Confidence & Being Myself
Twenty-Nine Storms
The storms were going up on the long board by the library door. All twenty-nine of them. On Tuesday everybody had painted one, with gray paint, white paint, and a straw for blowing the rain sideways. Fwoooo.
Ayaan’s was already up, near the middle. His lightning went right down into the ground, not just across. And at the bottom there was a tiny house with one window lit up. Nobody had told him to do that. It took him the whole of Tuesday.
Nour looked along the board and worked out where hers came. Fourteenth, maybe. Fifteenth. Somewhere in the middle. Hers had rain and a sky. Ayaan’s had lightning, and a house, and a light on in the house. She wasn’t upset. She had just counted.
There were two gaps left. One in the middle, right next to Ayaan’s, where somebody had taken theirs down to fix it. The other at the far end, low down, past the edge of the board, where the hallway turns the corner.
“Anywhere there’s a gap, Nour,” called Ms. Halloran from across the room, not looking up. She was taking attendance, and honestly, it was not an important question to her.
Nour was still holding it. She’d been holding it for ages, flat on both hands, the way you carry something wet. Even though it had dried on Tuesday. Even though it wasn’t going to smudge on anybody.
Two gaps. One in the middle, by Ayaan’s. One at the far end, past the corner. Ms. Halloran was taking attendance. And Nour’s storm sat on her two hands, not getting any better between here and the board.
What does Nour do?
Every choice costs something. Let’s see what.
Put it at the far end, past the corner
Nour walked the whole length of the board, past every single storm, and put hers in the low gap at the far end, where the board stops and the hallway turns. She pressed the corners down properly. Done. It was up.
It actually looked fine there. Better than fine! It was just the right size for the space, the gray matched the wall, and from where Nour stood you couldn’t see Ayaan’s and hers at the same time. Which was the whole point.
All week, Nour watched people look at the board. Most of them stopped near the middle. Then they turned and went off to wherever they were going. Before they ever got to her storm.
On Friday, Grandma came in for assembly, and they went to look at the board together. “Which one, honey?” said Grandma, walking along. “Which one?” “Which one, honey?” Three times. Nour had to walk her right past the corner, to the very end. “There you are,” said Grandma to the storm, as if it had been hiding on purpose. Then she stood in front of it for ages, because there was nobody else in the way.
Put it in the middle gap, next to Ayaan’s
Nour put hers in the middle gap. It went up about two inches from Ayaan’s. Which meant that from now on, anyone standing in front of the board saw both of them at once, without even moving their head.
About ten minutes later, Amara stopped in front of it. “How did you make it go dark at the top but not at the side?” Not “it’s nice.” A real question. About the real paint. It needed a real answer.
By Wednesday, if anyone wanted to find Nour’s storm, they said, “the one next to Ayaan’s.” That was its name now. She heard it four times.
On Thursday, Nour saw Devan doing the dark-at-the-top trick on a completely different picture, brush almost dry, exactly the way she did it. He hadn’t asked her. He’d just walked past it enough times.
Say it isn’t finished and keep it in her tray
“It’s not finished,” said Nour. It was finished. It had been finished since Tuesday. “Okay, next week then,” said Ms. Halloran, still taking attendance. And she didn’t think about it again, because why would she?
The storm went into Nour’s tray, under her spelling words and a folded thing from last month. The board got finished by lunchtime without her. It looked complete. A board with twenty-eight storms looks exactly as full as one with twenty-nine.
All week, nothing of Nour’s hung in the hallway. Nobody looked at her storm. Nobody said a word about it. She walked past the board on the way to lunch, hands in her pockets, humming.
The middle gap next to Ayaan’s stayed a gap. Nobody else needed it. It was still there on Friday: a square of empty backing paper, a staple in each corner. Nour’s storm was still in her tray, under the spelling words, as dry as it had been on Tuesday, and exactly the right size for it.