Hajib

Bare headed   
                                                                 
It was the feel of the wind on her scalp more then anything else. More then the boys laughter as he ran away, more then Timothy’s grin as he leant over the school fence.
“So,” he said, “how’s it feel to be liberated?”
Tyran ignored him, and started to walk. Ignored the boy, who was grinning at her. He probably didn’t even know the significance of what he was doing. Ignored the cloth in his hand.
She just walked home, the book she had been holding clutched to her chest. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry, just as she hadn’t given the principal the satisfaction of a reaction when he had told her that when she came to school tomorrow, she should not be wearing her hijab.
“To ward off problems,” he’d said. “After all that’s happened in the past couple of months, we’re concerned that religious objects might single people out for bullying.”
That had been the words he’d spoke, but she had seen something else in his eyes, something else in his smile. It had been in the secretary’s voice too, when Tyran had come out. “Well,” she had whispered, winking, “there’s an excuse and a half.”
Why did they all assume she didn’t want it? That’s what she couldn’t understand. She knew she’d explained it over a dozen times, how it made her feel, how she felt part of something, how it gave her a shield against the rest of the world.
The jackhammer pounded into the dust, the tremors shaking her teeth and making her ear ache. The man on top of it grinned at her as she walked past. She wondered for a second if he recognised her- after all, she’d passed this place a dozen times before, and no one had ever grinned at her then.
The wind picked up, making Tyran pull the books closer to her chest. The man on the jackhammer looked up again, surprise written all over his face. Yes, he had recognised her, but it had taken him a while.
Only a few streets to go. Then she would be inside. Away from all these eyes. She felt as if the gum trees, creaking in the wind, were moaning at her, the car’s passing by slowing down as they passed her to stop and stare. She knew it was only because there was a speed camera around the corner, but that didn’t help her state of mind.
The most irritating thing by far was that everyone assumed that her father had told her to put the hijab on when she had turned thirteen. No one thought her father and mother possible of sitting to talk with her about it, or about the conversations that had come after wards. She knew what she had been doing, what it meant when she had put it on. But no one else seemed to.
“They should have classes,” she whispered, kicking the fence, the chain that ran along it rattling. “They should each that at school.”
But then again, it would help if the teachers themselves knew a thing or two about it.
The taxi was outside her house, leaves blowing across the windshield. Which meant her father was at home, inside, probably talking to her mother in the kitchen as she decided what was for dinner tonight.
Well, at least she would find sympathy here. And anger.
But despite this, despite the grin on her face, she knew she would be arguing the schools case in a couple of minutes, talking about the benefits. Because she wasn’t going to come to school tomorrow wearing her hijab. She didn’t want to be kicked out. She was a good girl.
“Wonderful. When being good has you against yourself.”
She opened the door, letting it slam shut behind her as she went down the corridor. The house already smelled of spice and chicken which made her pause for a minute, until she remembered that her mother had her evening class on tonight, down at the Tafe. Which meant her father had probably been roped into helping.
They would both be in the kitchen. She would get something on her head first, before she spoke to them. She wouldn’t tell them about Timothy. That would make them even more advert to the idea, and get her mother up in arms towards the school.
She went into her room, dumping her bag on the bed, pushing the bowl she had eaten breakfast out of to the side so she could put the library books on the bedside table. The she stood up, and walked over to her cupboard.
Opening the door, she reached in without bothering to pull the draws out, and took out the white scarf that she had worn when she was younger. Finding the safety pin that made the waist of one of her dresses smaller, she unclipped it, and turned to face the small head mirror that was set in the door of her cupboard.
It looked so strange. It really did. She felt like she should be in the hairdressers, which was the only other place where she really saw her hair for a long time, or with a brush in her hand, which was the other time she took her hijab off, apart from when she slept. It felt strange, her eyes looked too big, her earrings out of place without the dark red cloth behind it.
She kept on looking at her reflection as she laid the scarf carefully over the top of her hair, and pinned it together below her ear. She missed the first time, because her hands were shaking. She kept on seeing the principal’s smile, Timothy’s grin, hearing the receptionist whisper, the boys laughter. The shaking turned into quaking, and she pricked her self with the pin, a small spot of blood getting on the white of her hijab. Gritting her teeth, she stopped the shaking, finished pinning the cloth together, and put her hands down, clenching them. Then made up her mind.
“Damn the school,” she whispered, and went out to talk to her parents.