Read Online Drawing a Veil by Lari Don - Free Book Online

Chapter One

Staring at Amina
    Some Year 10 boys were fighting at the end of the corridor but, for once, no-one was looking at them.
    Everyone was looking at Amina.
    â€œWhy didn’t you
tell
me?” Ellie whispered. “I’m your best friend!”
    Amina shook her head. “I didn’t want you to talk me out of it.”
    Mr MacIver opened the door to the Art Room. “Come in quietly,” he said, but no one moved. Everyone was still looking at Amina’s scarf.
    It wasn’t a striped school scarf. It wasn’t a woolly scarf like your gran might have knitted. It wasn’t a trendy glittery scarf from the shopping centre.
    Amina was wearing a tight black headscarf. It was pinned around her head, covering her hair, her ears and her neck.

    Of course, everyone had seen women wearing headscarves before. But they had never seen Amina in a headscarf. Yesterday, Amina had had a ponytail swinging at the back of her head, just like every other girl in the class.
    Amina walked into the Art Room. Ellie and the rest of the pupils came in after her.
    Mr MacIver had put the tables and chairs in three rows around an empty stool in the middle. Everyone sat down.
    â€œToday we’re going to draw a portrait,” said Mr MacIver. “Who would like to be our model?”
    Three or four people put their hands up. Amina was one of them.
    â€œAmina?” said Mr McIver. “Do you want to be the model today?”
    â€œI may as well,” said Amina. “Everyone is staring at me anyway!” She went to sit on the empty stool.

    After fifteen minutes, Ellie had drawn Amina’s body, but she couldn’t draw her face.
    Ellie knew Amina’s face almost as well as her own. Amina had a slim nose, dark eyes and a wide mouth. Ellie had drawn Amina’s face loads of times. But she had always drawn it with lots of long hair. Now she was trying to draw Amina’s face in a frame of black scarf, with straight lines on each side.
    Ellie gave up on her first drawing. She turned the paper over and started again. This time she drew Amina from memory.
    Mr McIver stood behind her. He said, “That’s a good drawing. But are you looking at your model?”
    â€œThis is what she looks like!” Ellie said.
    Mr McIver laughed. “Look again.”
    Ellie looked up at her friend, then down at her picture. She had drawn Amina without the headscarf.

Chapter Two

Do Best Friends Share Everything?
    Ellie turned to Carlie, who was sitting beside her, and asked if she could borrow her rubber.
    â€œSure,” said Carlie. “Why is Amina wearing that headscarf?”
    Ellie looked hard at the drawing. Maybe she could turn some of the hair into scarf. She just had to rub out the wavy bits.
    â€œI said,” Carlie whispered, “why is Amina wearing that scarf?”
    â€œHow should I know?” Ellie said.
    â€œDidn’t she tell you?” asked Carlie. “I thought you were best friends now. I thought best friends shared
everything
! Remember, in the last year in primary school, you and I used to text each other about what
socks
we were going to wear, to make sure we always dressed the same.”
    Ellie blushed at the memory.
    â€œDon’t you know why she’s wearing it?” asked Carlie.
    â€œOf course I know,” said Ellie. Really, she had no idea. “It’s… em … it’s to hide her hair from God. From Allah. It’s her religion. Like not eating bacon. It’s no big deal.”

    â€œNo big deal?” snorted Carlie. “It’s like she’s wearing a big sign saying, ‘Look at me, I’m different!’”
    Ellie looked at her picture. There was Amina with a scarf on her head and a grey halo around it, where Ellie had rubbed out the hair.
    â€œYeah. Well,” Ellie said. “She is different. We’re all different. And it’s her choice, isn’t it?”
    The door opened, and Megan and her