Introduction

“Maryam and the King’s Son” is part 2 of “The Night Maryam Met Santa Claus: True News,” I will publish in the short stories series on my blog, and this is part 1. I encourage you guys to read part 1 of the story to know the beginning of the story to learn how Maryam met Santa Claus. It is a lovely story, and I published it in paperback and eBook through Amazon and Google Play (eBook).

Let the story begin, I hope you’ll like it. Enjoy!

When my friends and I had finished our classes for the day, we went and sat in our favorite place: under the biggest, loveliest tree in the school, a Baobab tree called “Tabaldi Tree.”

I began to narrate to them what had been happened during my Christmas holiday in the United States, and my beautiful and exciting story with Santa Claus.

My friends couldn’t wait to hear it and rushed me with questions:

“Did you like America, how do people live there?” asked Minna

“What kinds of clothes do the kids wear in America?” said Aya.

And Emman asked, “Do they have a lot of toys?”

“What do the schools look like over there?” asked Aisha.

I waited until they finished their questions then I said with a big smile “Wait .. wait, my friends, I am going to tell you everything.” I reflected back on my memories for a moment and then looked at my iPad while I was holding it in my hands, then I said: “You know, guys: the most important thing I learned during my entire trip was the faith, ‘in God we trust.’”

And I said, “We have to thank God every second for everything. God always gives us the most beautiful things, not because we deserve them but because he is so generous.

At that time, we heard a voice:

“Hey Maryam, give me that iPad.”

When we turned towards the voice, we found 3 of our classmates with cruel and malicious faces—one of them was Hassan, the king’s son, and the other boys were Rajab and Hani.

Our city is ruled by a king called Jusha, and Hasan is his youngest son; he is such a trouble maker and a spoiled boy, all the people don’t like him because of his bad behavior.

Some people think Jusha is a good king and the problem is he loves his son so much, but I think the opposite; however, he does have a kind wife.

“Why Hasan? You have everything. Your father is the king, why do you want to take the only thing I have?” as I said that I hugged the iPad against my chest tightly.

“I want this iPad because it’s from Santa Claus. How dare him to bring this iPad for you, not for me? I’m the king, I’m the king, I’m the king.”

“If your father is the king, this means everything is for you?” I asked.

“I will take it, Maryam, whether you accept it or not.”

“It is my dream. If people are not fair, God is fair,” I said.

“I don’t care about your dreams. It’s your dream if it is still in your mind, but when it comes true it is mine.”

Then Hasan with his friends attacked us, my friends trying to save me and keep iPad.

“Stop! Why are you fighting?” shouts Uncle Ahmed, the guard of the school, holding his big cane.

“Hasan wants to take my iPad,” I said and ran to hide behind Uncle Ahmed.

“She has to give it to me,” said Hasan.

“Why?” asked Uncle Ahmed.

“Because I deserve it.”

“Hasan, stop behaving like that; don’t be selfish.”

Then when Hasan realized that he can’t take the iPad because Uncle Ahmed was protecting us, he ran away with his friends screaming and shouting, “I will take it, you will see what my father will do! Nobody says no to me, nobody, nobody, nobody.”

We left the school with Uncle Ahmed, and he dropped each of us off at our houses.

When I got inside, I told my parents what had happened at school.

“Give it to him, Maryam. We don’t want to be in trouble with the king,” my mom said.

I looked at my father wondering if he agreed with my mother or not, but my father remained silent and did not say anything. He knew the king would never take pity on us. Hasan was just a little boy, but he controlled his father; the king loved him so much and never said no to him.

My dad went to his room and locked the door. My mother and I realized that we were in big trouble. We could not get into a fight with the king; we know what would be the punishment—he would execute us.

After a while, my dad came out and said to us, “We will go away.”

Mother and I were surprised, and I screamed, “No, Dad!”

“We have two choices: to go away or you give the iPad to Hasan,” my dad said to me firmly.

I started to cry and shout, “I can not give my iPad to him, Santa Claus brought it to me. It is not fair! Hasan has everything, and he wants my iPad too. It was my dream, Dad, it is not fair, not fair, not fair.”

“This is the reason why I said we have to go away. It is not just for the iPad, but the injustice. Hassan makes the city a big mess; he is horrible, and no one dares speak out against his actions,” said Dad.

“Let’s pack our things quickly,” said my mom.

“We took our things and headed out in the dark before we could get in trouble, but while we were walking down the road, we heard a voice say, “stop.” We knew it was the king’s guards, and we realized that we are in trouble, and now we had to choose between our life and an iPad.

“Run…run!” said my dad to us.

We ran fast while the guards chased us through the dark streets. With all of our possessions on us, we couldn’t run very fast.

There was a Baobab tree down the road on the right side. “Let’s hide inside it, it’s hollow,” said my father.

As we came upon the tree, we found it to be huge, about about 25 m tall, and with a large diameter of about 11m. The tree had a small hole in the corner, but it was enough to allow us to get inside the tree.

We got inside the tree with our things and sat quietly. After a while, we heard the guards running around the tree and shouting:

“Where have they gone, where have they gone?

But the guards did not realize there was a small hole in the tree. After searching the surrounding area, they eventually decided to head in another direction in search of us.

“Let’s go to the valley side. Maybe they went over there,” said one of the guards.

After the left, we released our breath and relaxed our pounding hearts a little.

“Thank you, God. You saved our lives, be always with us,” I said.

Then we all said, “Amen.”

And I added, “In God we trust.”