Arabian Heights

While thinking of the best way to recount certain incidents that I happen to hear of , I decided that I might as well create a story (so to speak) that revolves around those events. Here's the first installation. 

***

Reem wasn't too sure what to expect. Her ideas on life were constantly challenged by minute details that eventually surmounted to overbearing mountainous obstacles. This time would probably be no different. She was about to walk into a building that somehow differed from everything she had ever known. 

"Are you ready?" Her mother asked. 

"I suppose." No.

"Let's go." 

As the pair approached the building's glass doors, Reem couldn't help but wonder whether her experiences within the white-washed walls before her would change her as a person. 

Well... there's only one way to find out, she thought. 

With a deep breath, just like in the typical high school movies where the protagonist starts a new life at a new school, she opened the glass doors and stepped into the vast room behind them. A blast of cold wind from the air conditioner hit her square in the face, bringing to Reem's mind images of actresses making big entrances with random winds blowing their hair as they pouted seductively. 

Ha. Oh the irony. 

"Good morning. Can I help you?" A woman with a thick accent spoke from behind a wooden reception desk.  She strained her face as her hastily-coloured lips parted laboriously into what Reem figured was meant to be a welcoming smile. 

"Yes... it's her first day." Reem's mother replied hesitantly.

"Ah, ok, ok. Her name and grade?" 

"Reem Hassan. Grade 11."

"Ok," the receptionist licked her fingers and flipped through the pages of her register, "Ah! I see. You must go to Ms Carroll's room. That's straight down the corridor and left." 

Suddenly surprised that the time for her to face her new life was just a corridor away, Reem looked at her mother, hoping that her mother would suddenly decide that the move was too much and that they should all just pack up and go back to California. Alas, wild hope hardly ever lives up to reality. 

"Go ahead habibti, I'll pick you up later today." With a warm hug and a peck on the cheek, Reem's mother walked out through the glass doors and back into the bleached morning sun. 

Reem, with a quick smile at the receptionist, who identified herself as Mrs Anoud, commenced her walk to Ms Carroll's classroom. 

Right... So, my first day at Prudence High for Girls. Here goes nothing.