Chapter 18

Everyone laughed at Iman’s answer. Then the officer asked for permission to leave, and Mr. Mahmoud followed him after bidding farewell to the girls and telling Rima that she was on leave from school for a week.

Manar sat next to Rima and whispered to her. “Now you have to sleep, but rest assured that Iman and I are always with you and will never leave you.”

The week passed quietly, the older girls took care of work during the day, and in the afternoon they went up to the second floor of the warehouse and we ate together, then they returned to work again in the warehouse, and I started studying. So that I don’t miss anything by being away from school.

On the morning of a new day, I prepared to go to school, and when I left the warehouse with Professor Saeed, Iman came behind us and looked at us anxiously until Uncle Saeed’s car disappeared. He took me to the school door and before I entered the door he shouted:

“Wait for me here when the school day ends.”