The Boy on the Bench

It was a grey, drizzly Monday when the new boy arrived at Tahir's school.

His name was Danyal. He stood at the front of the classroom while the teacher introduced him, looking down at his shoes. He didn't smile. He didn't say anything. He just held the straps of his school bag very, very tightly.

At playtime, Tahir ran out with his friends to play football, same as always. But halfway through the game, he noticed something. Over by the wall, on the wet little bench nobody ever sat on, sat Danyal. All alone. Watching the puddles.

Tahir kept playing. But his eyes kept drifting back to the bench, and every time he ran past it, his feet felt a little bit heavier.

He remembered his first day at swimming club last year. The pool had seemed enormous. Everyone else already had a friend, and his tummy had hurt, right up until a boy had simply said, "Want to share my float?" Five little words. They had changed the whole day.

The next morning, Danyal was on the bench again. This time, Tahir walked over.

"Assalamu alaikum! I'm Tahir," he said. "Do you want to play football with us?"

Danyal shook his head, hugging his bag. "I'm not very good at football," he said quietly.

Tahir thought for a moment. He didn't walk away. Instead, he sat down on the bench too, even though it was a bit wet.

"That's okay. I'm not very good at drawing," he said. "What are you good at?"

And that was how Tahir found out that Danyal could draw the most amazing rockets — proper ones, with fire and smoke and little round windows and stars all around them. Danyal showed him a whole notebook full, and his voice got bigger and bigger as he talked. By the end of playtime, he was smiling so much that Tahir could hardly believe he was the same boy.

After that, things changed bit by bit. Danyal sat with Tahir and his friends at lunch. He drew each of them their own rocket. It turned out he was actually quite good at being in goal, too, once somebody asked him.

One evening, while Mum was stirring a big pot of daal, Tahir told her all about Danyal and his rockets.

She stopped stirring and smiled. "You know," she said, "the Prophet Muhammad ﷺ said that Allah is kind and gentle, and He loves us to be kind and gentle in everything we do. And I think that means small things too — like noticing someone who is on their own, and sitting down beside them. That's what you did for Danyal."

Tahir felt warm right down to his toes, and it wasn't just the steam from the daal.

A few weeks later, a new girl started at school. She stood at the front of the classroom looking down at her shoes, holding her bag very tightly.

And at playtime, before Tahir could even move, he saw someone walking towards the bench where she sat — someone carrying a notebook full of rockets, ready to say hello.

A boy at swimming club had once passed a little kindness to Tahir. Tahir had passed it on to Danyal. And now Danyal was passing it on again, like one lantern lighting the next, all the way down the line.

That night, Tahir snuggled under his duvet and smiled, thinking of rockets and lanterns, and of a little wet bench where nobody had to sit alone any more.