Naomi [Wattys 2017]

Chapter 1

Thanks for choosing this book! Just in case you don't really like the beginning, I promise you, you'll love the other chapters.

The Cow bee
By: HusseinaJafiya

(Picture of Naomi above)

Chapter 1

*Beep Beep Beep*

I put my hand on the button of my alarm clock, checking the time to see it was 6.00am. I groaned as I remembered today was Monday. Yeah I know Monday is everybody's worst enemy.

I was too lazy to get up from bed but I just had to with my banging head. After staying up late to finish a season of Game of Thrones, this was the expected result.

I went to the bathroom and did my everyday schedule which includes brushing and having my bath.

After having my bath, I looked at myself in the mirror the way I normally look at myself.

I can't believe I grew up like this, all my life. Sometimes I cry whenever I see myself in the mirror because I just feel like someone cursed me.

I'm dark-skinned but I have some patches of another skin color on my skin which is called Vitiligo, also known as leucoderma.

I remembered the first time I heard of it was when I was four. By that time there was something strange about my skin color on my right knee, people always asked me what was that and I told them it must have been a mark from one of the times I fell down.

Later on it got worse as it got to my other knee and toes. My mum was so curious then, she took me to the hospital and the doctor insisted it must have been sunburn until weeks later they realized that I had vitiligo. The doctor said I should be lucky it was not leucoderma or else, there was an 80% chance that I would die soon.

Anyways, my mum always cried whenever she saw me and my dad told her that I'll be fine.

But his 'fine' was something else because I later grew up worriedly. My mum told me that my great grand mum also had it, so it must have probably been through genetics I got it.

Vitiligo has now affected my whole body. There are some patches of another skin color on some other specific parts of my body. There's a whitish skin over my face, starting from my eyebrows to below my lips and my cheekbone, there's also another one on my back and stomach. Another one can be found on my two knees stretching downwards. There are some on my two hands and elbow. And there are some from ankles to my toe. To be honest, I think someone just splashed a paint of another skin colour on my skin because that is what it looks like on every part of my body.

I always got worried about how much they were on my body, and worst of all my face.

When I was 14, I thought I could use make up to cover it up but it didn't work.

So the best thing for me is to just leave it like that although I wear cover clothing to cover it up.

I went back to the room to dress up, I wore a pair of jeans, pull over sweater and sneakers. And how can I forget my black baseball cap.

"Naomi!" Mum called me."Breakfast is ready!"

"I am coming!" I shouted

I ran downstairs with my backpack and headed straight into the kitchen where the island table was. I sat down beside my younger brother, David.

"Good morning mum." I said

"Morning." she answered as she was serving fried egg from the pan to our plate. "You kids have to eat fast, time is running."