Omma had also taught me to bake flatbread. She used to light the fire while I kneaded the dough, which she would then spread into the shape of a full moon before pressing it against the inner wall of the tandoor oven. One day, though, she had to relinquish her tandoor in exchange for a little money on the black market. Each time our purse was empty, she would sell a few of our possessions. Basically, she had given up relying on my father.

And then came the day when there wasn’t much left to sell. After they’d missed enough meals for want of money, my brothers finally joined the young street vendors who tap on car windshields at red lights, hoping to trade a packet of facial tissues or some chewing gum for a few coins. Even Mona joined them, but begging played some mean tricks on her. Within twenty-four hours she was picked up by the police and sent off to a detention center. When she returned home, she told us she’d found herself among ladies accused of going with several men at the same time, and that the women guards in the prison pulled everyone’s hair. When she had gotten over her fright, she went out again to beg and wound up once more nose to nose with the police. After that second incarceration, she gave up her risky escapades. Then it was Haïfa’s and my turn to try it. Hand in hand, we went out to scratch our nails on car windows, barely daring even to glance at the drivers, who quite often ignored us. I didn’t like that, but we had no choice.

On days when Aba didn’t lie too long in bed, he left home to go crouch on his heels like the other jobless men on one of the public squares in the neighborhood, hoping to land a day’s work as a laborer, mason, or handyman for a thousand or so rials-about five dollars. More and more often now, he was spending his afternoons chewing khat with some neighbors. He claimed it helped him forget his troubles, and this routine had become a ritual. Sitting cross-legged with the other local men, he would select the best green leaves from a small plastic bag and tuck them into a corner of his mouth. The emptier the bag became, the more swollen his cheek grew, until the leaves formed a ball he would chew for hours and hours.

It was during one of those khat sessions that a man of about thirty had approached him.

“I would like our two families to be united,” the man had said.

His name was Faez Ali Thamer, and he worked as a deliveryman, carrying packages everywhere on his motorcycle. Like us, he was originally from the village of Khardji, and he was looking for a wife. My father accepted his proposal immediately. As the next in line after my two big sisters Jamila and Mona, I was the logical one to be married off. When Aba returned home, his mind was already made up. And no one could change it.

That very evening, I overheard a conversation between Mona and our father.

“Nujood is way too young to get married,” Mona insisted.

“Too young? When the prophet

Mohammad wed Aïsha, she was only nine years old,” replied Aba.

“Yes, but that was in the time of the Prophet. Now things are different.”

“Listen-this marriage, it’s the best way to protect her.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“You know perfectly well. She will be spared the same problems you and Jamila had. This way she won’t be raped by a stranger and become the prey of evil rumors. This man seems honest, at least. He’s known in the neighborhood. He comes from our village. And he has promised not to touch Nujood until she’s older.”

“But-”

“I’ve made my decision! Besides, you know we haven’t enough money to feed the whole family. So this will mean one less mouth.”

My mother never said a thing. She seemed sad, but resigned. After all, she had wed through an arranged marriage, like most Yemeni women, so she was in a good position to know that in our country it’s the men who give the orders, and the women who follow them. For her to defend me was a waste of time.

I kept hearing my father’s words in my mind: one less mouth. So that’s all I was to him, a burden, and he had seized the first chance to get rid of me. It was true that I hadn’t always been the good little girl he would have liked to have, but after all, isn’t getting into mischief part of being a child? And I loved him in spite of his faults, and that nasty smell of khat, and his insistence that we go beg for a few crusts of bread in the street.

The same problems you and Jamila had. What did he mean by that? All I knew was that a week had gone by, then another, and another, and Jamila had not come back. Like Mona’s husband, she had abruptly vanished. I had even given up keeping track of how many days I had gone without seeing her. She used to visit us so often, and now she had simply disappeared. I was quite fond of Jamila. Every once in a while, she had brought me sweets; although she was shy and not very talkative, she was thoughtful and generous. And Mona’s husband had never come back after his mysterious disappearance, either. Where had he gone? Grown-ups and their affairs were too complicated for me.

After her son vanished, Mona’s mother-in-law had demanded custody of her grandchildren, three-year-old Monira and eighteen-month-old Nasser. Heartsick, Mona had fought like a tigress to keep her children, and her tenacity had brought her a partial victory: pleading the necessity of nursing her baby son, she managed to hold on to him. Now, haunted by the thought of losing him, she never took her eyes off him. Whenever he wandered off, she ran to catch him up in her arms, holding him tight as if he were a treasure she were trying to hide.

My wedding preparations moved rapidly ahead, and I soon realized my misfortune when my future husband’s family decided that I must leave school a month before the wedding night. I hugged Malak sadly, promising her that I would soon be back.

“One day, we’ll go together to the seashore,” she murmured, holding me close.

That was the last time I ever saw her.

I had to say good-bye as well to my two favorite teachers, Samia and Samira. With them, I had learned to write my first name in Arabic letters, from right to left: the curve of the noon, the sway of the jeem, the loop of the wow, and the pincers of the del: Nujood! I owed them so much.

Mathematics and Koran study were two of my favorite subjects. We had memorized the Five Pillars of Islam in class: the shahada, or profession of faith; salat, prayer for guidance; the hajj, the great pilgrimage to Mecca; zakat, alms to the poor; and Ramadan, the monthlong fast during which Muslims neither eat nor drink from sunrise to sunset. My classmates and I had promised Samia that when we were older, we would observe Ramadan like the grown-ups did.

My favorite subject, though, was drawing. With my colored pencils I used to draw flowers and pears, and villas with blue roofs, green shutters, and red chimneys. Sometimes I would add a uniformed guard to stand in front of the entrance gate because I’d heard that rich people’s houses were protected by guards. I always drew big fruit trees in the garden. Plus a pretty little pond, right in the middle.

During recess we played hide-and-seek and recited nursery rhymes. I loved school. It was my refuge, a happiness all my own.

I also had to give up my escapades at our next-door neighbors’ house, only a few yards from ours, where they had a transistor radio. My little sister Haïfa and I had taken to visiting them to listen to tapes by Haïfa Wehbe and Nancy Ajram, two beautiful Lebanese singers with long hair and heavy makeup. They had lovely eyes and perfect noses; we used to imitate them, batting our eyelids and wiggling our hips. We also liked the Yemeni singer Jamila Saad, who was a real star. “You think so much of yourself,” she warbled in one of her love songs, “You think you’re simply the best.”

The people next door were also among the few in the neighborhood lucky enough to have a tele vision. The TV was my ticket to travel. I adored watching Tom and Jerry, my favorite cartoon, and a show called Adnan and Lina, which told the story of two friends who had met on a far-off island. I think they were supposed to be Japanese, or maybe Chinese, but the amazing thing was that they spoke Arabic, just like me, and without an accent. Adnan was a brave boy who was always ready to save Lina; in fact, he saved her repeatedly from bad people who tried to kidnap her. She was so lucky! I envied her a lot.