The Search for Yaser Abdel Said (part 14)

Printer-friendly versionSend to friendPDF versionPiffy sat there. What else could he do? He might as well have been glued to that gol’ durned prayer rug! He was as helpless as a jackrabbit with a broken leg at the bottom of a prairie dog hole thanks to Asma bint Marwan. What on earth had made her think they could pull off such a ridiculous stunt? He glared at the kid who had singled him out. “You little bastard—“ he began. Then he remembered the kid was only ten-years-old. He dropped his voice to a whisper. “Wait till I tell your mother!” he hissed. Mohammed Atta and Hani Hanjour, followed by the instructor, were hurrying across the room. Piffy glanced at the exit. It was ten miles away. He would never make it. If only he weren’t ten years old he would have a chance! He looked at the kid standing beside him. “I’ll get you for this, Goober!” he hissed. That didn’t calm Goober down a one bit. “He’s Bernard Piffy!” he squealed. “He’s Bernard Piffy!” He was actually jumping up and down. Atta stopped directly in front of Piffy. He seemed ten foot tall! “Are you Bernard Piffy?” he demanded. “Yes,” said Piffy. “What of it?” A sudden calm had come over him. What did he have to worry about? They didn’t know him from Adam! He was ten-years-old! He had been reacting like a kid—a dumb, stupid kid. Atta scowled. He glanced at Hanjour. “What do you think?” he said. Hanjour shrugged. “It’s a kid,” he said. Atta looked Piffy over carefully, pursed his lips; stepped to one side to get a different angle. He shook his head. “Allahu akbar,” he muttered. “He looks like Piffy; except Piffy is an adult and this is a mere child.” “He sings songs about a mockingbird,” piped up Goober. Atta looked at Hanjour. “What do you think?” he asked. “Maybe some jinn turned Piffy into this child,” suggested Hanjour “Could this be Piffy’s son?” mused Atta. “Why don’t we ask him?” said Hanjour. It there was anything Piffy was prepared for it was a question and answer session. He had rehearsed his sham background with bint Marwan forward and backward until he could repeat it in his sleep. He was Bernard Piffy; he was from Aden; his dad was a metallurgy professor; he had a cat named Poobah. After about a dozen questions Atta and Hanjour seemed to lose interest. They drifted to the other side of the room where they engaged in a quiet but earnest conversation. Piffy let out a sigh of relief. He glared at Goober. “You rat!” he hissed. “I’ll fix you for this!” The instructor joined Atta and Hanjour for a short chat and it wasn’t long before the former ordered Goober, whom he addressed as Habib, to join them. To say ‘Habib’ was excited would be to put it mildly. He did a lot of gesticulating and his voice rose and fell with the expressions on his face. He was probably being chewed out—at least that is what Piffy hoped. They all nodded in some kind of an agreement and then Atta and Hanjour left. The rest of the day passed uneventfully. By 4 o’clock Piffy had made up his mind—he would not return to Ahmed’s Madrassas School. It would be too risky. It had been a hair-brained scheme from the start. He blamed bint Marwan. It would have been better if she had changed him into a ninety-year-old geezer and had sent him to a nursing home. He waited till everyone had left, then he slipped out a side door. Oh, yes, that was smart! They were waiting for him—Goober and three or four of the other kids. “Jew boy!” snarled Goober. One of them had a switch in his hand; another had a club of some sort. Piffy had been in a few brawls. He knew if he turned and ran they would be after him like a chicken on a June bug. He would get a first-class whipping. They would need all the King’s men and all the King’s horses to put him back together again. So like his great-great-grand-pappy at Chancellorsville, he let out the old Rebel yell and charged straight at them. He knocked one of them down, ran right over him and took a blow to the shoulder. Something glanced off his head. He made it around a corner before they knew what had hit them but he stumbled and fell. He managed to scramble on his hands and knees behind a garbage can as they charged around the corner and continued on down the alley. They would be back in a minute. He grimaced. It was tough being a ten-year-old in the 21st Century! A voice yelled, “In here! In here!” Piffy got to his feet. A girl was standing in an open doorway gesturing to him. He hurried through the door and she slammed it shut. He was safe—for now. He smiled. He had recognized her. “You’re the girl from McDonalds,” he said. “My name is Aisha,” she said. “I’m Bernard Piffy,” he said. “I’m ten years old.” His head ached and he had torn his pants, but, gosh, she was cute! “Some of my people can be very cruel,” she said. “I guess I irritated them,” he said. Gosh! She wasn’t just cute—she was super-cute! “I heard you singing at McDonalds,” she said. “You have a very nice voice.” “Thank you,” he said. It was the first time he had heard that since—since he was seven years old! “Don’t you listen to them, Bernard,” his grandmother had said. “They said the same thing about Andy Devine. You’ve got a nice voice. Now let me give you a big hug.” He was blushing—like some dopey ten-year-old kid! Then he remembered, he was a dopey ten-year-old kid—physically. He had better get a grip on himself. “Could you teach me the words to your mockingbird song?’ she asked. “Sure,” he said eagerly. “Let’s go to my room where we won’t be disturbed,” she said. He followed her down a corridor, through a large entrance lobby and up a flight of stairs to a second-story room. He could get in big trouble for this—but he was only ten years old, wasn’t he, an adult in a child’s body? But what would a judge say? This was ridiculous! What was he doing here? Oh, yeah, he was hiding from a bunch of bullies that wanted to beat the dhimmi bejesus out of him—thanks to bint Marwan and her hair-brained schemes! He would give her an earful when he saw her again—if ever. He taught Aisha the words to Mockingbird Hill. “Tra la la, twiddle-dee dee-dee, There’s peace and good will and You’re welcome as the flowers on Mockingbird Hill.” She had a lovely voice. Alongside of her he sounded like Carl 'Alfalfa' Switzer with a bad case of laryngitis. But she was sad, so sad, and the more she sang the sadder she became. Then she started to cry. “What’s the matter?” he asked. Maybe it was the song. But it was such a happy song. Girls! He didn’t understand girls! He put his arm around her to comfort her. She winced. “My father beats me,” she said. She showed him the welts on her back. “He beats with me with an electricity cable for being a bad Muslim.” Piffy scowled. This wasn’t good. He was getting angry. “Who is your father?” he demanded. “My father is Ahmad al-Mohammed,” she said. “He owns the Madrassas.” “What?” said Piffy. “He owns the Madrassas. We live in one half of the building and the Madrassas is the other half.” She shivered. “If he knew you were here—in this room—he would be furious. He has a terrible temper.” “But he’s on vacation, isn’t he?” said Piffy. Something was curdling in his stomach. Dracula was climbing out of his coffin. He could sense it. “Yes,” she said. She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye. “He will be back soon. Maybe you had better leave.” They left Aisha’s room. The mockingbirds were silent now, perhaps forever, as they moved down the corridor to where a low balustrade overlooked the entrance lobby. They were too late. Mohammed Atta and Hani Hanjour and a third man were in the lobby. Aisha and Piffy crouched out of sight behind the balustrade. The three men were talking loudly as if they were having a disagreement of some sort. Piffy peered cautiously over the top of the balustrade to see what was going on. The third man—the one he had never seen before—turned to look in his direction. Piffy’s mouth dropped open. Jumping Jehosaphat! It was Yaser Abdel Said! He would have recognized him anywhere! “It’s him!” he gasped. “It’s Yaser Abdel Said!” Aisha peeped over the balustrade. “No,” she said, matter-of-factly. “It’s my father and his friends—Sheikh Atta and Sheikh Hanjour.” It was a moot point. Whether it was Said or Aisha’s father, the rascal was staring right back at them. They ran as fast as they could to Aisha’s room and slammed the door shut! That was smart. They were trapped! But where else could they have gone? The Vatican? By now Piffy was as terrified as a ten-year-old could get. There were no windows, no closets—no drapes. There was nowhere to hide. Frantic with excitement, he crawled under the bed. Ahmad—or was it Yaser Abdel Said—thundered into the room like the Prophet bearing down on the last surviving Quraysh. “Harlot!” he screamed. “Harlot!’ He hit Aisha a terrible blow that sent her tumbling across the room; then he saw Piffy’s feet sticking out from under the bed. “Kuffar pig! Defiler of Muslim virtue!” he screamed. He grabbed Piffy by the ankles and dragged the kicking and squalling 10-year-old out from under the bed. There would be the devil to pay! (To be continued)