Azar on Fire Read online

  ALSO BY OLIVIA ABTAHI

  Perfectly Parvin

  NANCY PAULSEN BOOKS

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, New York

  First published in the United States of America by Nancy Paulsen Books,

  an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, 2022

  Copyright © 2022 by Olivia Abtahi

  Excerpt from Perfectly Parvin copyright © 2021 by Olivia Abtahi

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  Nancy Paulsen Books & colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  The Penguin colophon is a registered trademark of Penguin Books Limited.

  Visit us online at penguinrandomhouse.com

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Abtahi, Olivia, author.

  Title: Azar on fire / Olivia Abtahi.

  Description: New York: Nancy Paulsen Books, [2022] | Audience: Ages 12+. |

  Audience: Grades 7–9. | Summary: “Fourteen-year-old Azar Rossi sets out to find her voice and win her local Battle of the Bands contest”—Provided by publisher.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2022019483 (print) | LCCN 2022019484 (ebook) | ISBN 9780593109458 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780593109465 (ebook)

  Subjects: CYAC: Bands (Music)—Fiction. | Contests—Fiction. | High schools—Fiction. | Schools—Fiction | Iranian Americans—Fiction.

  Classification: LCC PZ7.1.A186 Az 2022 (print) | LCC PZ7.1.A186 (ebook) | DDC [Fic]—dc23

  LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022019483

  LC ebook record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022019484

  Ebook ISBN 9780593109465

  Edited by Stacey Barney

  Cover design by Kristie Radwilowicz

  Cover illustrations by Kervin Brisseaux

  Cover photograph from Alamy

  Design by Suki Boynton, adapted for ebook by Michelle Quintero

  This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real places are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and events are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or places or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

  pid_prh_6.0_140667116_c0_r0

  — CONTENTS —

  Cover

  Also by Olivia Abtahi

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Epigraph

  Dedication

  Apologies in Advance

  Back 2 Skewl

  Morning Commute

  Vocal Torture

  My Esophagus:an Oral History

  The Hallway of Chaos

  A Quiet, Dignified Meltdown

  Oh No

  World History

  Sanctuary

  Still Hell

  I Hate Group Work

  Plotting

  Secondary Parental Unit

  My Cave of Solitude

  Kombucha O’clock

  Fever Dreams

  Sickbed

  The Blesséd Weekend

  Rock Band

  Farsi School

  Morning Commute

  The Fourth Band Member

  In Search of Muse

  The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter

  Winter Assembly

  First Rehearsal

  First Rehearsal, Continued

  Drum Lessons

  The Coolest Girl I’ve Ever Met

  Choice Boards

  A Formal Invitation

  The Hollins Residence

  Catching Feelings

  Take Two

  Dinner with Dad

  Live Music

  Farsi School (Again)

  Drum Lessons,part Deux

  Next Friday

  Nailed It

  Saturday

  Rehearsal

  Sunday

  Library

  Home

  Pre-op

  Rehearsal

  Drum Lessons

  Sunday Scaries

  Surgery

  Post-Op

  Escape by Amtrak

  Concert

  Tail Between Legs

  Pre-battle

  Battle of the Bands

  After

  May

  Acknowledgments

  Excerpt from Perfectly Parvin

  About the Author

  Your defects are the ways that glory gets manifested.

  —RUMI

  For Four

  APOLOGIES IN ADVANCE

  YOU’RE PROBABLY WONDERING why the book you’re holding in your hands is full of such underwhelming garbage. I know. I feel the same way. When Dad gave me this fancy notebook for Christmas and said it was to share my lyrics with the world, I thought he was joking. Why would I share my lyrics? There’s already enough pain and suffering on this planet.

  “Azar, I see you writing down songs on all these little scraps of paper. It’s time your words had a home. Even if you can’t sing them out loud, you should still keep them.” And then he pretended to strum his air guitar, and Nonna smacked him upside the head with a wooden spoon and told him to serve dessert, even though we were all stuffed and could barely eat a sesame seed. But you don’t mess with Italian grandmothers from Jersey, especially during the Feast of the Seven Fishes.

  I’m back with Mom in Virginia now, but I still have this stupid book. It’s bound in leather, and it has a ribbon to keep track of where you are in your miserable ramblings. It’s even in my favorite color: lime green. Aha! Did you see that? This book is trying to seduce me. Shut up, stupid book. Even your lime-green ways can’t bewitch me now.

  Little Green Book

  Wants to open me up

  Swallow me whole

  Make me feel like a chump

  Little Green Book

  Trying to lull me to sleep

  Take a peek at my dreams

  Steal them out from under me

  Little Green Book

  Trying to crack my spine

  Share my songs with the world

  But these songs are mine.

  Nice try, Moleskine.

  You lose.

  BACK 2 SKEWL

  ANOTHER SEMESTER. ANOTHER five months of talking to nobody, hiding in the band room for lunch, and never raising my hand in class. I am in a prison of my body’s own making.

  Worse: I am out of Pop-Tarts.

  Just then, Mom sticks her head into my room, her brown curls a ball of positive energy and argan oil. “Azar, I made kale chips for your lunch today!” She pronounces it Aw-zár, the traditional Iranian way of saying it.

  Did I mention I’m in hell?

  As if spending Xmas talking to no one but my family wasn’t humbling enough, I now have to be reintroduced to the public, where people can tell I have no friends, much less a life.

  “Azar? I made some tahini dipping sauce, too!”

  I am going to die alone.

  * * *

  The kitchen reeks of the yerba mate Mom always preps for her drive to DC. It tastes like oregano gone
bad. Mom says it is an indigenous plant grown in the north of Argentina, where her dad, my abuelo, is from. I think she secretly just likes it because it requires being sipped from a traditional gourd.

  “Good morning, Azar,” she says formally. I give her a look like, Do I have to? and she nods gravely. I clear my throat.

  “Good morning, Mother.” The words come out scratchy and warbly, like I tried to step on each note with a roller skate and they just slid out from under me. They’re the first words I’ve spoken today, and Mom does not look impressed.

  “Did you stay up late again? Your voice sounds worse than yesterday!” She says this accusingly, as if I have committed homicide—or worse, stayed up past my bedtime. Which is nine p.m. Which of course I blew right past, throwing a towel under my door so she couldn’t see the light from my laptop as I uploaded more stuff to SoundCloud.

  “Mom,” I begin to lie, my voice even, just the way Ms. Davolio, my speech pathologist, taught me. “I went to bed at nine p.m., after we watched Up in the Air.”

  Because we have no lives, I almost add. But don’t.

  She shakes her head, gold hoops swinging. “Maybe we need to start quiet time earlier, like eight p.m., just to be safe.”

  I sigh. Sure. Add it to my tab of misery.

  “You’re right,” Mom says, even though I didn’t say anything. We’ve got our nonverbal cues down to a science at this point. “One thing at a time. Get dressed and shower—I’ll give you a ride to school.”

  I wordlessly trudge back to my lair.

  “And don’t forget to gargle!” she calls out.

  The second I close my door, I grab my acoustic guitar, the one Dad got me a couple years ago when my throat infections started ramping up. Instruments are about the only thing Mom lets Dad buy for me, besides making deposits to my college fund. She’s too proud to ask for anything else. I’ve also got an electric drum kit with pads that connect to my computer, a keyboard, a ukulele, plus I can borrow instruments from school during lunch break. The guitar needs to be tuned, but I strum the chords anyway, singing lyrics in my head.

  Azar, gargle with salt water

  And wear something that has color.

  I’ll give you a ride to school

  If you become a better daughter.

  Don’t burn the toast.

  You had one job!

  To not burn the toast!

  And now I’m late for wooOoorrrrrk.

  “Azar, are you getting dressed?” Mom demands through my thin bedroom wall. I can hear her blasting reggaeton through her tinny phone speakers in the kitchen, singing along to every word. I switch to a minor chord, the song going from light and fun to dark and dreary.

  “AZAR!” Mom shouts. “Did you hear me?”

  I get out my phone.

  AZAR ROSSI 6:28 A.M.: yes, mother. i heard you.

  MOM 6:28 A.M.: Then why aren’t you in the shower!

  AZAR ROSSI 6:29 A.M.: yes sir captain sir.

  MOM 6:29 A.M.: And don’t call me Mother!

  The saltwater gargle tastes disgusting, but the steam from the shower feels good on my throat. It’s way more soothing than the humidifier I run on my nightstand. I feel like one of those beached whales that people keep dumping water over to keep them moist.

  The hot water runs out in three minutes, which is normal for our crummy apartment building. A sullen girl stares back at me in the bathroom mirror, her mouth a flat line with freckles spilled randomly across her face. She really, really does not want to return to school after winter break.

  I don my jeans, T-shirt, and a bright orange sweater Mom got me for Xmas that she says “makes me more approachable.” It feels weird not wearing black.

  “You’re killing me, Z. We’re gonna be late,” Mom says, popping her head into my room. There is no such thing as privacy in this apartment.

  I reach for a black sweater, threatening to put it on instead. “I’ll do it. I’ll even put on black lipstick.”

  Mom groans in frustration (which is really bad for your throat) and heads back to the kitchen, where she is no doubt making me hummus from scratch and grilling tofu for my lunch sandwich.

  We don’t have a real dining room or kitchen table. I plop into a chair under the counter that serves as our eating space. But when I reach for the orange juice, Mom slides it away from me.

  “You know what Dr. Talbot said. Orange juice and acidic foods make your vocal nodules worse.”

  “Dr. Talbot buys sushi from the gas station. Should we really be trusting his judgment?” I growl. My voice sounds like the lowest gear on a bicycle, unable to switch up to something faster and more fluid.

  Mom just stares me down.

  “Fine.” I grit my teeth.

  She slides a cup of tea over instead, and I shiver like someone has cracked an egg on my head, already dreading my breakfast. The tea is called Throat Soothe, and it tastes like marshmallows made from dirt. I take a sip, the hot drink comforting my esophagus despite filling my nose with notes of licorice, mud, and something called slippery elm.

  “Can I have some pancakes? With extra whipped cream?” I whine, wishing my voice didn’t sound so husky. Without my secret stash of Pop-Tarts, I’m at my mom’s organic, free-range mercy. I’m a growing teen. Teens need gluten and preservatives, and that fake maple syrup stuff. It’s our birthright.

  She just gives me another look and slams a bowl of yogurt with strawberries and honey in front of me instead. Every week, she makes yogurt from scratch in a big metal pot and covers it with a towel, like my maman bozorg taught her. I stare at the yogurt miserably. Yogurt’s supposed to be really good for your throat health. But it tastes the opposite of pancakes.

  “I bet Adele eats the same thing for breakfast,” she says, scrambling to get ready. “She had to cancel a couple concerts last year because she was losing her voice, so you two are in the same boat.”

  Yes, because Adele being on “vocal rest” from selling out arenas and me having vocal nodules on my throat since I was a baby are the same thing. Mom is the type of person to call a paper cut “a deep exfoliation!” and a debilitating vocal condition “an opportunity for different communication!”

  “Her strawberries are served to her individually as models fan her with palm fronds,” I point out, my throat slowly warming up. “On a private jet.”

  Mom sniffs, straightening her button-down business-casual shirt. Even in a plain outfit, she looks beautiful, with bright brown eyes and glowing skin. Her left hand threatens me with a spoonful of raw clover honey. “This is homemade yogurt, thank you very much.”

  “What a thrilling life you lead.”

  “Less talking. More eating,” she barks, now looking in our small kitchen mirror and lining her eyes with the thick kohl she uses on her gargantuan Persian eyelids. I try not to gag as she circles her entire eyeball, even the part of the eye that’s on the bottom, right by the waterline.

  After taking two bites, I moan, “Can we go now?” Not that I’m super eager to get to school. But being around Mom in this cramped kitchen reminds me that my throat’s messed up, while my classmates just think I’m quiet.

  There’s a difference.

  MORNING COMMUTE

  I GRAB MY backpack, my Washington Nationals hat, and a fresh pack of gum while Mom puts on her parka. Something crinkles against my foot as I slide it into one of my black faux-leather combat boots.

  “Día de los Reyes Magos!” I yelp. It’s Epiphany, or what some people call Three Kings’ Day, and per my mom’s Persian-Argentinian traditions, that means I get candy in my shoes. It’s usually raw cacao bonbons, or fair-trade dark-chocolate bars. Whatever it is, at least it’ll supplement my abysmal breakfast. I reach into my shoe.

  “Cough drops?” I cry. “You got me cough drops for Día de Reyes?”

  “Excuse me,” Mom says defensively. “I got th
ose small-batch cough drops at the farmers market. They’re sweetened with agave and they cost twelve dollars a dozen!”

  Fuming, I unwrap a cough drop and shove it into my mouth, staring at Mom the entire time to really get the point of her child torture across. Notes of orange peel and cinnamon dance across my tongue.

  “Ugh,” I concede. “These taste incredible.”

  “I will take that as a thank-you,” she says primly.

  She opens the door and leads the way to the parking lot. Washington Gardens is the kind of place where there aren’t hallways connecting any of the apartments together. The second you step out of your unit, you’re outside in the unforgiving wetness that is the DC metro area. We walk past the other units and down the rickety wooden stairs to our car, the January cold slapping me in the face. Winter in Northern Virginia is a cruel mistress.

  “Brrr,” Mom says. “You buckled in?”

  I give her a thumbs-up.

  “You ready to make the world a better place?”

  I flash a less enthusiastic thumbs-up. More of a sideways hitchhike.

  “I’ll take it.” She reverses out of the parking lot and I fiddle with the window button, since it doesn’t work anymore. Click. Click-click. Click-click-click.

  “Azar, come on.”

  It’s like there’s always some random beat in my head and I play it out on my tapping fingers, toes, or decaying Honda Civic (hybrid). I tap the back of my teeth with my tongue instead.

  Mom fiddles with a knob and our asthmatic heater coughs on. We pass our neighbor, Nadim Hadad, who’s walking to school while rolling a gigantic instrument case. According to our school’s morning announcements back in the fall, Nadim is one of a handful of foreign exchange students Polk’s hosting this year.

  “He goes to your school, right?” Mom says, turning onto the street. “Maybe we should give him a ride?”

  I shake my head. If we give Nadim Hadad a ride, then I’ll have to make conversation. And if I make prolonged conversation, then he’ll hear how messed up I sound this early in the morning. I need to drink at least half my thermos of witch’s brew to get out a full sentence in mixed company.