Life Is Funny Read Online Free

everybody who saw, this eighth grader Indian girl who comes from the high school to peer-tutor Jessie and some other kids for math on Thursdays, this girl, Sonia, who stepped out of the third stall right when Jessie got up on that sink, she tells us if you don’t want to see the guidance counselor on the second floor, there’s some old art closet where there’s a couple of chairs and some old mattress and you can stay in there if you want to be by yourself and nobody ever finds you, not even other kids if you don’t want because you can lock it from the inside.
    So now that’s why I’m sitting here, because I have to be alone to try and figure out two things that are getting on my nerves, bad. One of them is what do I do to stay out of fights at least for the next seven years until I’m done with high school because I’m supposed to graduate and my aunt Eva will kill me if I don’t, but everybody’s always wanting to fight, and then you get suspended and kicked out and all that mess. And then the other thing is what do I do if I don’t want my brother, Nick, to be touching me on my privacy every night and he comes and does it anyway?

Year Two
    Sonia
    Monique
    Sam
    Drew
    Sonia
    Gingerbread
    Sam
    Josh
    Carl

Sonia
    WHEN MY FAVORITE brother said the man who jumped off the Statue of Liberty was Sarim, I didn’t believe it. Nif is honest as a reflection with me, but still. I just couldn’t picture Sarim up there, on that stone pedestal underneath Liberty’s toes, floating along balloonlike in that peaceful way he has and then spinning out of control, popped, zigzagging up and over the edge. I couldn’t believe it.
    Not even after the whole neighborhood gathered in our living room, the women staying nearer to the kitchen and the men sitting on our couches closer to the television. They were all talking about Sarim, about the way his body must have looked crushed into the lower balcony’s cement, the way the cement must have looked. Mostly they spoke in Hindi, the Asian tones automatically sounding more like grief to me than anything English, and I still didn’t believe it was Sarim. My mother and the other women cooked all week, for the neighborhood gathered at our third-floor apartment. They gathered here because we are across the street from the brownstone building where Sarim lives. Used to live.
    I believe it more now. It’s been two weeks, and he hasn’t come home. And my four older brothers swore it was Sarim’s body they saw at the funeral before it was sent back to Pakistan to be cremated. And everyone says it was his watch and his wallet, his Bic pens and Certs and his tigereye touchstones they found, scattered near and far from the body, like coins around the center of a gory wishing well. I guess it must be him.
    Even now nobody wants to use the word suicide because killing yourself goes against the beliefs of my religion, and everybody feels uneasy with improper behavior. Lots of things are improper for Muslims. Especially for girls. Especially in my family. Wearing shorts, cutting your hair, doing poorly in school, arguing with anyone who is older, talking to a boy or to a man who is not related to you. I’ve always made my parents proud of me by appearing to follow each rule perfectly. Up until Sarim, I made myself proud, too, and pleased, because when you behave properly, you know just exactly where you belong. And knowing where you belong is very comforting, like a large hand resting on the top of your head.
    I’m not sure what happens after you die. I think my brothers learn about that at their school or maybe during their weekend religious classes, but not even Nif talks about those things with me. I’ve read enough to know that a lot of Americans don’t believe in God, don’t think there’s anything after death. For others, there’s heaven and hell, or reincarnation. I want to find out what Muslims believe,