MASK

بطة .٢١

So everyone followed Hassan's plan. So boys went to the plants and and the girls gave their attention to the house. We all worked for about 5 hours. When we all again collected ourself exhausted sitting know at the plastic table.

"I looove the baklava Lulu. Say thank you to amto Marwa for us." Sabrin said and everyone nodded, partly because their mouths were full.

"So we were earlier done than i expected. It is 3pm we have the whole day. What should we do?" Hassan asked in the round.

Everyone started thinking when Moe began
"Shisha it is!" holding his finger up high he practically shouted.

Muhammad was an energetic young boy. He was the power ball of the group. Always in motion. But he also had this toxic 'i wanna party all night' attitude.

All the girls sighed, and the boys just laughed.

"Amira go and prepare the shisha for us boys you girls can go do something else." Malik suddendly spoke up and facing slowly his little sister.

Malik was the oldest of the group, so he was some kind of leader. He always got to feel the pressure of doing everything right and having the most reponsabilities from our elders. He let out his frustation mostly on his sisters commanding them around. He always justified it withe argument he was their older brother.

Amira just looked annoyed but got up to do so.

"Tsk Malik. A nice 'please' here and there won't hurt you. Ya know?" Hussein came to defend Amira.

It is kown that Amira and Hussein always had something for each other. They fancied each other since day one. Everyone knew, exept Malik. Of course he was oblivious to that fact. It was like a secret everyone knew but nobody spoke out loud.

Amira blushed a little, but Malik ignored  Hussein's comment.
"It's ok. I'll do it." Amira said.
Hussein just smiled grateful at Amira.

"I'll help you." I said and went after her.

In the kitchen with Amira.

"You can give the coal out of the bag and i'll get the tobacco." Amira instructed me.

While Amira was heating the coal i was filling the tabacco in place.

"Can i ask you for a favor Mira?" i aksed shyly.

"Always. You know that!" she looked at me with a smile.

"I need you to cover me tomorrow. I mean like tell my parents, that i 'll be with you...." i waited for her response.. but nothing came.
She was quiet. Still heating the coal, not even looking at me.

Then suddendly she chuckeld.
"Don't tell me our little Lulu has gone bad now."

"No it's not what you think." i lie to her
"Trust me!"

"Hmm... Ok but just this time. This won't happen again. Mafhum?(Understand?)"

I was so happy.

"YES! Yes i mean just this once." i hugged her.

As we were finished with the shisha, we went back to the others.

"I think the girls can stay. It's not like any of us will attack them. And besides that, every girl has a brother here...Well everyone besides Lulu." Anwar smirked at me.

I was about to anwser him with a "shut up" when Omar said.

"Lulu is always safe with me! I'm like her brother!"

I smiled at Omar and gave Anwar a teasingly look.

"Yeah of course she is...." Jasmine rolled her eyes.

"It's been so long since we got back together. When was the last time?" Moe asked.

"Arabic school." Hassan said smiling.

"Ahh yes arabic school you remember the teacher always hated me!" Anwar started reminding us at the old times.

"Yes. I would have too, if you would always scream every 10 minutes to scare the teacher." Sabrin rolled her eyes.

"Ohhh Hassan you remember how we threw the chairs out of the 3rd floor? Sh*t got down on that day." Hussein explaimed happly, deciding to dive deeper into old memories.

"Hah..Look at you censoring yourself to maintain responsiblity." Malik chuckeld.

Malik said, trying to show how the twins changed from the bad boys in school to 'responsible' people.

Well their charakter changed, but their bodys still looked so ripped it was insane. They were known as the muscle brothers.

"Remember when Lulu let us all peek her results on tests!" Samira added.

"Yes...sadly." Anwar said.

"Why are you upset?" Asiya asked suprised.

"Knowing you for one day i would think you would like peeking results?"

"That's because Anwar would ALWAYS peek results from her... so one day she put wrong results on purose, and he copied everything. Even when she wrote that in one sentence بيت (house) means بطة (duck)! You can imagine how things went..." Sabrin told the trauma that Anwar was living through in arabic school.

"No tell me what happend after that?" Asiya kept listening surpressing a big laugh.

"No that's enough!" Anwar tried to stop her.

"The teacher send him back to the first grade for the wohle day to train the words with the six year olds!" Amira finished.

"And for the rest of the year, everyone who would see him, would make duck sounds." Hassan said while holding his stomache.

You could hear the laughter all around from everyone.

Loujayn felt happy and relieved. Happy because she remembered those days they were one. One team, one group of friend and one family. Relieved because she thought she lost that, that the friendship grown out if them, but this was proofen wrong by this moment. She felt home.

Everyone laughed so loud we almost didn't hear a phone ringing.

Almost...

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