He slipped into class late again. I didn't think anything of it. In a culture where being fifteen minutes late is practically being on time, I usually didn't dock my students for tardiness unless they didn't come back when I said to after the break. Then I'd show them the attendance sheet with X's next to each of their names. They were always on time the day after that.
But still, he slipped in late and sat in his usual corner in the back. A mustache struggled to poke out of his youthful face. As they worked individually on an exercise, his dark eyes glazed. He leaned back and adjusted his cap until it was nearly over his eyebrows. I gave him the look, and he pushed his cap back and leaned over his textbook as if he were the most industrious student in the world. I wasn't fooled, but I smiled at his charade.
"Abdul-Ahmed," I said to him during the break. That is not his name, but it is equally difficult to pronounce correctly. He grinned away the first couple of days when I struggled to pronounce it. "Where were you? You have missed class for three days."
"I was--sick," he replied. His eyes twinkled. His eyes always twinkled when he spoke, except when asking a question. He gestured toward his foot, graced by a hefty foot brace.
"Oh, I'm sorry! What happened?"
He tried to explain in his broken English. I didn't really get it, but I thought he was telling me he kicked his dresser or something. I was pretty sure I misunderstood.
"Where were you, A?" I asked the boy sitting next to him, the one who often skipped half of class.
"The same," he beamed.
"I don't think so," I laughed, observing his perfectly healthy feet. I asked them then if they had ever dreamed they were playing football (soccer) and woken up kicking the wall. They hadn't, but I have. Of course, I doubt they knew words like "dream," so I acted it out for them.
Abdul-Ahmed chuckled heartily.
But the next day, when Abdul-Ahmed came to class, his brace was gone. He walked normally.
It was then I realized that I had met Huck Finn, Middle Eastern version.
And I LOVED him.
I can't describe it exactly, but everything he said or did felt like a joke. Not the annoying bad boy kind of joke, but the I-can't-but-help-always-being-funny kind of joke. Even the other students smiled and exchanged glances when he entered the room.
I drilled a word like "jumper" (yeah, teaching from a British curriculum).
"Jumporrrr," Abdul-Ahmed growled, his hands flailing as he scowled then grinned.
His efforts were so dramatic, I almost lost it laughing in front of the whole class.
I taught them how to play Mafia, and when Abdul-Ahmed woke up as the mafia, he stood, peering about the circle and rubbing his hands together. I had to keep repeating "Mafia sit down" before he got the message. I felt like I was putting a damper on his evil fun, but the others would have most assuredly heard him if he'd started pacing the circle like he was clearly about to do. (Not that it would have mattered; probably at least one or two of them were cheating with their eyes open anyway.)
He also was my worst hooky player. In fact, he's the only student who flunked my class. He simply wasn't a good student to begin with and he skipped half of the classes. But in his defense, Ramadan is an incredibly difficult time to take English classes. You try staying up until all hours of the night, fasting all day (with no water!), and getting up for class at 9 a.m., then you might understand.
But even if he wasn't the best student, he was the best speller. In the first test I gave out on the days of the week, he is the only one who spelled every single one of them flawlessly. And that is saying a lot.
Yet he still skipped classes.
But . . . he always had an excuse.
"Abdul-Ahmed, you need to stay after class to take your test," I told him.
"Teacher, no time. I go to mosque to pray," he smiled. I happened to know that prayer time wasn't for another forty-five minutes after class ended, so I didn't believe him of course. But I might have pretended to.
"Ah, you are a very good Muslim," I laughed.
Poor guy, I think my sarcasm confused him. But he smiled anyway and left.
How stupid do these guys think I am?
Still, privately, I thought for awhile that if I had to choose a favorite student, I might choose Abdul-Ahmed, the student who could always make me laugh. I wished he'd come to class more often because teaching suddenly became more fun when he was there.
"You should tell him that," my housemate and also one of my supervisors told me.
So one day, during the second-to-last week when Abdul-Ahmed showed up, I said, "Abdul-Ahmed, where have you been? When you come to class, I am happy. When you don't come, I am sad."
He came to class every day after that. Except for the last day, of course. The final test was that day.
But that's just what Huck Finn would do, isn't it?
Now all I need to do to smile is to say his name. And I have fun imagining how much God must smile when He thinks of him too.
The concept of "no child left behind" has taken on a whole new meaning for me.
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