One Half from the East Read Online Free Page A

landing in the ditch.
    I had a plastic gun once. A little orange squirter that I filled with water. If I squeezed it just right, I managed to hit my sister right in the ear, so I think my aim must be pretty good.
    I walk into our outhouse, which is a small shack behind our home.
    If I can do this, I’ll know I can be a boy.
    Our outhouse is like any other outhouse. It’s got just enough room for one person to stand. There’s a hole in the middle with one brick on either side. Usually I crouch down with a foot on each brick and my pee can’t help but go into the hole right under me. Easy enough.
    I stand with my back to the door. There’s just enough light filtering in through the small window on the wall to my right. I pull my new pants down and thrust my hips out, the way the little boy did. I try to peek down and see if this is going to work. Since it’s hard to see anything, I point my hips out a little farther. I hope I don’t overshoot the hole. My aim with the orange squirter was pretty good, but this is a little different.
    I will do this. If I have to be a bacha posh , I will be the best bacha posh there ever was. My mother will think she’s had a son all along.
    I let go and a hot stream runs down my leg, soils my new four-pocketed cargo pants, and puddles in my sandals.

Four
    â€œI want to wait a couple of weeks before you start school. A lot has changed for you,” my mother tells me. “There are some things you need to get used to since you’re a boy now.”
    My face goes red. I have a feeling she somehow found out about my outhouse experiment yesterday. My mother’s not sure what else I might try.
    There are big things for me to get used to. My name is the biggest. (I’m Obayd now—good-bye, Obayda.) I wake up in the morning thinking my hair is still there, but it isn’t. I look at the closet I share with my sisters and see a short stack of clothes I don’t recognize. The dresses are off-limits, even my favorite ones. My first day at home asa boy is especially difficult since my sisters aren’t around. They started school today, but my mother wants to give me a little more time to settle into my new identity. It’s the middle of fall, and I know soon enough winter will be here, along with the three-month winter break. I wonder if she’ll let me go to school before then.
    â€œMadar?”
    â€œYes, sweetheart.”
    â€œCutting my hair and calling me Obayd . . . How is that going to bring us a brother?”
    â€œI don’t know how it does, but it does. That’s what everyone says.”
    Everyone is actually one person—my uncle’s wife.
    â€œLike some kind of magic?”
    â€œSomething like that.” She folds my sisters’ dresses. Sleeve, sleeve, skirt. The final stack is bulky and looks like it will topple off the pile of clothes she’s made next to her.
    It is my turn to pause. If my dressing as a boy is an act of magic, shouldn’t I feel something? Maybe a tingle in my toes or a whisper in my ear or something to make my senses light with the special role I’ve been assigned in my parents’ scheme? I give it a second, holding my breath. Nope, nothing.
    â€œPeople say if you dress a daughter like a son, God will give you a son.”
    â€œYou said I’d be able to do things other girls can’t doand that it would be great for me. But this isn’t for me at all.”
    â€œIt’s for all of us. There’s nothing we do for any single person here. That’s what being a family is. We help each other in whatever way we can.”
    I do want to be helpful.
    â€œDo you want me to bring the clothes in from outside, Mother?”
    My mother nods and points at the basket in the corner of the living room before she catches herself.
    â€œWait, stop! No, my son. I’ll bring them in later.”
    â€œBut they’re already dry. I can fold them