I had just turned nine when Aisha walked into my classroom, stopping the conversation and stealing my heart in the same instant.
I think we all stared, and then, as Aisha looked back defiantly, we dropped our gazes back to our books as though we were suddenly interested in Stigrosc prime number theories. Pat, our teacher for the day, smiled a little thinly. "Class, this is Aisha, from al-Gohara."
A few of us looked up and muttered greetings, as Pat guided our new classmate to a seat near the doorway. A message from Morgan flowed across my book. Pregnant, e opined.
I glanced at Aisha's golden-pale profile out of the corner of my eye. Don't think so, I replied.
Must be. Look at the size of those boobs.
It was hard not to, despite Aisha's loose and very opaque sky-grey robe, but that would have been even more impolite than passing notes in class--and class was meant to teach us social skills: we would have learnt math much faster at home. Can't be, I protested. Aisha was taller even than Pat, at least two metres, but all the al-Goharans I'd seen were taller still, and Aisha probably wasn't much older than we were.
Morgan stared at er book for a moment, obviously gossiping to someone else. I stole a quick glance at Aisha's face, which was beautiful. Especially those eyes, rounder and darker and larger than any I'd seen outside of books. I love you, I thought, and was startled to see I'd written it on my book. I erased it hurriedly, relieved that I wasn't still passing my notes to Morgan, and went back to my math. A few of the kids were starting to talk again, but none of them spoke to--or about--Aisha.
Maybe they don't have contraplants on Al-Gohara, Morgan suggested, a moment later.
They must have, I replied.
Muslims aren't like us, Morgan countered, and then, I bet they cut Aisha's thing off.
What?
They do that. They used to, anyway. Ask my dad.
Why?
E couldn't answer that, and there was almost nothing about al-Gohara in my book or my ramplant, and I couldn't access the library during class without Pat noticing. All I could remember was that al-Goharans, being Muslims, liked to travel to Earth once in their lives, and their world was only one solstice jump from daVinci, with the worlds being in conjunction every six point something years (math isn't my forte, and I don't think anyone human really understands Stigrosc cosmography). From here, they went to Marlowe or Corby or Ammon, but that usually meant staying on daVinci for up to a year waiting for the next solstice. I was only three or four years old last time they'd visited, and the al-Goharans usually stayed near Startown, where they'd built a mosque, and didn't socialise much, but I'd never heard of them bringing their children here before. I wondered whether Aisha even spoke Amerish, and tried to imagine a voice that would match those eyes, that golden face, those breasts...
Aisha suddenly looked up, jacked out of er book, and then walked over to Pat's desk and whispered something. Pat looked startled for a moment, and then nodded. "Of course; I'm sorry, I didn't think of it. Will you be coming back today?"
Aisha smiled, whispered something else, and then walked out of the room. I remembered reading that Muslims had to pray so many times a day--though whether that was an Earth day, an al-Goharan day, or a daVincian day, I had no idea. Maybe I could ask Aisha.
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