“Now your turn, Sadaf,” said Miss Zainab, as she veered the car onto the main road. “Where do we go from here?”

I looked up from my phone, my forehead wrinkled into a frown.

It was late at night. Our English teacher, Miss Zainab, was driving us home in her car. We were coming back from a public-speaking workshop our school had arranged for us. It had been extremely boring and tortuously lengthy — all of us were feeling grumpy and even Miss Zainab wasn’t her usual jolly self. She had dropped off one of my classmates and now that left me, Mahnoor and Javeria in the car with her.

I had been browsing on my phone gloomily when Miss Zainab’s voice rang through the silent car.

“Sorry?” I started. “Um, I live at number...” I started to tell her my address but she interrupted me.

“Yes, yes, you’ve already told me your address, but I need directions, too. I’ve never been to this part of the city.”

I sat in complete shock for full five seconds. Now, you mustn’t think I’m that oblivious of the world around me, but the truth remains that I am a bit clueless, especially when it comes to directions. I leaned forward from the backseat towards the windshield and surveyed the strange surroundings. Very vaguely, I realised that I must be crossing this road every morning on my way to school, but how could I be expected to memorise all the streets, turnings and names of roads? Why would I even ‘look out of the window,’ while riding in a car when I always have my phone to occupy me?

Miss Zainab suddenly stopped at a turning and glanced at me quizzically through the rear-view mirror. My heart went cold with fear. It seemed like I was actually expected to know the way. Maybe it wouldn’t be so hard. It was a very small, well-planned town anyway.

Very vaguely, I realised that I must be crossing this road every morning on my way to school, but how could I be expected to memorise all the streets and turnings and names of roads? Why would I even ‘look out of the window,’ while riding in a car when I always have my phone to occupy me?

I gulped. “Turn right ... I think … ?” The car jerked to a stop. Miss Zainab turned round in her seat to fully face me, and when I glanced sideways, Mahnoor and Javeria were staring at me in disbelief, too.

“You’re joking,” Mahnoor tried to smile.

“What?” I jerked my shoulders, trying to appear nonchalant.

“You don’t know the way to your own house?” Miss Zainab almost shrieked.

“I, I do … a bit. We … we just moved!” I glared at Javeria who had given a horrified giggle.

Miss Zainab wearily adjusted the gear and drove in the direction I had indicated. Even though we had entered the right block, everything looked alien and unrecognisable in the dark. I couldn’t make out the general direction my house was in, even though we were only a few streets away from it.

“Um, we have to enter Street 5, I think. There’s a small bridge there,” I wasn’t doing so badly. In fact, I was rather proud of myself.

Then Mahnoor asked, “When did you move here?”

“Er …, some months ago. A year perhaps,” I answered reluctantly.

Miss Zainab turned her eyes towards the heaven in a silent prayer and Javeria went off into a fit of giggles again. I ignored her with great bravado.

We were on the small bridge. Miss Zainab was asking me for directions again. It was then that I became completely nonplussed. I hadn’t the faintest idea where to go next.

I could feel Miss Zainab’s temper rising, and I was getting increasingly embarrassed. I wished Javeria would stop giggling. I realised that I would make a worse muddle of things in the state of panic I was in, but alarm bells were ringing in my head, and my brain felt fuzzy.

I asked her to keep moving ahead until I saw some landmark I would recognise, and meanwhile frantically started to dial my mother’s phone number to ask for her help. Just as I had typed the last digit, the phone’s light went off — the battery had finished. I groaned audibly. I was too embarrassed to ask Miss Zainab to call my mother.

It suddenly hit me that there was a wall with graffiti all over it (“Ruff Riderz 4evr”) in front of which we had to turn right. I excitedly told this to my teacher, who optimistically changed gears and drove on.

We came to the end of the road. The wall had not appeared. I could feel the temperature rising in the car with the mounting frustration. I cursed the car under my breath for not having a built-in GPS system. Miss Zainab turned the car again into the nearest street.

At that point, I thought the houses were beginning to look more familiar. Daring to become optimistic again, I told Miss Zainab to go left at the nearest turn. A few seconds later, we were back at the same bridge.

I heard a thump — Mahnoor had banged her head on the seat in front of her. Javeria wasn’t giggling anymore. I could see my teacher’s hands turn ghostly white as she gripped the steering wheel hard, steeling herself not to throw me out of the car.

I will say this, whatever I am, I am not a coward. I had the nerve to suggest that we try driving forward again, in the hope that we would spot the graffiti-covered wall. The silence that met my suggestion was deadly — but Miss Zainab did as I said.

I think I have a very special talent for reaching that same bridge four different times in four different ways. In the end, however, as you may have guessed, Miss Zainab gave up and asked my mother for directions over the phone.

It turns out, we were only one right turning away from my house. I also found out that the wall with the graffiti had been painted weeks ago without me noticing it.

The upside is, the school didn’t offer to take us to boring five-hour-long workshops ever again.

Published in Dawn, Young World, October 7th, 2017