12 Chapter 12

"Assalamu alaikkum!" Hisham said with a smile when Afra got in the car.

"Wa alaikkum salam!" She replied, returning a smile to him. "You are on time!"

"As always, Miss Gorgeous!" He said with a grin as he accelerated the car.

"Says who?" She asked him with raised eyebrows.

"Says Mr Punctual," Hisham replied.

"You can't become Mr Punctual just because you arrived on time for a day." Afra pointed out.

"Uh oh... My bad!" He said, biting his tongue playfully. "I'll keep that in my mind, Missy!"

"Good!" Afra said as she sat more comfortably on her seat.

"You forgot to wear your seatbelt, Gorgeous!" He reminded her.

"We are almost there!" She mumbled as she put it on. "I have to wear this belt only to remove it again in a few minutes."

"But still it'll save you from having to answer the annoying traffic police officers, dear!" He said as he turned the car into the main street.

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They arrived at the Silver Stars auditorium three minutes earlier and found Thasneem and Maryam waiting for them near the entrance. They both went running towards their parents at once when they saw them in the distance.

"Hey, slow down!" Hisham warned them when they got near and they both slowed their pace as they reached them.

"Assalamu alaikkum, Little ones!" Afra greeted them and kissed them on the forehead.

"Wa alaikkum salam." They both replied together.

"Where is Mu'az?" Hisham asked the girls, noticing his absence and they both pointed at a group of little boys playing near the swing set. They saw Mu'az in the middle of the group, swinging in the swing set and another boy was pushing the swing, helping him to move faster. And some of the other boys were watching them, while some boys were chatting and laughing about something. They all seemed to be friendly, but the two girls looked at them with a scowl as if they had done something wrong. And it didn't take long for both Afra and Hisham to figure out what had caused the girls to feel cross with them.

"Hmm... it looks like Mu'az has made some new friends, Masha Allah!" Hisham said with a smile.

"I don't like him playing with them!" Thasneem said, staring at the group of little boys with a sullen look on her face.

"Teacher told Mu'az to sit with them in the class," Maryam explained in a complaining manner. "We thought he would join us at the break time. But he went to play with them instead!" Afra glanced at Hisham at this and shrugged her shoulders and he shook his head, grinning at her. Both girls watched them with a confused look pasted on their faces.

"Well, boys like to play with the boys," Hisham said, trying to cool down his sulking daughters. "You both should be happy that all the children are being nice to him."

"But he is our friend!" Thasneem protested. "He should be playing with us!"

"Well, then we'll go to his home in the evening for a playdate," Hisham suggested. "Is it okay for you?"

"Yes!!" Both girls agreed together with a cheerful grin on their faces.

"Uh... Hisham, did you forget something?" Afra said to him with a raised brow. And he saw in her wide dark eyes that she wanted to remind him of something.

"Oh... Yeah!" He said, quickly grasping what she was trying to tell him. "Neem has an appointment with the doctor in the evening. Maybe, we could arrange the playdate tomorrow, in shaa Allah."

"No!!" Both girls said, feeling disappointed.

"Why do I have to see the doctor?" Thasneem demanded. "I'm all okay! can't you see, Dada?"

"You seemed to have a fever yesterday, didn't you?" He asked her.

"No, I'm fine!" She insisted.

"If you say so, Neem Darling," He said, giving up.

"Does that mean, we are going to have a playdate in the evening today?" She asked him expectantly.

"I guess so," He said giving her a wink. "But let me talk to Ahsan and make sure that they don't have any plans to go out in the evening, okay?"

"Okay!" She said with a cheerful grin.

"We better get inside the auditorium now," Afra said, noticing a group of parents hurrying past them to get inside the building. "I wonder where Ahsan and Noora are. The meeting will be started in a minute."

"Look, they are here!" Hisham said, nodding at the main gate.

"Hey, Afra!" Noora called as she quickened her steps to get to them. "Assalamu alaikkum! Are we late?"

"Wa alaikkum salam!" Afra replied to her greeting with a warm smile. "No, we are not late. But we better hurry inside before the meeting gets started!"

"Okay! But_ wait!" Noora said, noticing that Mu'az wasn't there with them. "Where is my son?"

"Look over there!" Afra said, pointing at the group of children who had gathered around the swing set. Both Ahsan and Noora felt astonished to see Mu'az in the middle of the group.

"What a pleasant surprise!" Ahsan said with a grin. "How did this happen?"

"Miracles does happen, Ahsan," Hisham said, tapping on his shoulder with a smile. "Something must have held him back from connecting with others before. I think he got enough emotional support here to socialize with others."

"You must be right," Noora said with a nod. "We're getting late. All of you go and get your seats inside the auditorium. I better go over to Mu'az and ask him to come with us."

"Okay, come on, guys!" Hisham said as he started to walk towards the oak double doors and others followed him.

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At sharp twelve-thirty pm, Mrs Jane Miller, the headmistress of the Silver Stars nursery stepped up on the stage with a microphone in her hand.

"Good afternoon, dear parents and the children, the growing stars of our Silver Stars nursery!" She greeted the audience with a pleasant smile. "Thank you for accepting our invitation and attending the meeting. We have invited you here today to give you full details about our annual tour this year. As always, we have selected a theme for our tour. And the theme for this year's annual tour will be, 'The natural elegance of Sri Lanka!'. We expect all of our young students to participate in this tour and discover how beautiful our island is. Through this journey, we expect to educate them to love and admire nature at a very young age. Also, we hope to make them aware of our surroundings and the importance of protecting it. I invite my PA Miss Rose Harrison to the stage to give you more explanation about the places we have planned to visit this year!"

Miss Rose Harrison, a smart young lady with shoulder-length hair stepped up on the stage with some papers in her hand. She opened some folders in the desktop computer and adjusted the projector and started to play a project about the tour before taking the microphone from the headmistress.

"Thank you, Mrs Jane Miller," She said with a smile as she received the microphone. "There's a quote by Yogi Berra, which says 'if you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else.' According to this saying, our Silver Stars staff has well planned this tour. And I'm here to give you the details of it." She paused to play the images on the screen.

"Our main tour destination is Nuwara-Eliya, the city of lights. Also, we've planned to visit an adventurous village in Rathnapura district as our last place to tour. We know that the Nuwara-Eliya district is the coolest region in our country. So I request all the parents to provide their children with clothes they would need to withstand the coolest climate. I and four other members of Silver Stars staff would accompany the children during the tour."

"We'll start our tour on Monday, at six o'clock sharp in the morning," She continued. "We have arranged two school buses for the journey, and we expect all the students to be on time. We've planned to reach Nuwara Eliya town at eight-thirty am. We'd visit the Hakgala botanical gardens first and we'll have our breakfast there. Then we'll visit St.Clair's Major falls at ten am. It is one of the most beautiful waterfalls in our country, which is commonly known as 'Little Niagara of Sri Lanka.' We'll view the waterfall from the viewpoint situated in the main street. Next, we'll visit Lake Gregory at ten forty-five am and then we'll tour Ambewela farm at eleven forty-five am. The Ambewela farm is also known as Little New Zealand farm. I hope the children would love to see so many cattle there! We'll have our lunch at the farm and leave at one-thirty pm."

"Then we hope to reach the Haputale viewpoint at three-thirty pm. We'll let the children have their tea at Olive restaurant, which is only a few feet away from the viewpoint. We'll visit Belihuloya, an adventurous village in Ratnapura district at four-thirty pm. There we'll view the Belihuloya river which is running in the middle of the village as our final place to visit. We'll return from Belihuloya at five-thirty pm and we hope to reach Kandy again within four hours through Ratnapura district. So it'll be nine-thirty in the evening when we arrive at Silver Stars again. If you have any questions about the tour you can ask me now."

She looked at the audience expecting to hear questions from the parents and some raised their hands and inquired some more information about the journey. She answered all the concerns without any hesitation and finished the gathering within an hour.

"It seems like our children are about to have the first adventurous journey of their lives," Hisham said to Afra excitedly while they were leaving the auditorium.

"Well, I'm not sure how to feel about this tour." She said in an uncertain tone. "I just hope that they'd be safe during the trip."

"You are worrying for nothing, Darling!" Hisham told her confidently. "They are going to have a great time, in shaa Allah!"