One Little Laughing Face

Aliyah's phone buzzed on the duvet. Then again. Then four times in a row, like a bee trapped against a window.

It was the 7R girls' group chat, Homework Help, and tonight it was busy. It had started with a voice note from Ifrah, the quiet girl who sat by the window in maths.

Aliyah pressed play. "Hi, um, does anyone know which pages the science homework is? I think it's forty-two, but I'm not sure." Then a door opened, and Ifrah's mum called out cheerfully. "Ifrah! Your blanket went through the washing machine again. I've put Mr Buttons on the radiator to dry!"

"Hooyo!" Ifrah squeaked. The recording stopped.

Underneath, Keira had typed "Mr Buttons" in capitals, with three crying-laughing faces. Others joined in. Was Mr Buttons doing the homework too? Was he dry yet? Someone started calling Ifrah "Buttons". The laughing faces stacked up, row after row, like bricks in a wall.

Aliyah laughed too, just for a second. Her thumb drifted towards the little laughing face.

A private message popped up from Tasnim, her best friend since Year 3. "Why are you so quiet? This is hilarious."

Aliyah's thumb hovered. It was only one tiny face, and everyone else was doing it. She had been at this school for five weeks; she did not want to be the girl who couldn't take a joke. Worse, she did not want to be the next one they laughed at.

Then she noticed the words at the top of the chat: "Ifrah is typing…" They appeared. They disappeared. They appeared again, and disappeared, and did not come back.

Aliyah pictured her on her bed somewhere across Leicester, reading every message about herself and finding nothing to say.

At Saturday madrasah, Ustadha had been teaching Surah Al-Hujurat. In one ayah, Allah tells men not to make fun of other men, because perhaps the ones being laughed at are better than the ones laughing. Then He says the same, just for women. Aliyah had sat up straighter at that part. The same ayah says not to call each other by nasty nicknames.

"Making fun isn't only the words," Ustadha had said. "Laughing at someone counts too."

Aliyah looked at the laughing face under her thumb. Then she looked at her pillow.

Folded on top of it was Patch, a faded baby blanket, worn thin and full of holes, who had slept beside her since she was four. Nobody at secondary school knew about Patch.

She moved her thumb away. She typed, deleted, and typed again, her heart thumping in her ears.

"Ifrah, it's pages 42 to 45, plus the questions at the bottom."

Send.

Then, before she could change her mind: "Also, confession. I still sleep with a blanket called Patch. It's more hole than blanket. Mr Buttons sounds like he has a lovely life."

Send.

The chat went still. Aliyah put the phone face down and stared at the ceiling, her cheeks burning.

Buzz.

It was Tasnim, in the big chat this time. "OK, fine. Mine is a pillow called Gerald."

Buzz. "My old hoodie is called Mrs Snuggles and I'm not even sorry."

Soon the chat was full of frayed blankets, squashed pillows and a scarf with no tassels left. The girls were laughing again, but a different sort of laughing: the sort with room for everyone. A few stayed quiet. But nobody laughed at Ifrah any more.

Then Keira wrote, "Sorry, Ifrah. It was meant to be a joke but it got a bit much. Mine's a cushion called Toffee."

Aliyah opened a private message to Ifrah. "Hey. Are you OK?"

The reply took a long time. "Kind of. I was about to leave the group. Thank you for the pages. And for Patch."

Then came a photo of a damp, crumpled blue blanket, covered in buttons, on a radiator. "Mr Buttons says thank you too."

Aliyah laughed out loud.

"Phone on the landing, Aliyah," Mum called up the stairs. "It's gone nine."

She plugged it in, said goodnight, and climbed back under the duvet. The streetlight made a soft orange stripe across the ceiling. She tucked Patch under her chin.

She thought about Ifrah, who walked her little brothers to primary school every morning, and who had quietly slid her calculator across the desk the day Aliyah forgot hers. Perhaps the ones being laughed at are better, Ustadha had read. Aliyah had a feeling Ifrah might be better than any of them, herself included.

Her chest felt light, as if someone had opened a window inside it. Somewhere across the city, Mr Buttons was drying on a radiator, and a girl was falling asleep a little happier.

Aliyah closed her eyes. Patch's frayed corner tickled her cheek, and soon she was fast asleep.