I’m not sure what one does when confronted with a terrible diagnosis, but when it happened to me, I had already gone down the rabbit hole of online shopping aka Amazon.com. I remember thinking that the diagnosis had ruined the experience of online shopping entirely and that I was now doubly scarred for life.

I was six months into living in Australia, had visited Sydney twice and was uneasily settling into the ‘cosy’ village life of rural NSW. Even more interesting, I had just started casual work at a primary school (I’ll tell you about that adventure another time). Just as I thought I was getting the hang of it - even though I drove back crying from work on almost a daily basis - I was struck down by the verdict. In clearer terms, what I mean by verdict is the ‘umbrella’ analogy the doctor at the hospital used to deliver my tumour diagnosis; changing my life and forever ruining my first significant experience of online shopping. In hindsight, if that doctor had been a student of mine, he would have received a full lecture on the correct use of terms within an oral presentation, according to context and empathy. Alas, they probably do not focus on such frivolities in medical school, for what would we mere mortals know?

The big boxes from Amazon arrived on a sunny morning and I had tracked them on my freshly downloaded app. I watched as the postie deposited them on my front porch, and I waved him goodbye before rushing out to drag them inside. I had ordered a beautiful white KitchenAid Artisan Bowl Lift mixer, a large Instant Pot pressure cooker and finally a pair of Bose 700 Noise-Cancelling headphones. It’s hard to describe what I was feeling unboxing them, other than the poignant feeling of fury in my mind’s eye, that the image of the headphones was significantly ruined by the idea of the obliterated mandible. Would I even be able to wear them?? They would be significantly close to my jawbone, I mused…

I stuffed the headphones back into their leather case and decided not to think about the mandible, in or ex situ. If engaged in further contemplation, that would evoke further trains of thought regarding feeding tubes and wired jaws, which was horrific enough. I had already conjured several nightmares and replayed them in my head, especially at night, when I was just ready to doze off. A personal favourite that was regularly recurring the past few days, was probably the one where I would wake up from the anaesthetic, my once lovely jawline now blasted into inexistence and my whole mouth wired shut–rather akin to that horrific scene from the horror movie Saw. Of course, at that point, all sleep would disperse rapidly and taking its place would be the unyielding state of insomnia. Questions would ensue: Surely, I’d choke on my own vomit? If I tried to talk or open my mouth, would my lips rip apart or just the gums inside? What would they give me for the pain?...

The KitchenAid would sit on beautifully on the kitchen countertop, but what I really needed to understand was how to manipulate the Instant Pot. See, I had arrived from Tunisia a few months earlier and things here were radically different for me. First thing off the bat was that I had to do everything by myself. I know this might sound silly, but for the past ten years I had had a full-time maid helping me with housework and later a cook with the cooking. Second thing I noticed was how different the ingredients in Australia were; we never bought our vegetables from the supermarket, that was a big no no. We had weekly vegetable markets where the farmers would haul in their fresh produce, and you’d take your pick. That’s apart from the veggie shops down the streets that you’d buy from if you missed the markets. Then all the other things, well, they were radically different too and apart from apart from adapting to living in a new physical context, I also had to learn to integrate all these ‘new’ ingredients to my much-loved recipes.

I found it hard to juggle the housework, job and cooking all at once. My eldest daughter was sick and in and out of hospital and the boys needed structure and direct instructions on what they needed to do. Routines and timetables were set up and we got stuck into it. I also approached the manual for the Instant Pot with caution. It was largely considered a Western concept, not suitable for our traditional food, and if I started switching the recipes my family was used to, to some alien menu, I knew there would be severe pushback. What I needed to do was adapt this appliance to the diverse recipes logged within the recesses of my mind, to at least take off some of the cooking load. I initially started with one pot pasta and after several attempts, I felt I had perfected it to the taste and texture that we were used to. After that, it was stepping into uncharted territory. I wanted to try making something a bit more ambitious in it…like Maklouba, a Palestinian dish that was made predominantly of rice, lamb and eggplants. The only problem was cooking the rice and figuring out on what function to cook the whole thing towards the end.

As a Palestinian, Maklouba is one of our traditional dishes. It also holds a special place in my heart because of a story I once read about it, the story behind its name, Maklouba. Apparently, the original name of the dish was Beytenjaniyeh, from Beytenjan which means eggplant in Arabic. Although the story I read referred to the dish in question in Salaheddine’s time, Maklouba’s origins go further back in time, all the way back to the tenth century Arabic cookbook, Kitāb al-Ṭabīkh which was compiled by Abū Muḥammad al-Muẓaffar ibn Naṣr ibn Sayyār al-Warrāq. This was one of the earliest cookbooks recorded and it was during the golden age of the Abbasid era, containing early recipes that describe the same structure ingredients and methods of the modern-day dish; layers of rice, meat and fried vegetables, all cooked in a pot and inverted onto a large tray before serving.

Fast forward a century or so, when Salaheddine Ayoubi conquered Jerusalem, the Muslim women in Palestine welcomed him with a feast that included our dish, Maklouba. According to legend, once Salaheddin had gone back to retrieve his family and transport them to Jerusalem, he told his wife to cook the same mouth-watering dish he had been served there. When she asked what it was named, he said he could not remember but described it and stressed that the most important part was the version of the pot and all the layers oozing out in a haze of heady aromas. His wife took note of all the observations, instructed the cook to make it and what was once referred to as Beytenjaniyeh was now labelled as Maklouba, translated as ‘upside down’.

Almost a thousand years later, here I am on the other side of the world, displaced but carrying the same dish in my heart, staring at a large Instant Pot and wondering if I will avoid the food burn alarm if I try the rice function this time after setting all the layers in the pot. I had purchased an extra inner pot and already pressure cooked the lamb to perfection. The potatoes, carrots, and eggplants were fried to golden perfection and the tomatoes were sliced and arranged at the bottom of the pot with a generous dollop of ghee. A bowl of basmati rice had already been soaked and drained and I had mixed in the spices and salt to it, all ready to go. The lamb had also been strained, and the broth steamed gently, waiting to soak into the prepared layers.

In went one layer after another and I measured out the broth and slipped the stainless-steel pot into the appliance. I pressed the rice function and held my breath. Last time I had tried to pressure cook it, but it hadn’t really worked. What a mess! The rental we were in had a lovely induction stove top, but I had I felt I actually needed to see actual fire to actually feel the rice cooking and understand what stage we were at! Quite contradictory when you think I was now doing this in an electrical appliance…

Lo-and-behold! Fifteen minutes later and the Instant Pot beeped, and I waited in anticipation as I chewed my lip. My instincts told me to wait another ten minutes before letting the steam out and so I did, forcing myself to trust them. After what felt like eternity, I opened the lid and was welcomed with the familiar aroma of delicious Maklouba and the sight of fluffy rice…. ooooohhhh it had worked!! I couldn’t contain my excitement, and I felt like letting out a loud zaghrouta just to celebrate! Of course, once the smell filled the house, that was it, the bedroom doors opened, the kids came out, chatter started up and the table was set. Everyone wanted to eat. After all, Maklouba is not just a dish that represents Palestine but one that brings us together no matter where we are, or what age we are in.

The meal that had taken me about three hours to prepare in total was demolished in twenty minutes. We spent another hour at the table chatting loudly and then alternately arguing over something else. I watched in fascination as these arguments became heated, animated, simmered, boiled and cooled down. Amazing how malleable family ambience can be! Clearing the table away and washing the dishes wasn’t exactly the highlight of my evening but I couldn’t help but eye the Instant Pot on my counter. This really was something else. It was going to change the course of my cooking future. I was so glad I had bought an extra inner pot so that I could swap them around when cooking instantly, one after another. After I put the cutlery away and wiped down the counter, I wondered what it would be like to cook stew and basmati rice one after another. Then a diabolical idea popped into my head, and I stopped almost dropping the dish towel.

What if I bought another Instant Pot? Say the smaller version, for soup or rice?

I almost squealed in excitement as I ran to check the prices on Amazon.

You know when people say they hit forty and they feel like they’re going through a different stage of life? Some say they secretly feel they’ve grown old, lost their youth, panic and try to regain it somehow; others cautiously tip toe into the decade, waiting for the shoe to drop and are genuinely bewildered when nothing actually happens. Quite a few people report that they just aren’t as spry as they once were, the old reflexes not working as well, from their skin which seems to be losing elasticity with every day and their gut which sounds like it’s either slowing down or speeding up, depending on its mind.

Now when I crashed into my forties, my body had a few memorable events in store for me. It didn’t really help that after living in Tunisia for twenty- two years, I had also just landed as a fresh immigrant in Australia. I remember being picked up by my sister and brother-in-law; they had rented a white minivan and trailer to accommodate all nine of us and the endless stream of luggage that followed us out of the airport. The security guards at each checkpoint from Sydney to Canberra seemed stunned to see a set of parents with seven children, half of them grown, the other half between toddlerhood and childhood running around, laughing.

I turned forty, two months into living in rural Australia. What caught me off guard most was how quiet the country seemed. The sky was too big; they drove on the wrong side of the road and there no stray cats to be found anywhere. Although everything was neat and clean and orderly, I was overwhelmed and stressed all of the time; I felt as if I couldn’t do anything properly. For a while, I could hear my children’s silence too. It seemed that they themselves were struggling to find their own feet in this strange land ‘down under’.

We didn’t have long after that because the action started to kick in. My eldest daughter started with her share of health battles, and I followed. Now if I were to say that it came right out of the blue, I’d be lying. Before leaving Tunisia, I had gone to the dentist and had my teeth checked as I did routinely. I did have a wisdom tooth that needed coming out and that was simple enough. However, I flagged a niggly ache on the right side of my mandible, nothing major and the dentist ordered a cone beam scan. Off I went and the imaging centre sent back a report that showed a small one-centimetre cyst lodged in the corner of my mandible. Now it’s important to note here that my usual dentist was away and I had gone to a replacement. This one was a lovely one and competent enough. The mistake he made though, was getting another dental surgeon to come along with him, and terrify the living daylights out of me by telling me that I would need that cyst immediately removed as it may very well be a ‘tumour’.

The enunciation of the word tumour set off convulsions through my body; I was about to board a plane in a moth and fly off to Australia. I was not going to have my jaw or other drilled by some zealous doctor who couldn’t wait to start probing into my bones to extract what they hoped was a ‘tumour’! And so, I refused to do anything about it and promised to see a doctor once I landed in Australia. And I did. And I wish that I could turn that clock around…

You hear all the criticisms about the dodgy business done in the medical field in the so called third world. No one tells you about the complications of the medical field in the first world. Once I landed in Australia, I settled and within a few weeks I went to see a doctor. Dentists here do not routinely do root canals, they have ‘specialists’ for that. I’m not sure if that’s because they’re trained in a different way or so that they can charge you thousands of dollars for the procedure. Crowns also cost thousands of dollars. I don’t think they consider teeth as essential as the public medical system here doesn’t cover any of it whatsoever. Also, unlike our dodgy home countries, most of the dentists here are not surgically trained. Although I forwarded all of my scans and reports from Tunisia to both the dentist and my GP, they hardly looked at them as they were not done at an Australian facility. And so, I was pushed back and forth for a few months throughout the system…until one day, eight months later when I felt a noticeable pressure in my gum. No need to mention that I had also been taking care of my daughter who was suffering, health wise, as well.

Back I went to the dentist, and he stared at the Xray in front of him in horror. He put an urgent referral in for a maxillofacial surgeon. Judging from the look on his face, I booked in to see my GP the next day and waited to hear the worst. I had no pain but from the pressure, I knew there was something growing in there. Again, the same look on the GP’s face, especially when felt about my jawline and felt and distinctly hard lump. He immediately had me transferred to the hospital and off I went for a scan and the full works.

Needless to say, the CT scan I had revealed the fearsome, gruesome tumour that had now expanded to about five centimetres and thinned out the surrounded bone as a result. Two teams of doctors flocked in and out of the room, consulting with each other, talking in lowered voices, their eyebrows moving and their lips thinning at every suggestion. They disappeared into an adjacent room and left me sitting on an old pea green leather dentist chair in the consultation room.

I sat and stared at the screen in front of me for a good twenty minutes before the team of ENT doctors barged in. One of them had a look of triumph and I couldn’t figure out what it was. The max/fax doctors were still deep in discussion next door. But the ENT team could not contain themselves; they excitedly told me how I had a tumour that would need removing and that it was a very rare thing indeed - the head doctor went so far far as to tell me that when I came in he thought I was just a routine case. They seemed amused when I asked if I would lose any teeth and explained that I would be having the entire right side of the lower mandible removed. When I burst into tears, they looked at each other in confusion and thought that they were doing me a service, even quoting something silly about thinking you’d want to know if when you need an umbrella for a rainy day.

What ensued next was a haze, a daze, a phase…I don’t even know what to call it, now that I think about it. I had a series of appointments to attend to in the next couple of weeks and a biopsy to do as well as the wisdom tooth extraction – the one that was on the other side, lodged into the tumour itself. Through this mess, I vaguely registered that the surgeons were ready to operate and blast away a quarter of my face, very frightening thought indeed, but no one seemed to I understand that and kept telling me I was in the best country in the world to do it. The appointments kept coming, the bedside manners were appalling and the assumptions that I had hit the scene on a camel from 1820 were more than I could bear.

And that’s when I lost my shit.

I went to pieces, started to show that I was falling apart and was promptly assigned a social worker for support and a psychologist, both of whom I was reluctant to see at first. The rage I felt was palpable. I wanted to scream at them that if only they had looked at the scans I had bought in they would have dodged this. But even so, some part of me acknowledged that their minds were so radically different that they would never accept anything from a different context. A machine from another land would be only perceived as incapable never mind the person behind it!

So, instead of meeting with the psych, I did what I do best, I wrote her a letter.

Dear Daisy,

You’ve been calling since last week to see how I’ve been and in return I haven’t answered. Not because I didn’t want to but because I’ve been working as I need to keep this job in order to survive this God-awful thing I’m going through, both for my financial prospects and mental well-being…that is if I make it, unscathed.

I suppose I must ask how you’re doing but then again, it is your job (literally) to ask about me. It is a bit strange, I must admit, having someone calling just to enquire if I’m feeling ‘fine’ or ‘coping’. Usually, I’m the one asking everyone around me if they’re OK, the kids, my husband, my students, friends, pretty much everyone. Now, the tables have turned, and I am to be the recipient of this comfort and sympathy, delivered on a weekly basis by phone. Though I feel I need to tell you that I’m not that articulate when it comes to talking on the phone and so, I’ve chosen to write this by mail.

I’ve thought through your questions and I’ve thought about the list you asked me to compile so that you may ensure that my visits to the hospital feel as safe and as comfortable as it gets. I’ve actually been thinking about them quite a bit, even more. Perhaps I should be grateful but to be honest I’m not feeling that at the moment; I mean I’m not exactly sure how to describe what I’m feeling in a few words but what I do know that is that I do not want to be a name on a piece of paper that needs to be called because that is standard protocol. Sorry, it’s not personal but that’s what I’m feeling. I have never in my life been so cornered on a psychological level. I have never felt such despair, nor such a sense of emptiness as if the essence of my life has been sucked out by an alien force. I do realise that what I have is neither life threatening nor terminal at the moment, but I am simply crippled in the face of fighting back for simple survival.

I am weary and I cannot find it in my heart to carry on looking for all the good things that have kept me going on for the past few decades when, inevitably, at some point or other, ‘disaster’ struck. Back then it was always the food that kept me going first. I know that sounds mad but there is such a wonderful world of gastronomy that would even make the dead rise with a watering mouth. Who doesn’t love French patisseries? Or a concoction of creamy mussel bisque? Then there’s all the pasta from Italy, silky and aromatic. Don’t you feel your mood lifts with a frothy cup of vanilla cappuccino that warms your hands as you snuggle up to savour it while you’re reading an extraordinary novel that is so good it just breaks your heart? Well, food did me a lot of favours and I’m deeply grateful for that. I also think positive thinking was another thing in my life that kept me going, you know, always thinking how lucky I am for all the blessings I have around me; looking at others and thinking ‘you’ve got a lot, so be thankful’ especially if I’m inclined to feeling ungrateful on a particularly bad day. I loved all the little details of perfection in my life: looking at a painting I have in the hall and admiring the sunset colours, a perfect stack of books, a beautiful arrangement of flowers, a soul wrenchingly beautiful song, a motivated student, a caring child…the list could go on forever. Even the burden of the need for perfection that is a huge part of my life seemed perfect to me because in a word, it completed who I was, and I accepted it.

On the other hand, now, this burden is breaking my back and all the perfection around me has ceased to exist. All I can see are the imperfections of what used to be, and I cannot shoulder it anymore as the black stain of this disease has spilt ink on the canvas of all that was perfect in my life. I cannot erase it and I cannot un-see it. It has infiltered through the fibres of my being and it is mottling the core of my existence. I am finally encountering what my kryptonite feels like and I have been dealt a blow that only represents destruction to everything that I have worked for so hard and so long. I am still back in the chair in the hospital, receiving information that has made my life crumble all around me while simultaneously being helpless in stopping the process. And so, I ask, is this a dark premonition of what is to become or simply the new ‘normal’ of what my life is going to be? I am so sorry for unloading all this on you, but I feel that my failure of recognising how to deal with this situation is simply making matters unbearable; perhaps also the hope that you might have seen more of my kind who have been in this terrifying situation and have subsequently come out of without being butchered (in the literal or psychological sense) and with a relatively acceptable sense of normalcy.

Finally, I want to clarify that even though I have noted all of the things that make me feel better, I most certainly do not want to ruin them by having them inserted into future hospital arrangements as that would just twist the situation grotesquely into some macabre version of what was otherwise a happy memory (although I don’t really see anyone serving up French pastries or creamy mussel bisque anytime soon in any hospital on this planet). I also would like to say that I simply cannot contact any helpline and please do not think that it is because I am undermining any effort that all those good people are trying to make in order to ease some of our pain. The lack of emotional response is completely my own as I need to make the connection before I can start to feel anything or I will always be the anonymous name on a plain piece of paper that is part of a job, done out of obligation rather than affection. My pain will not be taken personally nor will the weight of my burden be felt. My clock will not start ticking again because it has lost its normal cog and now, I have been tasked with finding a replacement that I will only find God knows where in order to start it up again. No one can help me, and neither can you. Only that lost piece will start the mechanism of life again and I’m not sure where to start because I’m on foreign terrain.

I do apologise for this long letter. Perhaps a phone call might be better next time as it would not weigh you down with so many details but I felt the need to unload this to someone and since you kindly offered to shoulder some of the burden I am guilty of sharing more than is reasonable and for that I am grateful to you.

Thank you for everything and I hope you have a lovely evening.

Kind Regards,

L.Y.

When one finishes school and embarks on the wonderful journey of independence, one has a sensational sense of revolutionary achievements. The exciting road that leads us through university and progressively launches us into our respective career paths gives us a wondrous sense of being able to conquer everything as we had already tackled all the hard stuff: slogging it out with professors, academic rules in the institution, endlessly trying to attain those golden marks that at times seem out of our reach and so on and on and on, that the list is endless. Then there we are, our first job. A feeling of pride and yet more achievement. One thinks to oneself; I am truly independent now as the financial dimension in my life is solely controlled by yours truly. Dignity and pride soar as well as honour because one has truly integrated and is finally what one set out to become, a good citizen. The job glows in front of our eyes and finally, the climb up the ladder, to even more professional success seems abundant and inevitable.

The classroom was silent, the neon lighting from the ceiling was not doing any favours for the cracked grey paint that was slowly peeling from the corners of the room. There was a draft of air that would not be contained no matter who was called in; the janitor, builder, plasterer, president, whoever. It was even more prominent now as the classroom was empty save for four people. The parents and their child sat at the front row, three brownish, oldish desks pushed together and the chipped chairs close knit. The child sat in the middle, flagged by the mother to the right and the father to the left, angels hovering over their innocent offspring, prepared to protect until their dying breath.

Just in front of this charming tableau, sat Ms. Scrawling, behind her worn out but tidy desk. She examined the faces in front of her, gazing patiently from the lenses of her tortoise shell glasses, her hands clasped in front of her, legs trimly crossed at the ankles.

Mmmm, she thought to herself, this is one of the trickier samples. Patrick Poacher.

She had wondered what sort of background he had emerged from and now it was beginning to come together clearly, quite beautifully, in fact.

Mr. Poacher did not seem so happy and that was an understatement. His thick arms were crossed over a muscular chest, his stocky build perched tensely on the navy chair, his foot tapping impatiently. His face was another thing altogether. The dark hair was oiled away from his forehead, but this seemed to just enhance the dull red that crept up his neck and seeped into his bulging eyes as he glowered at Ms. Scrawling.

Mrs. Poacher was sitting ramrod straight, legs crossed, a supportive arm around young Patrick. She was perfectly coiffed and expensively dressed from the golden halo of her head to the tip of her shiny shoes. She was also looking at poor Ms. Scrawling in a most disdainful manner.

And finally, there was Patrick. Ahhh, he had Mummy’s blonde hair and it was now slicked back like Daddy’s. The large blue eyes in the rounded cherubic face were doe like as he beamed at her shyly from lowered lashes, his little hands wringing together nervously.

“What I don’t understand is how Pat could have gotten those disgraceful marks,” ground out Mr. Poacher from gritted teeth. “It is hard enough for us to see him struggling every day. You know, we already told the principal about his condition.” He looked pointedly at Ms. Scrawling. “Perhaps it’s hard for you to deal with such cases as you’re still new.”

His beady eyes gleamed as he seemed to relish the teacher’s obvious discomfort. Mrs. Poacher was glaring at her with equal menace, her disdain and snootiness, increasing by the second. Young Patrick, on the other hand, was watching the adults nervously as though trying to neutralize a bomb that was about to go off.

The silence increased for a few more seconds as Ms. Scrawling watched the parents as what promised to be an interesting meeting unfolded before her very eyes.

It’s the eyes, she thought. They were very misleading, drat it!

Not Patrick’s eyes. Her eyes. And the face. Unfortunately, for most children of this calibre (and their parents) she possessed a most misleading face. Heart shaped, framed by dark chestnut hair and the most marvellously large amber eyes, fringed with thick sooty lashes, glowing warmly. She exuded an almost overpowering matronly air, rather too kind. Perhaps, if one looked closely enough, she thought, they might find clues along the lines of her nose which seemed a tad too long. Or in the tight lines around her soft lips when they pursed, especially if she was displeased.

At the moment though, the parents were looking at her, expecting her to say something, obviously not too smart, so that they could launch the attack they had no doubt prepared in advance. They obviously took no notice of any clues along the lines of her face, seeing only a soft-spoken woman whose silence was a sign of weakness and submission to the coming avalanche of wrath and anger.

“I assure you Mr. Poacher, I have been teaching for several years,” She began, thinking that that was probably not the best thing to say to an angry parent, “but I as much as I do acknowledge Patrick’s struggle, I think we should discuss his behaviour in class, which seems to be the actual issue here.”

Mr. Poacher did not appreciate that bit of information. His eyes narrowed and the corner of his lip twitched. More than once.

“His behaviour?” he asked quietly. The side of his eye was now twitching too. Patrick’s nervousness was rising apparently by the way he half rose out of his chair, little arms slightly outstretched as if trying to bodily prevent a coming catastrophe.

Ms. Scrawling did not seem perturbed. In the least. Her elegant hands were still clasped, ankles crossed, and she was still looking directly at the parents with her large eyes.

“Yes,” She smiled, now directing her gaze sweetly at Patrick. “His behaviour.”

A glimmer of childish evil flitted through Patrick’s face but only for a split second before it was replaced by a look of fear and innocence. But too late, Ms Scrawling had already caught it and he knew it. He turned a little clumsily, in a way that probably appealed to both parents’ basic instinct to defend their wrongfully accused son and dear Mummy was already opening her circle of arms into a protective haven that he could run into, should the need arise.

“Perhaps you could tell us a bit more about his behaviour, Ms. Scrawling.” Mr. Poacher was fuming now and if this went on much further, smoke was going to start coming out of his ears.

Rather large, ungraceful ears, thought Ms. Scrawling. Rather like a bull’s. Her lips were pursed but still, she was not looking at him down her nose.

“I do understand Patrick’s struggles in classwork, and we do endeavour, Ms. Nimble and myself, to help in everyway possible.” Her gaze rested heavily on Mr. Poacher, still calm. “But I’m afraid he is not cooperative most of the time.”

Mr. Poacher was still digesting this new tidbit of news. Not cooperative…he seemed to have been thrown off track and was just finding his balance. Ms. Scrawling, however, seemed quite happy to elaborate. She continued, sweetly unaware of the danger of being trampled by a raging parent.

“He refuses to try to attempt any of the work most of the time and when he does do any work, he will usually rush through it without any conscious effort. What really worries me, however, is his interaction with his classmates.” She glanced fleetingly at Patrick before continuing. “He is somewhat…” she tilted her head gracefully to the side, trying to think of an appropriate word, “…aggressive, to say the least, towards them and has not quite managed to make any friends.” She finished by resuming her former position and staring forward once more, smiling engagingly.

The reaction that ensued was impressively formidable. Patrick’s face seemed to crumble, and his large, luminous eyes brimmed with fat tears that threatened to overspill. He jerkily lifted his elbow to his face as if in shame and Mummy cried out in despair as she gathered him in her arms, poisonous looks searing Ms Scrawling.

“That’s it!” Thundered Mr. Poacher, banging his fist onto the poor table that jumped creakily at his assault.

He stood towering over Ms. Scrawling’s desk with a murderous look.

“Of all the things a teacher could say! How dare you! Our child has been suffering! You people are not qualified to even look after our kids properly, let alone TEACH them! He comes home telling us how much he loves school and how mean his classmates are to him and you have the gall to tell us that our son is bullying them?!” He pointed at the angelic child that was snivelling into Mummy’s dress. “Look at him! He wouldn’t hurt a fly.”

He abruptly turned to his wife and son.

“Come on, I’m not taking another minute of this rubbish!”

Mrs. Poacher and Patrick scrambled up and stood behind him, clasped together, Patrick’s face red and splotchy with tears, his mother’s contorted with agonised fury.

But Mr. Poacher was not finished. He wheeled around to Ms. Scrawling.

“You!” He pointed a finger at her, and Ms. Scrawling’s eyes seemed to cross together as she focused on the tip of his meaty finger. “You look out for yourself, because I’ll be taking this up with the principal!”

And with that they huffed and puffed out of the room, slamming the door behind them.

Ms. Scrawling blinked.

“It was a pleasure to meet you too.” She smiled to herself.

The following week, Patrick was absent from school. It was a good thing as it made it much easier for Ms. Scrawling to execute the pedagogical plan that she had in place for the child.

She tutted to herself. Such a shame that it had to come to this but still, it was for the best interests of the child. In fact, she mused, she should have prepared an individual learning plan for Patrick much sooner. Then perhaps the meeting with his parents would have gone much smoother.

The principal had been accosted by Mr. Poacher, of course, but Mrs. Downy was extremely understanding and although she had managed to placate him, she was also very kind to Ms. Scrawling as she knew exactly how manipulative Patrick was.

Who wouldn’t?

Especially after that dreadful episode when he had set poor Polly’s hair on fire and then pinned the whole thing on Ben. Thank heavens the poor girl hadn’t had her scalp melted off but still, the sheer devilry of how Patrick had emerged from the whole thing scot-free was unbelievable.

What baffled Ms. Scrawling was how the entire school had let this situation get out hand. Why hadn’t anyone thought of simply putting a stop to all of Patrick’s machinations and constant bullying? He harassed the teachers, terrified the children, kept up an impressive portfolio of hair-raising events that made everyone, children and adults, on guard, at ALL times.

It must be the exhaustion, thought Ms. Scrawling.

The poor dears were simply overwrought with all the constant problems he presented them with.

And they were a very kind team of staff, she mused.

They would definitely not do anything that would go against the grain of the rules set out by the department. She raised her chin. Which was exactly why it was wonderful that she had arrived just in time…

Monday morning bloomed bright and beautiful as Patrick sauntered into his classroom. He grinned at the scrawny children in his class as he stood in the doorway. The teacher was smiling at him in that kind way of hers that he already knew was a lie. She was a fake and he could smell her a mile off. He could tell that she didn’t like him but why she kept smiling was something he couldn’t fathom. He knew all the other teachers feared him but this one was different. She looked like a coward as well, but he sensed, rather than saw, that there was something alien lurking beneath all those smiles that annoyed him to no end.

“Dear Patrick!” Her smile grew wider as she brought her clasped hands up to her chest. “I’m so glad you’re back.”

She was positively beaming, her ivory skin glowing and her eyes radiating waves of happiness.

Patrick shifted uneasily, from foot to foot, glaring at her suspiciously. Something was not right, no. She actually looked happy to see him. That was definitely fishy. No teacher looked happy to see him. He scanned the class and saw the other children looking at him rather warily. Well, nothing out of the ordinary there. With another look at the teacher, he decided that she had just lost her mind. Probably thought she had some master plan in for him that could suddenly turn him around. He snickered at the thought. He’d show her. Just like he’d shown the others.

He dragged his feet until he reached his desk and threw his backpack noisily on the floor with such force that it landed with a loud thud and the water bottle in the side pocket burst open. The water sprayed in a gush, wetting the front of his grubby looking T-shirt. He chortled with glee and let out a loud burp that cracked through the air and made the twins, Henry and Holly shrink away in disgust.

“SORRY…Ms. Scrawling!” he gave her another of his evil smiles, the particularly malicious ones that he saved for teachers. “Guess I need to go to the toilet now to clean up.”

He looked at her as if daring her to contradict him. But she simply stood there, silent, with that sickly-sweet smile on her face. He decided to ignore her and was ready to turn around, but the classroom door had already slammed shut with a splintering bang. He whirled around and found that Sawyer was actually turning a key in the lock.

He blinked in disbelief.

Sawyer. Skinny, scrawny, sleepy, slow Sawyer had locked the door and was now throwing the key across the room. It whistled and sang through the air before landing neatly into the teacher’s elegantly manicured hand, which closed around it in a firm, unyielding grip.

“Thank you, Sawyer,” she said quietly.

She tucked the old key into the pocket of her tweed skirt and clasped her hands lightly in front of her once more.

“Not just yet, Patrick,” She tilted her head a little and as she gazed at him, he thought that her large eyes had narrowed for a spilt second, a flash determination flitting through her gold irises. “We have an important lesson to learn today, as you all know.”

She smiled engagingly, her gaze moving over the heads of the children benignly, finally resting on Patrick’s blonde locks.

“Today, we are going to learn about an important figure of history.”

She moved to the centre of the class and stood in front of the board. The chalk scratched the black surface as she scrawled in her neat, flowery but clear handwriting.

Patrick squinted to see what she was scribbling.

“Atilla, the Hun.” She drew a line under the name.

Patrick screwed up his face in displeasure.

“I don’t give a crap about this Hun fool.” He curled his fists and tightened his lips. “Now open that door, NOW!!”

His colour was rising, making his face look angry and splotchy, his eyebrows knitted together, drawn down low over his glowering eyes. His breath was coming in short pants and he seemed to be on the verge of opening his mouth in that cavernous way of his, to let out his trademark, blood-curdling cry. His eyes, however seemed to sense something else was off as they flitted over his classmates. There were only ten of them today, but they didn’t seem panicked in the least. Where were the rest?

“OPEN THE DOOR!!” He screamed, his reserve finally cracking.

No one took any notice. If anything, they seemed to be comfortable with the situation at hand.

“Now children, since Patrick was away, we need to tell him a little about Atilla.” She seemed excited about this.

Patrick stared dumbly at her, almost gawking at her obliviousness of him.

She’s lost her marbles he thought. The teacher was a frigging psychopath.

“Let me out!” He yelled, panic actually lacing his words as he clung to the door and tried to wrench it open.

It wouldn’t though. Like all old things, it was stubborn and solid. It stayed right where it was, unmoving, not budging even an inch.

He clung to the door handle, his fist now starting to sweat slightly, making it slippery. What worried him even more now was the children’s collective reaction. They weren’t exactly staring at him but when they did, he actually felt just a tiny hint of maliciousness caressing him, making him shiver in fear. As he looked around him, it began to dawn on him that the ten or so children in the class with him, were the ones he had actually had some significant accidents with.

Take Ben for example: he had been accused of setting Polly’s hair on fire. It wasn’t his fault the grown-ups were stupid enough to believe that. Polly’s hair had been burnt to a cinder, but it wasn’t like hair didn’t grow back, right? He gazed uneasily at the others. The twins, Henry and Holly, they had both been puking so hard when he put caterpillars in their favourite cheese and cucumber sandwiches. He remembered the crunch of their teeth as they had chomped off pieces of delicious cheese and cucumber. Of course, nobody would forget those mashed up caterpillars either. Then was the time when he had tried to play with Sawyer by giving him a pet rat. Sawyer didn’t even thank him for his thoughtfulness and even blamed him through snot filled, gulpy tears because the rat had bitten him. Perhaps if he hadn’t been screaming like a banshee, then the rat would have played nice. After all, Patrick had put it down Sawyer’s shirt because he had wanted to surprise him with the gift.

“Now Patrick dear,” said Ms. Scrawling, “I’d like you to come here because we are going to play act something.”

She walked over briskly to him and bent slightly to see eye to eye with him.

“Don’t be shy,” she tried to motion for him to move with her.

“Oh no you don’t!” The panic was rising and ebbing now. “I’m not budging one step from this door! I know what you’re up to!” The voice was actually thinning out into a higher note, slightly screechy in fact. “You think you’re going to teach me a lesson by making me out into that Atilla the Hun! Well you won’t!”

His small hand was clamped to the door handle, twisting at it uselessly.

His glared at her.

“I’ll show you! I’ll show you all! I’ll beat you up so bad, you’ll all regret it!” He was yelling at the top of his voice, a temper tantrum in full swing now. “You think you’re going to make me see how you can all beat me or some rubblish! Ain’t gonna happen! You’re going to regret this! I’ll make you….” His words died off slowly as he heard a faint noise and jerked around to the teacher.

Ms Scrawling was tittering delicately behind her hand in uncontained mirth.

“Oh Patrick, darling!” She turned to the children. “Isn’t he a dear? Look at him,” the smile was back on her face again. The odd, unfathomable one. “He thinks we want to do something nasty to him. Poor love!”

She stretched her arms slight out towards him.

“All we wanted to do is to include you in our most interesting lesson about Atilla the Hun because he was such a, a… well, commanding figure in history.” More patient smiling, as if he was an idiot. “But my dearest, I had no idea you were this anxious.”

She tutted in disapproval. “Now come along dear, we have a lesson to finish.”

And with that, her hands clamped on him as she lifted him easily and walked, half carrying him, to the front of the class. He froze in utter shock as he felt his legs dangle uselessly in the air. Who would have known those slender, bony hands had such vice like strength in them? She plopped him down in front of the class and reached out to her desk, squirted some disinfectant onto her hands and ever so delicately rubbed them together in the discreet, understated way that she so often did things.

“Come on Xavier,” she called, “let’s share what we know about Atilla.”

Xavier looked directly at Patrick. He didn’t seem frightened at all. At least not like he was when Patrick had pushed him last month and punched him on the nose. Unfortunately, that knife sharp edge has metamorphosed into a thick, crooked bridge that was till slightly swollen. He peered in interest with his doe brown eyes at Pat.

“Atilla was one of the most frightening warriors in history.” He piped up.

Patrick looked up at him uneasily.

“He was also a great tyrant.” This came from Mary, a sweet, doll faced girl who had once been tied down in the school vegetable patch by Patrick because he protested that she actually made a good-looking scarecrow.

“He actually led a war against the Romans to win a wife!” giggled Oliver in glee.

Patrick cringed as he looked at him. Where was the terrified slip of a boy he and his friends had made eat ten slices of mud cake until he was sick for an entire week?

“And…he killed his own brother,” contributed Daphne, the gap between her front teeth more pronounced as her chubby cheeks split into a wide smile. It was quite unfortunate that she had fallen to the bottom of the pool with a sickening crack and dislodged her front tooth like that. But then it certainly wasn’t Patrick’s fault that she was a bit on the heavy side.

Patrick was now actually shaking with fear and his teeth were about to start chattering. His lip trembled and a mix of fury, fear and helplessness. He looked about him, uncertain of what was coming next.

“But do you know what the best thing of all was?” Polly came towards him slowly and he reflexively shrank away. “He didn’t die of anything fearsome. He just died of a silly old nose-bleed.”

Patrick was shaking all over now, all vestiges of pride, anger or any other form dignity gone for the moment. Polly stared fixedly at him through her thick glasses her eyes large and myopic. It seemed that she had walked out of a horror film, towards him, the slow gait, unsmiling face and the singed hair, standing on edge…However, a shout of laughter stopped her in her tracks. She turned to her friends and could see that they were all laughing and pointing at Patrick. She looked their way to see for herself.

A yellow line of liquid was slowly running down Patrick’s shorts, his leg and pooling on the floor, the pungent odour clouding the air in the class in a sharp instance.

Ms. Scrawling’s striking eyebrows lifted in surprise as her lips formed an O in surprise.

From the Northern Schoolroom
Z. Scrawling
— teaching empathy. Marking accordingly.

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Yara is starting kindy next year, in February. Of course I still can’t quite accept that the school year starts in February, here in Australia, and not September. Even worse, I can’t accept that my youngest child is starting school. What we all know as kindergarten back home, is affectionately referred to as kindy here. Being a teacher and understanding how the admin process works, I was the last parent to enrol my child. Shameful, really, considering that you’d think a teacher would be more organised; quite the contrary since my profession is actually making me into what appears to be a nutty parent.

The school sent a letter with all the organisation for transition days; we’re sending off the kids to school for a couple of hours, once a week for three consecutive weeks. I understand that it’s to get the kids used to school and ease them into the routine but after the first day, I began to wonder if this was for the little ones or the parents. I dropped off my little cherub who, by the way, did not seem perturbed in the least and took off to have a coffee and french pastry. I told myself I had to ditch the diet that day - no sense in continued forms of torture for twenty four hours - and then after stuffing my face I proceeded to blow away the rest of my allowance for the week on useless things I knew I wasn’t going to use more than once. I tried to look useful during the remaining half an hour before picking up Yara and had to restrain myself mentally before I waded into my savings or bought yet another delicacy. As I sat there pondering how many calories there were in a cake, thoughts of my children scrambled in the back of my head. Through the foggy haze of hopelessly calculating how much I could spare or how many inches my waistline would grow, I remembered the first day I dropped off my eldest to kindy back home, in Tunisia. That was about seventeen years ago and there was no such thing as transition days; you’d spend maybe fifteen minutes with the child before the personnel booted you out and told you they’d call if things got worse. I remember the look on his face; unlike his sister, his eyes, although the same colour, were always mournful and seemed to bore straight into my soul. Without saying anything, he implied that I was abandoning him. Interestingly enough, I remember my reaction more vividly than anything; I was a young woman of twenty four, bewildered and unsure of how to react to this situation. Take him home and find somewhere else? Ignore the look and tell him firmly that he’s grown up? No, I didn’t do any of that, I just hugged him hesitantly and with an apologetic look told him I’d be there to pick him up in the afternoon. The only thing I did the same was leave and get cup of coffee, as well as a french pastry!

Two decades later, here I am, none the wiser. Instead of Yara being upset on the way to kindy, I was the one crying and sniffling. She just sat in the back of the car with Jad, telling him how frustrated she was but also how excited. Jad corrected her and asked if she meant anxious, to which she responded she was. I had to listen in disbelief to this absurdly adult like conversation between my five year old and nine year old and wonder when exactly I had turned into such a ninny. When I waited with all the other parents to pick up our now grown up children, it dawned on me that I was leaving one part of my life behind too. Yara came out and smiled in delight as she always does when seeing me. After twenty years of packing kids off from preschool to primary school, this is my last run. From now on it’s watching them grow, and that baby and toddler chapter of their lives and mine is over. Those tears I cried weren’t just for the young preschooler who is in fact growing into a schoolgirl; rather, they were also for the bewildered young mother who had grown into a strong confident woman, toughened through life experiences and heartbreak, but still managed to retain the tenderness of heart through the mellow memories of her little ones.

In all honesty, now that my baby is growing up, I just don’t know what I’m going to do. How do you alter a routine that has been ongoing for decades? I’ll have to think about it, when I’m brave enough to face it. For now, I need to make sure I have reserve funds and make a choice: it’s either going up one size and buying a new wardrobe or staying away from that dratted patisserie.

This is From the Shed, a newsletter about a hybrid mum trying to keep it together.

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