She then clapped her hands. “Stand up. Everyone. We’re going to act out verbs.”
“See?” she said. “The root is k-t-b . Everything else is a pattern. Like your school uniform—same fabric, different sizes.”
Ms. Fatima closed her marker. “For that observation, Kabir—no homework tonight. For you, anyway. The rest of Class 10: exercise 12(b), all conjugations of fa’ala .”
Group 3—Riya, Ayaan, and a quiet girl named Zara—got d-r-s .
What followed was a slow, reluctant choreography of scribbling, running, eating, and sleeping—all in Arabic. Riya was in her element, conjugating with her whole body. Ayaan turned running ( yarkudu ) into an exaggerated slow-motion chase around his chair. Even Kabir smiled when he realized that yadhhabu (he goes) and nadhhabu (we go) shared the same rhythm, just a different first letter.
Kataba (he wrote) Katabat (she wrote) Katabtu (I wrote)
“And now?”
And somewhere in the back of Ayaan’s notebook, the camel now had a speech bubble. It said, in neat Arabic script: Ana jamalun. Wa ana adrusu al-‘arabiyyah bubt’i. (I am a camel. And I learn Arabic slowly.)
