Chapter 4: The Girl Who Didn’t Clap
The first test of her tiny rebellion came faster than she expected. It was during morning assembly, and the principal was giving one of his usual speeches about discipline, tradition, and the greatness of cultural values.
Everyone was clapping at all the right moments, even when there was nothing worth clapping for. Someone said the word “Leadership,” and everyone clapped as if it were a stand-up punchline.
Norah stood with her hands by her sides, feeling every eye around her move like satellites, slowly turning to scan the one person not participating in the group enthusiasm.
Her best friend, or maybe not her best friend, but the girl she sat with most in class, looked at her with an expression that said, Please clap. I do not want you to be the weird one today.
Norah looked back with a tiny, almost invisible smile that replied, I am already the weird one. I might as well earn it. She did not clap, not even once, and that made her heart race in the stupidest way, as if she had done something huge and rebellious, even though all she really did was not move her hands.
Later that day, people began whispering little things like, “Why didn’t you clap?” and “Are you okay?” and “Do you hate school?” Norah simply shrugged and said, “I did not feel like it.” They looked at her as if she were either very brave or very stupid, and she was not sure which one she preferred.
Something unexpected happened, too. As she walked down the corridor, a younger girl from another class approached her quietly and said, “I saw you in assembly, and I thought it was cool.” The girl smiled in a quick, shy way before running off.
Norah stood there blinking, because for the first time it felt as if her not pretending had actually reached someone. Maybe it had made a crack in someone else’s script too.
That night, Norah sat on the floor of her room with all the lights off, except for one small table lamp. She wrote in her old tattered notebook, not a journal, because she hated that word, but simply a place where she dumped thoughts that would not shut up.
She wrote: I think maybe the world is not sleeping. Maybe it is just scared to open its eyes. Maybe people like me are not broken. Maybe we are just awake. It felt dramatic and silly and powerful all at once, and she did not care. She let it sit there on the page like a small flag planted in a quiet, invisible battle.
For the first time in a long time, she did not feel quite so alone.
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