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behind my house, studying for our organic mathematics class. The baobab tree was our favorite because it grew wide and low and had sturdy thick branches from the bottom all the way to the top. Of course, I stayed on the low thick branch due to my fear of heights, and Dari was on the one above it. Whenever we studied in it, I brought my potted glow lily, which provided a soft pink light. The light was easy on our eyes. We'd been silently engulfed in equations, numbers, cells, and patterns when I said, "Dari?"
    I was tired of thinking about it. Doing so wasn't yielding any answers.
    Dari smiled. I think he knew his patience had finally paid off.
    "Yeah?"
    I hesitated, picking a bit of tree bark from my orange dress and looking at myself through one of the small mirrors sewn into the sleeves. Then I chewed on my pencil. Dari continued trying to memorize the cellular patterns of the four subphyla of CPU seeds and magnetic diatoms as he waited for me to continue speaking.
    "What is it, Zahrah?" he said closing his book.
    I paused again, the words stuck in my throat.
What if
Dari thinks I'm weird after I tell him?
I wondered. The thought of losing his friendship made me feel sick.
    "Just tell me. Goodness." He looked down and then back at me. "Your parents won't hear."
    "You promise you won't think I'm weird?"
    "I already think you're weird."
    I frowned.
    "Just tell me. How long have we known each other? Have you no faith in me? I'm insulted!" Dari said with a laugh. "You think me monstrous, like ... like an elgort!? Vicious and simple-minded? Shallow? Unthinking? Ignorant? Insensitive?"
    I laughed.
    And then carefully, hesitantly, slowly, I told Dan about the breeze, the coming of my menses, and that night.
    "Show me," he whispered.
    And right there in the tree, hidden among the leaves, I showed him. Dari gasped as I quietly lifted a few inches off the tree branch. When I finished, I looked at him, waiting to hear the words he'd speak. It was a rare moment. Dari was at a complete loss for words.
    When he finally found some, all he could say was "Do it again! Do it again!"

Chapter 7
The Library

    Dari liked me for several reasons.
    "I like how you always think before you speak," he'd said once. He probably admired this because it was something he had a hard time doing. He usually ran his mouth, rarely considering before he spoke. Of course, Dari was very clever, so this wasn't much of a problem.
    When he was in a good mood, which was most of the time, he couldn't help but spread the joy by telling jokes, overblown stories, and just talking. At school even his teachers let him ramble on and on during class for longer than they should. People just loved to listen to him.
    These same people said I was creepy with my "strange" hair and quietness. But Dari didn't care either way, and that day, when we were seven years old, I had caught his interest.
    "You were frowning and staring at the jungle," he said. "I've seen you on the playground before. I just thought it was odd that no one was saying a word to you and you weren't saying a word to anyone either. I was curious."
    Dari said his father once asked him why he'd befriended "that dada girl." Dari shrugged and said, "She's thoughtful and nice." His father nodded and said, "That's true. And she's sharp too." Both of his parents thought I was nice, bright, very polite, and dressed civilized, even if I was born with that strange hair. When Dari told me this, I was very pleased.
    Dari loved me in the way only a best friend could love a best friend. It was as if I were his other half. We completed each other. But Dari had a lot of friends and knew girls who wanted to date him.
    I sought him only before and after school and once in a while during midday break. But most of the time, I preferred to keep to myself, finding a nice spot under a palm tree to be alone with whatever it was I was thinking about. Our classmates didn't even know that Dari and I were so close.
    I liked the silence and