A Mars bar is six bites. A Raider[1] is twelve, but only because it comes in two sticks, and you could fool yourself that it’s more.
Three Mars bars and four Raider bars lay before me on my mandala-printed bed sheets, next to a case of hard candy and a bag of Haribo gummy bears. This was my loot from Germany this summer that had to last me the entire school year. Usually, that wouldn’t be a problem. After three years of going back and forth between Germany and Iran, I had become an expert in rationing. One bite here, two bites there, five gummies, three bonbons; the rest goes in the bag. This year, though, things were different. This year, I had to take something from the bag to school to ward off foreseeable bullies.
Let me explain. Tomorrow was the first day of school, the first day of middle school no less, with my entering a new place. That had never bothered me before. I felt excited over new things. That is until last year, when I shared a class with a gang of mean girls who taunted and tormented me for being a spoiled rich girl.
This year, I wasn’t taking the risk. I planned to enter the new class with a friend or group of friends if possible. Bullies never targeted them, because friends stood up for each other. It was not fun when the teasing turned into fighting. If I wanted to survive the next three years at this school, being an outlier as I was, I needed people on my side, and I had just the plan to achieve it.
Well, more like the blueprint of a plan. This was what I had so far: Tomorrow morning, when Mom dropped me off at school, I would search the schoolyard for kids my age who were alone like me. A sixth grader with no friends should be easy to spot. Once I saw one, I would approach them casually and offer them a Mars bar to start the following conversation:
‘Hello, do you like chocolate bars? I have this one that’s a little too big for me. Care to share?’
‘Wow! You’re going to share that with me? How generous. Thank you.’
‘No problem. My name is Sanaz by the way. What’s yours?’
Then, she would tell me her name, and we would be best friends forever, laughing and joking and chewing on chocolate as we entered the classroom and sat in the same spot. Hopefully I would find someone who goes to the same class as me, but that was a matter I could hash out after I entered the school.
Unfortunately, my brain wouldn’t stop inventing the rest of that conversation:
‘Where did you get a Mars bar, if I may ask? I don’t know of any places in Tehran that sold them.’
‘I bought it in Germany. My family and I go there every summer vacation.’
‘You go to Germany every year? Don’t you need visas to do that?’
‘No, my dad is the representative of a German tech company here in Iran. We all got permanent residency, so we travel there every summer. We even have our own place in Dortmund and—‘
And that’s where I had to stop. That wasn’t how I wanted this first conversation to go, but the more I thought about it, the more inevitable it seemed. How could I present myself to this new friend and tell her I was just one of the girls when the first thing I showed her was a chocolate bar she couldn’t buy anywhere in town? That was what had gotten me into this dilemma in the first place, and something I had to hide until I’d made sure my friend liked me for who I was.
German chocolate bars were out of question then. I needed something less exotic and more from home. A piece of that sponge cake Mom made the other day should do. Some of it was still in the fridge, I recalled. I got off my bed and walked around my sister’s bed to go out of the room. Sis had her uniform and veil laid out on her bed already. Mom had asked us to inspect them for tomorrow and tell her if any seems needed stitching or buttons needed sewing. Naturally, I had done none of that due to the important task of looking at chocolate bars for three quarters of an hour. It was vital she didn’t catch me while I was raiding the fridge for the cake or else we might get into another lengthy argument.
I tiptoed past the living room where the old boxy TV was playing the midday news. The news was about the latest military campaign of course, but no one was watching. The couch was empty and no sounds came from the foyer leading to the front door or the spacious dining room on the left. That meant Mom was likely in the kitchen and I was about to walk into a trap. I looked behind me, at the hallway I just crossed, took a peep through the door on my right to see if she was in her and Dad’s bedroom although it was obvious she wasn’t. There was no denying it. The kitchen it was and my only chance to execute my mission successfully was to be as quiet as possible. →
[1] German brand name for Twix before 1991