The Hijab Flag

• Georgia Mccosker, Grade 9, Canterbury College
• Short Story
• 2016

Excellence Award in the 'Top Secret 2016' competition

My track-pants clung to my legs as I made my way to the change rooms. I had just had PE, playing volleyball in the blistering hot sun. Track-pants in the middle of summer is not something I would recommend but I had to wear them. I am a Muslim girl, so I am forbidden to show anything but my face, hands and occasionally feet. I wear a hijab to school, my shirts have long sleeves and my skirt is so long that it almost touches the floor. During PE I have to wear track pants and a weird air-compression long sleeved shirt under my normal PE shirt.
I first started having to dress like this when I was twelve. Just after I got my first period my mum had a long talk with me. She explained that I was no longer a child and I needed to start to follow the laws of Islam more frequently. So I began covering up like I was meant to and I have to walk out in the middle of my third period class so that I could go pray.
I've never had too much of a problem with how my day functioned. It was just how I was brought up. No one at school seemed to have too much of a problem with it either. Well, not until lately anyway. Lately because of ISIS, a group of extremists who pretend that they are ultra-religious Muslims so that they can feel better about what they are doing, have been causing terror attacks across the globe. They've attacked Paris and they've taken over most of Syria. They say that they are trying to make the world a better place for Muslims, but all they've done is made us a target. People at school don’t want to associate with me now. Someone’s brother got killed fighting ISIS and since then the whole grade has decided to take it out on me. Out in public is worse. It’s as if it is my fault that a bunch of idiots are using my religion to justify their actions.
They mock my culture, they call me names, they do everything in their power to make life hard for me. I try to follow the laws of Islam, which teaches us peace and respect, but it is very hard to do. As I near the change rooms I see it. My hijab, cut to pieces which are strung from the flag pole, like a victory banner.
I change into my formal uniform, wearing my black hijab instead of white and then I go pray. I pray for the strength to continue to rise above the people who are trying to make me ashamed of who I am. I pray that people begin to realise that ISIS are not following our religion, and I pray that my parents aren't going to be too mad about having to buy me a new hijab.