockey jokes? Run!

Voice 3 (Aunt Sowsan): You should have eaten some of the pasta. Solids in the stomach would have helped you cope. Although the pasta did look a little too creamy. That could have been dangerous too.

Voice 4 (Miss Sajda): Darling,
habibi,
don’t concern yourself with the creamy pasta. Years of garlic sauce on kebabs have given you a great constitution. Just have your fun! Be proud of who you are! Remove the disguise. And step out of the world of anonymity.

And so that’s what I decide to do.

I return to my group and stand behind the curtain waiting for Mr. Anderson to finish introducing us. The crowd claps and cheers and we step out onto the stage. The internal karate moves don’t stop but I try my best to ignore them, looking out into the sea of faces and bodies. I see Amy and Timothy and they wave wildly at me. Bilal is standing to the side of the dance floor, hands folded across his chest, chest pumped up, thoroughly enjoying the attention of the girls who are buzzing around him. We make eye contact and he gives me the thumbs-up.

We each take our individual positions on the stage and set up our instruments. I place the darabuka under my arm and crack my knuckles.

This is it. I gulp hard.

Mustafa, not content with Mr. Anderson’s welcome preamble, grabs the microphone, adopts his “I’m a sick bro in the ‘hood” attitude, and proceeds to get the crowd in even more of a whirl.

“Yo! Whassup, y’all? We’re gonna FREAK tonight! This group behind me here is the bling of tonight’s formal!”

The crowd cheers. One person yells out, “Get on with it, ya P. Diddy wannabe!”

“Tonight is about Aussie-Ethnic pride! We’re the OzWogs! And we’re gonna make you shake it!”

The crowd starts cheering. I look over at Mr. Anderson. He looks aghast.

“Let’s get the party STARTED, y’all!”

My God,
I think to myself,
does Mustafa need an English dictionary or what?

The stage lights dim and Mustafa and Hasan start on their keyboards, sounding out a stream of dance and techno beats that
doof doof
through our bodies. The beats start slow and then start to intensify, getting faster and wilder. On my cue, I start striking the center and edges of the darabuka with the palms of my hands. The music drums out and reverberates into the night as the stage floor microphones pick up the beats. I look out at a sea of faces. Most people are in awe. We’ve combined techno and dance, eastern with western, and the crowd is loving it. Suddenly Hayaat, a Lebanese girl; Stella, a Greek girl; and Caroline, an Anglo girl, jump up onto the stage and start dancing to the music, shifting between hip-hop, funk, and belly-dancing shakes of their hips and torsos. As the music intensifies, their moves become faster and they flirt with the air, swinging their hips, swaying their arms, and kicking their legs. The crowd responds with more frenzied cheers.

I spot Peter, Chris, and Sam. They’re huddled together, scowls on their faces. Liz is looking up in surprise. I grin down at them.

We keep on playing and the darabuka picks me up from my chair and lifts me into another dimension. I’m floating above the crowd, watching them celebrate my music, drinking it up like chilled lemonade on a summer’s day.

I can’t believe I’m here, at my formal, in front of all my classmates, exposing myself like this. There’s no shame; there’s no embarrassment. With every drumming down on the darabuka I’m announcing who I am. For the first time in my life, knowing the answer has never felt so sweet.

THANK YOU TO
the team at Scholastic for all your wonderful efforts in publishing and promoting my books. Special thanks to Marion Lloyd. It is both a delight and honor to work with you. My books are truly in special hands. And thank you to my brilliant agent, Sheila Drummond. We really are a perfect match.

Juggling a newborn baby with a deadline to deliver the second draft of this book was quite a challenge. I would not have been able to meet my deadline without the support of many people. My biggest thanks go to Tant Thanna, who selflessly offered me so much of her time and support.

Thank you to my parents and sister. Your unending faith and support keep me going!

Finally, thank you to my husband, Ibrahim, for his patience and love.

Text copyright © 2006 by Randa Abdel-Fattah

First published in Australia by Pan Macmillan Australia Pty Ltd in 2006.

Published by arrangement with Marion Lloyd Books, an imprint of Scholastic, a division of Scholastic Ltd.

Published in the UK in 2007.

All rights reserved. Published by Orchard Books, an imprint of Scholastic Inc.,
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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Abdel-Fattah, Randa.

Ten things I hate about me / Randa Abdel-Fattah.—1st ed.

         p. cm.

Summary: Lebanese-Australian Jamilah, known in school as Jamie, hides her heritage from her classmates and tries to pass by dyeing her hair blonde and wearing blue-tinted contact lenses, until her conflicted feelings become too much for her to bear.

         ISBN-13: 978-0-545-05055-5

1. [Identity—Fiction. 2. Self-acceptance—Fiction. 3. Prejudices—Fiction. 4. High schools—Fiction. 5. Schools—Fiction. 6. Lebanese—Australia—Fiction. 7. Australia—Fiction. I. Title.]

PZ7.A15892Te 2009
[Fic]—dc22

2008013667

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1         09 10 11 12 13

FIRST EDITION
, January 2009

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of publisher.

E-ISBN: 978-0-545-23203-6

Jacket photographs © 2009 by Michael Frost

Jacket design by Lillie Mear