CHAPTER SEVEN

"So, have you thought about it?" Mr Harris asked, scrutinising Hannah from under his thick eyebrows.

She sighed, her shoulders falling in defeat. It was only the second week of school but it was already getting too stressful. The workload was already much heavier than the previous year and even Gabriel – who had always been far too laid back about school in his girlfriends opinion – had started to actually open his textbooks in class. That was a miracle in itself to be honest.

Every final year student of Pemrose were arranged a meeting with their form teacher to discuss their options after leaving school at the beginning, middle and end of the year. The problem, however, was that Hannah had no clue at all what she wanted to do with her life.

"I don't know, sir," she said, shrugging apologetically. "There's just nothing I want to do for the rest of my life. I know I want to do something I enjoy, something I'm good at. I want to be successful for my own self but–."

Mr Harris had been silent the entire time she had been talking since their meeting began in the office five minutes ago, allowing her to express herself but it was time to intervene. "Have you thought about something in the IT industry," he asked, knowing she was going to reject the idea.

To his surprise however, she just pursed her lips and thought about it. "I guess I can see myself doing it later on y'know, maybe something like software engineering or web development or even making apps for phones but the thing is that–." She couldn't really bring herself to continue, knowing her reasons were pathetic in the grand scheme of her life but at the moment it felt like a big deal to her.

Mr Harris flicked through some of the university careers advice he had printed out before picking out a brochure for website design at a local university. "Miss Hales class is about to start their web development unit soon so maybe you should read this and if its something you're interested in, I can have a word with her to let you in the class despite not having been enrolled," he said with a smile. He had a lot of students he enjoyed teaching but Hannah was one of his favourites. For a girl who had everything handed to her on a silver platter, as was assumed around the school, she worked awfully hard. 'Perhaps a little too hard,' he thought with a frown as he noticed her carefully concealed eye bags.

"It's no biggie," Hannah laughed, as her teacher worryingly commented on her lack of sleep. "I've just been up late looking for jobs that's all."

They continued discussing Hannah's possible future until their session was over and she had to leave to make her way to her Biology class. She was half way out of the door when Mr Harris stopped her. "There's an opening at the library, if– well, if your job search doesn't go so well," he offered. He didn't know why she would need a job considering she was awfully rich like everyone else but he knew better than to assume.

It seemed there were a lot of secrets in this school.

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Hannah's next lesson was World History but due to her meeting with Mr Harris shoving as many IT leaflets as he could towards her, she was running late. She stood outside the door for a few minutes, able to hear the droning of her teacher through the door before knocking softly on it. She was a little embarrassed to barge in more than half way through the lesson but she smiled radiantly despite the urge to blush as everyone paused to look at her. Sauntering over to where Mrs Turner stood at the front of the room, Hannah handed her the late pass and looked across the room.

She had been avoiding her boyfriends gaze all day in hope he wouldn't bring up the wedding again but as History had assigned seats and she was near his, she didn't have much of a choice. It wasn't that she had a problem with attending the wedding – in fact, she adored Gabe's sister. Angelica always had treated her as an equal; she was kind in the way she addressed her unlike the rest of his family who were always so unfriendly and cold. But even Angelica's lovely demeanor was not enough to make her wear a dress designed and produced by her mother's fashion label.

It's not that they weren't beautiful because they were; often long, flowing silk and chiffon dresses, embellished carefully by hand in latest designs and colours with an outrageous price tag to match. But they were the work of the woman who resented her existence whenever she had the misfortune to have to remember her daughter.

The more she thought about her mother, the more infuriated she became. She tried not to make her anger too obvious knowing that if Gabriel noticed it would be an invite to a conversation, which is what she was trying to avoid. Her plan didn't work so well, however, as she heard him whisper from behind her.

"Honeybee! Hannah baby!" he murmured, trying to get her attention. She felt a little guilty for not having spoken to him properly all day so she gave in and turned around a tiny bit until she could see him from the corner of her eye.

"What's up Gabe?" she asked, pretending to read about the mistreatment of Jews in Europe from her textbook perched on the edge of her desk. He scribbled on a slip of paper from his World History notebook and flung it towards her. Normally he wouldn't care about talking out loud and disturbing the class – he was Gabriel Slade after all! – but Mrs Turner was the type to stand and lecture him for a half hour if he did so which he wasn't in the mood for.

Hannah read it carefully, still managing to pay attention to the PowerPoint presentation on the beginning of Israel out loud. Gabriel had asked when she would be free to come shopping with both him and Ashlyn; she sighed when she realised he had invited Ash. Despite her being her best friend, Hannah didn't really want to be manipulated by the two of them into buying the dress. Ashlyn owned many clothes from the Jasmine Adem label and always hinted Hannah should buy some but so far she had not given in.

'Not now, not ever,' she promised herself as she began writing back to Gabe. He frowned when he read her cursive handwriting. She had made yet another excuse – he didn't know what was up with her lately but he was getting sick of it. How dare Hannah act like this to him! She was his girlfriend! She was supposed to listen to him and understand his reasoning and obey his demands! He cared about Hannah a lot of course but it was times like this that he wished she was more like Ashlyn.

Before he could say anything however, Mrs Turner spoke loudly addressing the entire class. "Before we finish, does anyone have anything they would like to comment on regarding our lesson today?" Hannah stifled her laugh, Mrs Turner was notorious for leading classroom debates which nobody wanted to participate but were forced to. She wasn't going to do anything as usual but she caught sight of Mohammad from across the room.

His fingers were clenched tightly together until his pale skin had become red and his eyes were narrowed into tiny slits and oh my God, were those tears she could see in the corner of his eyes? Out of all the friends she had in school, Mohammad was the one who could connect with her more than anyone else; he was serious and understanding and seeing him so angry and upset struck a chord in her. He was Palestinian and Mrs Turner had basically claimed Israel had a right to exist because God said so and therefore God had allowed the slaughter and genocide of his people.

Despite her mother and her family being raised as strict Catholics, something quite rare for Indian children, Hannah didn't really think she believed in God. She certainly believed in people though and for the first time in her life, she actually spoke up in History class.

"I do. I don't believe that God said the Jews could have Palestine because I'm sure the other day you told us that first they were going to make Israel in Argentina or Uganda at first right?" she begun, too worked up to be embarrassed that everyone was gaping at her. "If God knows everything, wouldn't he be certain about which country he gave them?"

The classroom was silent and Mrs Turner looked like she was about to begin dancing of happiness around her classroom due to the fact that someone was willingly having a History discussion. "Go on!" she urged.

"When you taught us about Columbus in Year Nine, you said that they believed God gave them America. That was a lie. It's a lie said by colonists who just take over other peoples' lands! Columbus wasn't a good guy, he and his people killed all the Native Americans and my God he fucking raped Pocahontas! She was a child and he raped her and killed her people and stole her land and now Americans think it's theirs? And isn't that the same thing the British did to Australia? They killed the aboriginals! So as far as I'm concerned Israel is just another colonist state, stealing the land of the indigenous people using religion as an excuse to mask their countless crimes. Like yes they were severly mistreated with the holocaust and all but how was that the Arabs fault? Why blame the Arabs when it was Europe killing them and Asian and African countries giving them refuge? Like in the 1940's or whenever it was that Israel decided to come along, they killed one million Palestinians! How can you possibly justifying murdering that many people in 'God's name'!"

Mrs Turner looked a little shocked but she had a wide smile on her face. "Anyone else have anything to add to that?" she asked, looking around the room.

Enoch raised his hand warily. "Uhm yeah. Going back to when we were talking about slavery and Martin Luther King and stuff. We were talking about separation of roads and schools and even bathrooms. Isn't that the same thing the Israeli's have done to the Arabs in Israel? Or Palestine or whatever? I mean, that's apartheid right? That's pure discrimination!"

Previously everyone had been dozing off but seeing their classmates speaking out seemed to wake everyone up a little. "I agree!" Sinead, a shy Irish girl said from the front of the classroom. "It's like when the English were oppressing the Irish, killing us off because they claimed we were savages and they were more civilised. Isn't it the same thing? Just because Israel supposedly have Gods blessing doesn't mean that they're not basically wiping out a whole race of the Arabs there for their own gain, right?"

A voice from the back of the classroom spoke up angrily; Jakub was glaring at Hannah for beginning this discussion. It was a well known fact that Jakub was an avid pro-Israeli and that's why he always sneered in contempt when he caught sight of Mohammad. Or maybe his face was always like that because Hannah couldn't really remember the last time she saw him without a sneer on his face.

"Stop making them out to be the bad guys! You assholes! What about Hamas huh? Or have you forgotten you're talking about terrorists not some bloody lot of innocent people!"

Hannah shook her head feverishly and argued right back, her voice beginning to raise. "Hamas was elected in 2006 right Mrs?" she asked, smirking as her teacher nodded. "So what about all those years before Hamas even existed? Besides, if you ever noticed actual facts you would know that half the population of Gaza are under the age of sixteen! That's children! Children can't possibly be terrorists!"

Jakub's face reddened. Hannah didn't even know why he was so into this anyway, wasn't he Polish or Romanian or something Eastern European? "They still use humans as shields! You don't even know what you're talking about, you're such an ass-licking bitch Hannah!" he yelled, his eyes narrowed until she could barely see the blue irises.

The class had begun talking quietly amongst themselves, whispering across each other when Mrs Turner bellowed. "THAT'S ENOUGH!" The entire class had stopped what they were doing and stared at their teacher. Sure, she got pissed off at times but now she looked furious, something they'd never seen before. "I will allow one last point, Hannah from you and that's it."

Hannah's mind raced back to all the articles she had read on Tumblr, all Mohammads Facebook statuses, all those videos she had watched. She wasn't sure what would be thought-provoking enough but then she realised it didn't matter. The truth was the truth and nothing could change that so with a shrug off her shoulders she paraphrased Mahatma Ghandi.

"As Ghandi once said: Palestine belongs to the Palestinians, the same way England belongs to the English and France belongs to the French."

And with that note, Mrs Turner gestured to the class to back up just as the bell rang. A few people came up to Hannah and commented on her impromptu debate and she blushed. None of it meant much to her – especially not Jakub's sneer – until Mohammad walked beside her as she began walking to her next class.

"Cheers!" he whispered, a small smile gracing his lips. Hannah opened her mouth to say it was no problem but he stopped her. "That meant a lot, thank you, seriously. I know Gabe is gonna be a dick to you about it – you know what he's like with that idiot Jakub. Them and thier bromance. But seriously, thanks. They forget they're talking about real people that have died sometimes. Real people! My people."

Hannah just chuckled and shoved her shoulder against his lightly. "Anytime," she said with a soft smile before walking into Biology.

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A/N: The end of this chapter is my contribution to the gazawritesback challenge bringing light to the Palestinian struggle <3