Mischief Diary

By Nada Faris

Mischief Diary is a collection of 15 short stories “based” on real events. But what does it mean to be based on one’s memory of the past? It means, simply put, that no matter how accurate they feel, they work only as fictions. Funny, powerful, intense and frivolous all at the same time, Mischief Diary steps outside of the market’s expectations for the Young Adult genre to take readers on a journey that addresses different issues with humor and laughter as guides.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Hamad Bin Khalifa University Press
• Release date: May 20, 2020
• ISBN: 9789927119873

Nada Faris

Nada Faris is a Kuwaiti writer and performance poet known as "Kuwait's Finest." She is an Honorary Fellow in Writing at Iowa University's International Writing Program (IWP), USA. In 2015, she became a member of the board of trustees for Kuwait's Cultural Circle Prize for the Arabic Short Story (Almultaqa), the Arab world's first international award for short story collections in Arabic. Her fiction, nonfiction, and poetry have been published in The Norton Anthology of Hint Fiction, Economic and Political Weekly, Fanack Chronicle of the Middle East & North Africa, The Operating System, Sukoon, The Indianola Review, and more.

Book preview

Preface

Call me Master.

Master of the universe. Master of your soul. Master of disaster. But not plain old Nada. Na-da. I’ve always hated the name. It means dew in Arabic, that flimsy drop of water on an equally flimsy blade of grass in the wee hours of the morning. That’s Nada. It also means nothing in Spanish. Just nothing. So if you tell foreigners you’re called Nada, they look at you funny. They think you’re pulling their leg. Oh, ha ha! When they realize that you’re serious, they soften. Their eyes say, You poor girl. Their mouths say, Well, you’re not Spanish … and the morning dew is such a beautiful thing.

Except it’s not. My uncle once told me that my name is another way of saying nature’s sweat. So do you blame me for wanting a different name?

No offense if it’s yours, by the way. I’m just honestly telling you how I feel about it. Because, believe me, growing up with a name like this gives you delusions of grandeur. Sometimes, when retaliating against the meaning of the name you tell yourself, I am not nothing. I am the exact opposite. It’s great to feel so grand. Too bad it doesn’t last. When the name wins, you really do feel as small as a fragile drop of water on a forgettable blade of grass. You simply oscillate between two mental states.

O-see-late. It means to swing from one thing to another. I love the sound of the word. O-see-late. Pur-me-ate. Ow-du-neyt. Oops. I think I forgot myself there for a moment. If you didn’t catch the other words, they were permeate and odonate. The first means to spread or pass through something, like water permeating sand. The other is the family name of a group of insects, which includes dragonflies. Really, these words have nothing to do with the stories up ahead. I simply got carried away. You see, I am a writer. I know it’s a stupid decision to make. Writing doesn’t pay bills, and barely anybody cares about writing anymore. Instagram, Snapchat, YouTube. These, people care about. But who pays attention to words?

Well, I’m hoping you would. Just don’t sound out terms in the middle of class. Teachers can get finicky when you disrupt their precious lessons. Fi-nee-kee: Fussy about their rules and regulations.

So if you see a long and scary word, look it up, but not while you’re reading the story. After. Make a note of all the new and wonderful words and add them to your vocabulary. Vo-kab-you-lay-ree. I could cry right now. So pretty! Maybe I should rename myself Vocabulary Al-Faris.

What do you think?

1

Four-Year-Old Maverick

I was innocent.

My kindergarten teacher didn’t think so. She called my mother at work and asked her to come to the school immediately. I was only four years old. And I repeat: I was innocent.

My teacher was a slim, veiled Egyptian woman in her forties. She wore a loose brown shirt and a beige skirt that she must have stolen off a desert tent. No offense to your tents. I’m sure they’re lovely.

My mother, a young engineer in her late twenties, sat in front of my teacher. She kept rolling her car keys around her fingers. Mother wasn’t pleased, but then again, who would be in her shoes?

It was just after first break. I was supposed to be standing outside, thinking very deeply about my behavior. The truth is, I had no clue what my teacher was mad about. I was innocent, though. Or, rather, I hoped I was, as I eavesdropped on their conversation.

My ear was pressed against the warm wooden door. I heard my mother complain that she had left a pile of work on her office desk unattended. I peeped through the keyhole. From the way she sat absentmindedly flicking her car keys, I assumed she was thinking about her coffee and how it must have gone cold. After a few inattentive moments, my mother sighed painfully.

Rays from the morning sun penetrated the windows. They refracted against the keys in my mother’s hands. They danced against the walls and the ceiling of my teacher’s office, like rainbow waves shooting from a disco ball. Outside the office, it was business as usual. Teachers whiled away the time as children shouted in high octaves.

I stood alone in the corridor, a scruffy four-year-old trying to blink away the rainbow-colored rays. Then I peered through the hole again.

My mother rested her head on the palm of her hand, her Rolex glimmering in the morning rays. She perched her elbow on the teacher’s desk. Mother’s round face, usually florid and warm, was now grey and stiff. Her eyes drooped. She took in a long breath and cried:

What has she done now? I locked everything away. She can’t get to my perfumes, my makeup or my sewing equipment anymore. Besides, I thoroughly check her bag now to make sure she doesn’t bring anything weird to school. I took away all her Batman figurines, her father’s playing cards and her brother’s marbles! And the last time you informed me that she was rude to another teacher, I said you could use any measure of discipline you saw fit. ‘Break a cane over her tiny back if it’d teach her some respect.’ Remember that? I said it, I’m sure I did, because then you laughed and told me that you’d take care of her from now on.

She drew another deep breath, and finally asked, So why am I here today?

I scrunched my face when I heard my mother’s complaints and then poked my tongue out, emboldened by the knowledge that neither my mother nor my teacher could see me through the keyhole. I crossed my arms indignantly.

Pah! Who cared about their endless rules? I certainly didn’t. In fact, I’d been tenaciously unwilling to obey authority ever since I was born. I put every command up for examination. I needed to be certain that it served a purpose other than conforming. To outdated norms, might I add. Basically, I hated being told what to do. I needed convincing. What’s so terrible about that?

Teachers and children gradually left their classrooms. They crossed the pale pink corridors, some in the direction of the auditorium where an older class was performing the story of the tortoise and the hare. I had played the hare once. It taught me a valuable lesson: gradual progress, slow and steady, is the best way to go. For everything. Cramming the night before for an exam is a major no-no, because it takes a while for the lessons you’ve learned to seep into your memory. You don’t want to rush your memory. You want it to be relaxed, like people sun-tanning on the beach, drinking a cold glass of lemonade. And that level of comfort takes time and effort to achieve. I wish the learning process were easier, or faster. I wish we did not have to go through so much trouble to learn important lessons. I’m twenty-nine years old now and it seems like I am still adjusting my behavior to life lessons that I should have nailed already. Remember, better the tortoise than the hare. Fewer disappointments over the years.

My stomach rumbled and I exhaled, inflating my cheeks in the process, yet no one paid me any attention. Teachers and students went on their merry way. They left me standing against the door of my teacher’s office, hungry, bored and, most of all, disappointed.

I began to reflect upon recent events. Nothing struck me as potentially noteworthy. I hadn’t yelled at anyone, hit, bitten or kicked. I hadn’t mocked my teacher, even though she had been asking for it. I hadn’t forgotten my homework or my backpack for that matter. Lost in thought, I craned my neck to peer at the last teacher and child who turned the corner, and accidentally slipped backwards, knocking my teacher’s door wide open and stumbling into her office.

Ouch! I cried when my head banged against the floor.

Mother and my teacher trudged over. They stood in front of me: two large pillars of human flesh. Did they ask about my health? Did they say, Oh my innocent little girl, how badly did you hurt your head?

Don’t get me started.

I tilted my head back to analyze their expressions, then slid my hands inside my dress pockets and raised my left eyebrow.

My teacher pointed at my feet.

This, she said more dramatically than was necessary, is why I asked you to come here.

Oops.

My mother’s jaw dropped. She fell to her knees and shook my shoulders. Why are you wearing those? she screamed hysterically.

What’s the big deal? I retorted.

Those are your father’s bathroom slippers! Where are your shoes?

I shrugged.

I was wearing a pale blue, sleeveless dress that barely covered my knees. I had on a white shirt underneath. The left sleeve, which had been rolled up like its sister on the right, had broken loose. It flapped against my small arm when my mother shook my shoulders. My thick black hair swooshed out of a loose ponytail. Stubborn strands of hair mimicked my own insolence by sticking out at awkward angles – something that infuriated my mother even further. What? I can’t control my hair’s behavior.

But as much as she was frustrated with my hair, my mother’s anger rose tenfold every time she looked at my father’s bathroom slippers. They were bright green and rubbery. The hair she was willing to overlook. There was something much more out of place, much more embarrassing, in my footwear, wedged under white socks that sported tiny pink bows on each ankle.

Where are your shoes? she yelled.

My teacher left her office, disappearing into the hallways and giving my mother the privacy required to commit homicide, that is, to kill me. She even closed the door behind her.

Just tell me what the big deal is? I asked, unperturbed.