As Hania turns her head the other way and quickly takes a swig from her bottle, I pretend not to notice the condensed droplets forming outside the clear bottle, glittering like dew. I realise I have been staring at her bottle longer than necessary and try to divert my attention on the register lying in front of me.

But all I can really think about is what -- on this scorching hot day when my skin feels like it could melt right off and when this class feels like it could suffocate me with its hot dampness -- a gulp of icy cold water would feel like. Just a gulp. Nothing more. Just one sip of water gliding down my throat, cooling down my body, rejuvenating me.

‘Why did I decide to fast on a school day?’ I think miserably for what seems like the seventieth time this hour alone. But I do know why I did that -- for the praise and adulation that comes with a child fasting even when it is not obligatory on them. Just this morning, I was called out to the stage in the middle of the assembly so the whole school could applaud the effort I was putting in this Ramazan. Sure, I had fasted before. Following my siblings’ footsteps of being an overachiever, I had fasted the first time when I was about to begin first grade. Then throughout the years, on-again-off-again until this year. This year, I had promised myself to fast throughout the whole month of Ramazan.

The only setback? It was the fiery hot month of May. And, as if to spite me, the human population had decided to trash our seas and industrialise every forested place they could find until global warming had finally reached an all-time high. All this, along with the fact that I had already been dreading this Ramazan since the beginning of Shaban, was making me lose motivation to keep up with siblings’ trailblazing ways.

But every time a teacher would reward me with a thump on the back, the motivation would come rushing back like a freshly injected dose of endorphin. Satisfaction would course through my veins whenever a student would look at me with envy for being ‘so very pious’.

Presently, I look at my friend, Zahra, sitting across the room. She gives me a weak smile as if to say, ‘I know what you’re thinking, buddy. We’re in this together’.

Hearing me talk about the benefits of fasting a month before Ramazan had definitely garnered some attention. A small group from my class had started to fast with me, leading the teachers to call me the Pied Piper of my class. The recess bell interrupts my thoughts and I mournfully look down at my half completed exercise.

A hand rests on my shoulder. I look up to see my teacher giving me an encouraging smile and said, “It’s okay. You can take your work home and bring it by tomorrow. Just don’t ever be late again, okay?”

Had I not been fasting, I wouldn’t have had this special treatment. This is what I’m talking about, teachers and parents alike, all of them loved and adored everything you did. You could paint a horrendous copy of the Mona Lisa and they’d gush over how Leonardo da Vinci could never top you.

I get up to go to Zahra’s seat as the room fills up with the smell of fried chips, nuggets and many other homemade delicacies until I’m sure the whole class can hear my stomach grumble. I’m not hungry by any means (my mum made sure I had had a hefty meal at Sehr before I left for school) but I am supposed to not eat. And when it comes to me, reverse psychology, unfortunately, works at a spiritual level. Just because I’m supposed to restrain myself from eating or drinking, it makes me want to do it more.

Mikaal perches himself onto his desk, just below the fan and cools himself. The students have thinned out by now.

“I actually feel okay,” Zahra walks around her desk and leans on it with her arms crossed. “I feel like on school days, the day goes by much quicker and it’s easier to fast that way.”

“Plus why would you fast if it is so hard for you?” Mikaal raises an eyebrow at me. “It isn’t like anyone’s forcing you.”

“Yeah, I just, uh, you know. Um....” I fumble around for words.

“Oh, let her be,” Zahra comes to my rescue, “she’s been fasting longer than any of us have.” At that moment, Mishaal enters the class, her face uncharacteristically bright for someone who had been fasting.

“You guys, the filter down the hall has the most freezing water,” Mishaal practically squeals with delight at her discovery. Her twin brother jumps off his desk and stares at her.

“Don’t tell me you drank the water!” Mikaal looks as if his sister just confessed to murdering his pet fish.

Mishaal just rolls her eyes in response. She shifts her focus onto me and Zahra.

“You have to go down there and wash your face with it. I swear, it is the most amazing feeling ever! You’ll feel so fresh and ready to face the day. It’s crazy, I know. But you have to feel it to believe it.”

Zahra and I glance at each other and just shrug. Doesn’t hurt to try, does it?

“You coming?” Zahra now speaks with the same enthusiasm as Mishaal.

My face is dripping with water droplets and my face feels a lot fresher than before, but I cannot contain this urge to just reach out, grab a drink and douse my insides with this bone-chilling taste of heaven.

“You go on ahead, I think I have something in my eye,” I rub my eyes. “I’m just going to wash it out.”

Zahra nods and leaves me alone. I bite my lips. I really shouldn’t do this.

Back home, I feel as if all eyes are on me. Somehow, my family just knows that I consciously broke my fast. Needless to say, it makes me feel terrible and like a phony. Not to brag, but I’m the kid who got others to fast with her but I’m also the one who wasn’t truthful to anyone, least to myself.

When we’re having our Iftar, my parents beam at me for fasting while it is not even obligatory on me yet and a knot forms in my throat that no amount of Tang in the whole world could make me swallow.

That night in my Isha prayer, as I bow down in front of Allah, I feel the weight of my secret crash down on me. So I ask Allah for his forgiveness. Repeatedly. I am suddenly filled with fear of the day when I’ll have to answer for what I did today.

My mother, upon hearing my sobs, comes in from the other room and rubs my back to comfort me as I hiccup and cry into my hands.

“What is it?” she asks soothingly.

“Promise you won’t be mad?”

She laughs softly, “I can’t promise that.”

I still tell her everything because I need to get this off my chest. When I’m done telling her about the immense guilt I felt the whole day, she doesn’t scream at me. Or scolds me. Or is disappointed in me. In fact, she hugs me.

“I swear, this is the first and last time I ever do this.”

“Beta, you don’t have to fast to compete with your siblings nor do you have to do it to please any person,” Mum strokes my hair and pulls me away to look at me in the eye. “You should fast for Allah and only Him. And if you feel like you don’t want to fast, you shouldn’t. Don’t for a second think that you’d be letting anyone down by not fasting. You should do this with your own consent and no one else’s.”

“I’ll be punished for this by Allah, won’t I?” I say solemnly.

“Did I punish you?”

“No, but you’re my mother.”

“And you know who loves you more than seventy mothers combined?”

“Allah?”

“That’s right. Allah. He loves you more than anyone on this planet could. And He’d never punish a child for their little mistakes. But He does expect us to learn from them. Have you learnt anything today?”

I wipe my eyes and manage a smile. “I shouldn’t bite off more than I can chew.”

“And?”

“And that Allah loves me, flaws and all.”

Published in Dawn, Young World, May 25th, 2019