Keeping It Halal

Chapter One

It was the beginning of the one month holiday of December and I was still sleeping even though it was almost 1 in the afternoon. The door knob turned suddenly and my mother came in, bursting into my room.

"Get your lazy butt up this instance young lady!" hollered my mother at me. She then exited the room, expecting me to get up immediately from my bed.

But unfortunately I did not get up right away. I resumed my precious sleep when my mother came in once again, but with a cane.

"Have you forgotten that we're leaving in an hour? Get up now! You must've been up all night playing your laptop! Honestly, stop staying up late for no reason or else you'll have to say good bye to your laptop, forever. So get up!" she scolded while slapping the cane at the end of my bed, having the intention of comminating me.

I did get up as she wished, but lazily. I walked like a zombie towards the toilet, and suddenly it dawned upon me that my family and I were leaving for a stay at my village or 'kampung' in Melaka. Now that made me even more reluctant to get ready.

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After an hour and a half I found myself sitting in the back seat of my car, staring out of the window. There was a

complete silence between my father, my mom and I. The awkward silence broke when my mother brought up a random topic to my father, so I decided to plug in my headphones and listen to a couple of songs I like. I then dozed off without realising after we got through the checkpoints.

"Farah Arina Binte Muhammad Hafiz! Wake up! We've reached our destination!" informed my mother shaking my shoulder to make me gain back my consciousness.

I woke up and glanced around, noticing that everything has changed - the scenery, the smell of air and the noise. It was so different. My 'kampung' house is located five minutes away from a beach, which is the only thing why I looked forward to this one-whole-month stay. I jumped out of the car, stretching my cramped body after sleeping for about three and a half hour in an incommodious position in the car. I then took my bags out from the trunk and proceeded into the house.

"Assalamualaikum, Arina!" greeted my cousin, Amer who was sitting on the sofa, looking effervescent.

I replied his 'salam' when I saw another guy who was about my age, sitting beside my cousin. Our eyes met and he quickly stood up, offering me a help as he saw me struggling with my ridiculously heavy bags.

After we had settled down, I decided to take a stroll to the beach, so I asked my mother for her permission. After obtaining a 'yes' as an answer from her as I promised to get back home by 6 p.m., I quickly changed into a set of new fresh clothes and began walking out of the house, towards the beach.

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As I sat on a bench facing the sea, I took out my phone, raised it in the air in different directions.

"There's no wifi here, you know that," said a male voice from behind.

I turned my head around and saw the guy who was with my cousin earlier.

"Well, I was just trying." I replied flatly.

He smiled and asked "May I sit here?", pointing at the bench which was opposite me. But before I could answer, he already sat down. There was an awkward silence since then.

"Um... thank you for helping me out just now, by the way." I spoke, looking at the ground, lowering my gaze.

He chuckled and replied "No biggie" with a smile. I looked at him, but quickly looked back at the ground. Honestly, he had the smile that no one ever had. It was the best smile I had ever seen. But then I decided to shake the feeling off.