story.txt

the answer to her own question.

Aaliya picked up the black pencil. Immediately
she was gripped by a fear so cold, so huge, that
for a few seconds she could do nothing. Then, at
last, she bent her head over the paper.

The Black Day had started like any other Sunday
morning. The sky was blue, the sea was bluer,
the sun a fiery yellow ball in the sky. The weather
hardly changed in the Maldives. Sometimes there
were heavy showers of rain, but Aaliya didn’t mind
that. The rain left the island fresh and green. She
had never seen snow, except in a picture book.

‘Aaliya.’ Aaliya could still hear her mother’s voice
clearly inside her head, as the black pencil hovered
over the white paper. And in her mind, she could
see her mother’s pink shalwar kameez, her older
sister Sara’s orange T-shirt, her father’s green
shirt. ‘We’re going to the market. Do you want to
come?’

No, Aaliya didn’t want to go, They went to the
market every Sunday morning to buy tuna-fish
and vegetables - it was nothing special. Today
Aaliya wanted to stay in her bedroom and draw.

‘We'll have breakfast when we get back,’ her
mother told her. ‘Be good!’

The classroom was cool, the fan purring softly
overhead. Aaliya put her finger on the paper, a third
of the way down from the top. Then, carefully, she
drew a thick black line from her finger to the other
side of the paper. This was the line where the sea met
the sky.