Chapter 4

April 16, 2078

Before Omar Ibrahim started trying to hit me almost every day, we used to be friends. I was his 'girl next door'...literally. We grew up together.

We walked to school together.

He'd come over and play in my back yard, when playing outside was still acceptable behavior. You know, kid stuff. Slaps. Aliens and Space Police. Guard the Fortress. Run for your Life. Since neither of us had siblings, we were kinda like brother and sister. But not really.

Omar's dad, Ibrahim Ibrahim, never approved of our friendship. How could I tell? Well, he'd sit up there on his front porch, arms crossed over his gut and just glare at me, mumbling under his breath in a language I don't know. Sometimes I got English.

"Poor little girl is not your friend, Omar," he growled.

"I know, sir," Omar winked at me hidden from his father's gaze.

Sometimes Mr. Ibrahim would spit in my direction. I knew he'd warm up to me.

Omar's mother, a beautiful bronze woman with heavy eyes, stood in the shadows just inside the house. She'd wave to me from a window, offer a smile now and then. It was enough for this motherless girl to think that she was like a captive princess, and Mr. Ibrahim was the evil ogre guarding the tower.

One sunny afternoon  - they were all sunny back then- we found my Dad's old hardball gear in a box in the garage. We suited up in his old oversized pads. Omar took the wrist pads and a busted old helmet and let me wear the chest pad, shin guards and the newer helmet. We marched out to the backyard, swimming in the adult-sized padding- it was hard to believe my Dad was once that big. Omar's dad sat up on the porch, lost in space.

I dropped the steely ball on the ground and kicked it gently to Omar. It picked up speed as it rolled;  it got alarmingly fast. Way faster than I had kicked it. Omar stopped the ball with his foot and immediately recoiled in pain.

"That hurt, Silvy!" he groused.

Mr. Ibrahim snapped awake from his day dream.

"Good, poor little girl."

He creaked out of his rocking chair and stepped off the front porch, one step at a time on a rickety right leg.

Omar kicked the hardball at me. Without thinking, I lunged to the side to knock it away from my goal. The ball ricocheted off my shin guard. Even through the padding it stung. The ball accelerated through the air, whistling, right toward Mr. Ibrahim's head.

His hand shot up and he caught the ball in his open palm. The slap of the ball hitting bare skin made me cringe, but Mr. Ibrahim didn't even wince.

"Good...very good, poor little girl. I teach you children how to play real hardball." He thought for a second. "Omar, she is still not your friend."

"I know, sir."