Iago sat on Genie's shoulder, while Genie inspected Fahriha's embroidery.
"Where was your mind?"he asked.
"I've seen better."said Iago.
Genie sighed.
"You certainly can't let your father think that you're mind is wandering off somewhere. He'll think it's not a good place, and...we know what he's like. So, we redo the stitches."
Genie waved his hands, and then, the stitches were perfect.
"Muchbetter."he said.
"Right, and the Kid will probably see the difference."said Iago.
"Do you think so, Iago?"asked Fahriha.
Malaika shoved a cracker down Iago's throat. Iago spat it out.
"This is just humiliating!"he exclaimed. "And to top it all of, it isn't the granddaughter, but the friend."
He flew away.
"That takes care of him."said Genie. "Now, class is over."he said. "Gotta go. The boys have a few more lessons to go through before the day is over."
They giggled.
"You always make Iago mad."said Fahriha.
Malaika shrugged.
"It's fun. He's pretty funny when he's mad."
They giggled again.
"And now we can go swimming."
"Did you have a parrot before you came here?"asked Fahriha.
"No. We didn't. We didn't have pets. We did a lot of embroidery, though."said Malaika. "For the same reason. I lived with my grandmother, and two sister. Would you believe that they were just like me? They could never tell us apart."
She smiled.
"Really?"
"Yes. And she would tell us that we had to learn to do the embroidery right, because that way, we would make good wives. Something like that."
"You knew your grandmother?"
"Yes."
"I didn't know mine."
"Well, she was older than us, of course. And older than everyone's mother."
"Didn't you know your mother?"
"No."said Malaika.
"Didn't you live in your father's harem?"
"I don't think it was a harem. At least it wasn't like here. We lived in a big house, not as big as the palace, and we went outside, whenever we pleased."
"Outside!"
"Of course."
"I could never do that."
"Well, most of the time, our grandmother would come with us."said Malaika.
"It would be...what was it like? Did you see a lot of people?"
"Sometimes. People, especially ladies would come and greet us, and they'd come over, too. Ladies and gentlemen. Especially ladies. My grandmother loved to talk to them. And they'd have cake and tea. And we'd visit them, too."
Fahriha looked astonished. It was such a strange land her friend came from. That girls could leave whenever they pleased. And they could venture outside, and greet strange people. Fahriha knew she could never do something like that. And even if her father would allow it, she couldn't. She sometimes wondered what it would be like, but always decided that it would be much too scary. She liked it better to take classes from Genie, anyway. He always made her work right, and her father was always pleased with what he saw.
"And you just went without a veil."she said.
Malaika nodded.
"No veil. We did wear hats, though. Grandmother said that it was because no respectable woman went outside without a hat, because it would ruin your skin."
"Did it ruin?"
Malaika frowned.
"I think the women who didn't wear them, the girls who followed us, well, they did seem to have darker skin than us."
"A lot of girls in the harem do."
"Well, yes, but they waited on us."
"Like the maids."
"Yes."
"But not all the maids are dark."
"Not here, but most of them, yes."