The Child's Story — Where Is the Arithmetic Book?

Samir is kneeling on the floor among copybooks and books of various colors, blank sheets of paper and others with writing on them, all of it scattered around him on the floor.

He picks up a copybook and then throws it down; he scatters the books angrily, but in this jumble he cannot find the history copybook he is hunting for. He is late for school, and he must find this copybook to take with him. Now here he finds the arithmetic book he had been hunting for these several days past without success — what a coincidence! He is glad of it, but just now he wants the history copybook. Why does one find a thing when one has no need of it? Samir leaves the arithmetic book and goes back to searching for the copybook, muttering in a low voice.

At that his big brother Asaad asks him:
— What are you muttering like that?
— I'm not muttering.
— Oh yes you are; I saw your lips moving. What were you saying under your breath?

Samir was annoyed at his brother's prying, because he is always mocking him and making game of him — and especially because these things must not be said out loud in front of everyone. But he had never learned to lie.

So after a moment he answered, abashed:
— I was saying an "'addiyeh" for the lost things.

Asaad laughed long and loud, and said to his mother, who was sitting on a sofa in another corner of the room:
— Look at Samir — he says an "'addiyeh" to find the book he lost.

Then he stepped over the scattered books and copybooks and went out of the room, still laughing.

Samir's eyes brimmed with tears and he went back to searching once more without hope, watching the books loom and dance through his tears. Then his mother came up to him and began asking:
— Have you looked through the whole bookcase?
— Yes, all of it.
— On the table?
— There too.
— In the drawer?
— In the drawer... no...

He had forgotten the drawer — here was a hope opening before him. His mother goes to the drawer and takes out what is in it: there are copybooks and pencils, a toothbrush, a bag of colored marbles, a snarl of string, a single sock, a piece of chalk, a handkerchief, a box with dead butterflies in it, an overcoat button, and a sugared almond. His mother did not stop to scold him for this untidiness of his, or for the presence of all these things in his book drawer, but looked among the copybooks and saw the history copybook.
— Is this it?
Samir looked at it and rejoiced:
— That's it!
He took it and hurried off to school.

Samir came back from school in the afternoon carrying his books, and stopped in front of a shop's glass window: there is the beautiful shawl he wants to buy, colored between gray and green. He wants to give it to his mother on her feast day, two weeks from now; she had longed for it one day as she was passing

this way with him. His father is always scolding him, and his brother Asaad mocks him and torments him; but she is tender with him and helps him. He will buy her the shawl with the coins he has been saving in a little money box for more than five months, giving it a rattle every time he puts coins into it.

He reaches home and sets out his books and pencils to write his lessons. Ah — he remembers that he found the arithmetic book at last, by chance, this morning; that is a heavy burden lifted from him. So he goes to the bookcase and searches through it, but he does not find the book. Where has it disappeared to? He tries to remember exactly where he found it in the morning...

He searched the bookcase, and the table, and the drawer, but found nothing! He was pained, and bewilderment came over him again... Where, where had he put it? Why had he paid it no attention when he found it, and not put it in some definite place?

Samir went back and looked over the books a fourth time and a fifth, one by one. Now he feels dizzy from so much searching in the very same places — where on earth is this book? What is to be done now? He will go, as he used to do before, to his friend Tawfiq's, and study from his book.

For some while Samir went on studying from Tawfiq's book, searching afresh for his own every day, until he grew weary of it and made up his mind to ask his father for money to buy a second book. Of course he would have to bear his father's bitter scolding and hear a thousand gibes from his brother, but there was nothing else for it: he could not possibly finish the year studying from Tawfiq's book, or he would fail the examination. And when Samir came up to his father, shy and afraid, and told him what had happened, what he had expected came to pass; and when his father had finished scolding him, he said:

— You will buy your book with the coins you are collecting in your money box. Perhaps that method will do some good with you, and you will become orderly.

Samir left the room shaken by this blow, his brother Asaad pursuing him with his jokes and his mockery. And he wept a long while in his room: he would buy the book with the money-box coins — that in itself did not matter much to him — but how would it then be possible for him to buy the shawl? How? And the arithmetic book was no small price. His mother's feast day fell the day after tomorrow, and he had been determined to break open the money box today to buy the shawl!

Mama's feast day came, and every member of the family gave her a little present, as they do each year. She was delighted and thanked each one by himself — even Adiba the maid gave her a pretty glass vase. As for Samir, all that time he stood at a distance watching them, his heart full of sadness and the bitterness of regret, until his mother said to him:

— Samir, what is the matter with you? Won't you wish me a happy feast?

Samir could bear no more; the tears overflowed from his eyes and he burst out sobbing, and said, weeping:

— I bought... the arithmetic book with the coins... of the money box that was for the shawl...

His mother understood nothing of what he said — she had not known what had become of the money-box coins — but she gathered Samir to her breast and kissed him until his sobbing quieted. Then his father explained to her what had happened, and finished by saying:

— This was a lesson he needed, and he deserved it.

And his brother Asaad said:

— You should have said the "'addiyeh" — you'd have found the book at once.

But his mother looked at him with an encouraging smile:

— Would you like to give me a present for my feast day? A present more precious than all they have given me today?

Samir looked at her through his tears:

— What is it?

— Go now to all the places where you keep your books, and tidy them all. Make a place for everything, and put everything in its place — so that if you are asked where such-and-such a book is, you can say exactly where it is to be found. And don't forget that drawer and what is in it.

Samir blushed at the mention of that drawer and set about his new task with all eagerness; but his tender mother came to help him.

When he had finished the tidying, his mother asked him:

— Isn't there any place besides these where you have books?

— I think... there are old papers and copybooks on top of the wardrobe.

Adiba brought a little ladder, and Samir climbed up to the top of the wardrobe and began handing the books down; but suddenly he stopped and gasped in astonishment:

— Here it is — here!

— What?

— The arithmetic book! How — by what mystery did it get up here?