part 128: (hanzalah)

**”Bismillahir rahmaanir raheem”
-in the name of Allah, The Most Gracious, The Most Merciful-**

Hanzalah entered the school gates and found a strange buzz around today. Everyone seemed really chirpy and excited for a monday morning. It definitely wasn’t a blue monday for everyone else besides hanzalah.

Hanzalah was exhausted. He didn’t get to have that lovely sleep after fajar salaah on sunday morning because of nick. But its okay.. He’ll cope.

As usual hanzalah looked down as he walked through the bustling corridors of the school.

He heard a few disturbing snippets here and there on his way.

“Party”

“Wonder if he’ll come to school today.”

“Definitely going to get into big s*** ”

“That’s if they haven’t already found him and locked him up”

Hanzalah didn’t mean to eavesdrop but their gossip was pretty loud not to overhear.

This made hanzalah wonder even more about nick. Was everyone talking about him?

What had he actually done that bad to get everyone talking like this?

Why would they want to lock him up?

Now he began worrying a little. Did he do the right thing by keeping nick? What if nick did something really bad and now he and his family would be held responsible for keeping him in their home.

As he got into his classroom and sat down on his chair, he decided to take a deep breath and make a little bit of thikr (thinking of Allah)…

“Astaghfirullah astaghfirullah.. Astaghfirullah.. Astaghfirullah….” He chanted inaudibly.

This seemed to have done the job. It relaxed him a little.

Once the siren rang, indicating that everyone needed to head to their respective classrooms, he pulled out his literature books and started browsing through the pages.

The classroom started filling up and a few minutes later, the teacher entered.

“Good morning class. I hope you all had a relaxing weekend ‘SaFE’ in your homes”

Hanzalah caught on the sarcasm in mr abrahams voice. And everyone cleared their throats and shifted in their seats whispering to eachother…

“Right!! Order please!!.. More of that later in assembly with the principal. For now, open up to page one hundred and thirty two.”

Everyone began turning pages whilst hanzalah seemed to be the only confused one in class. He had no cellphone and had no interest in social media whatsoever so he’s feeling left out was quite understandable.

Usually it doesn’t bother hanzalah in the least, but today he was curious. Infact, he was very curious, because he felt part of it in a way.

He couldn’t even concentrate on anything in class for the first time ever and kept glancing at the clock since mr abrahams had said that there would be an urgent assembly just after the first subject.

The minute the buzzer sounded, everyone was eagerly out of their seats and heading toward the assembly area.

‘That’s strange’ hanzalah thought to himself. Every other day, everyone dreads assembly.

‘Guess its time to find out what all the excitement was about today and whether nicholas had anything to do with all this or not’ hanzalah thought pulling his books in his hand and heading in the direction of the courtyard himself.

He stood quietly one side and waited for the principal to appear. But when he finally did, the look of anger on his face today just made everyone dead still and quiet instantly.

“I’m sure all of you are well aware of why this assembly has so urgently been called. Whoever of you have been involved in this weekends nonsense need to own up as soon as possible. There’s no hiding because nothing ever remains a secret and the truth will come out. And if you did not confess and are caught afterwards, you will be expelled from this school. That goes for anyone who knows of the whereabouts of mr.nicholas abed aswel.”

Posted by silent living…