Syeda walked home, checking her anti-virus software on her phone as she slowly made her way. Another guy asked for help with his homework, but Syeda ignored him. She wasn't a homework charity. Like Syeda didn't have better things to do than do people's homework for them.

"Hey Syeda!" Syeda kept her eyes on her phone as before, continuing what she was doing. Being called for a fourth time? That was a bit odd. Truth was, people knew she ignored them. Being asked once in a day was the norm, but four?

And that voice. What did Christina want.

Christina stood in front of Syeda. "Hello! Earth to scarfy!" Syeda's jaw clenched.

Christina laughed light-heartedly. "I just wanted to give you an invitation to my par-"

Once her pride had been struck, Syeda became a social iron wall. She roughly shoved past the offending girl and kept walking homeward.

Chrissy stared open-mouthed in Syeda's direction, while a girl next to her commented "She is so rude!"

"Did she really block you on Snapple, Chrissy?" Gwen asked, looking shocked as she finished topping up her pink lip gloss (that even her friends thought looked untoward).

"Why are you inviting miss-no-friends? She's a freak, you know." Priya added, filing her inch-long red nails.

"Apparently her dad went missing. Bet she killed him." A new girl, Jade, proposed.

"She should be glad Chrissy was inviting her, who else would?" Another girl chimed in.

"Yeah, she'd probably bore us all with her know-how and try teaching us math or something." A girl added.

"Nah, it would be fun to see her at a party." A random guy said.

And so the school gossiped, as they always had. They'd known Syeda the last two years, when she had arrived mysteriously at the age of fifteen.

Two years had passed. Now, some were jealous, some were admiring. Some were hateful, some were wondrous. Syeda'd often been in the news for some scientific achievement or the other, making the local paper's cover at least once a year. Everyone's parents would then point out "Isn't that the girl from your school?" To which a bored or reluctant 'Yes' would ensue, and most would get scolded to study harder (some kids would vow to murder her the next day).

What no one quite understood was, why wouldn't Syeda interact with anyone? Was it cause she was a moslem, and they weren't? Or cause she was proud? Too good for them or something? No one knew. All that was known was that, on receiving a role in the Year 9 play, Syeda had refused to do it. When being in groups, Syeda just quietly (and hostilely) did most, if not all of the work herself. She'd never had friends.

And she never talked about The Tragedy. The one the rest of the school loved to gossip about.

Because there could only be only explanation everyone deduced for why she was so quiet, so removed and unwilling to talk to anyone apart from Robo teachers and Robo Dinner ladies (asking them to spare the salt).

Everyone knew what Syeda Johansson really was. The rumours someone spread had said it all.