over.
“Not my problem.” Zaf took the card and flashed it against the automated checker on his desk. “You know what I could do? I could make every last one of you line up while I ran you all through the system. But I’m a nice guy.” Not strictly true, but he also wasn’t a complete prick. “So I use my eyeballs instead. Easy for you, easy for me. Unless you don’t put the card in front of my eyeballs. Then it’s not so easy, since I don’t have X-ray vision. Let me show you something.” Card verified, Zaf held it up by its blue lanyard, stamped with the university logo. “You know where this goes? Right around your neck. Then you don’t have to choose between holding your bagel and pissing me off. Sound good?”
“I can’t put it around my neck,” the kid spluttered. “I’ll look like a dick.”
“You’re wearing Adventure Time pajamas to a lab, mate. You already look like a dick, and in five minutes’ time your professor will tell you so.”
“I—what?” He looked down. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“Come here.” Zaf slung the lanyard over the boy’s messy hair. “Now piss off.”
With a few glares and muttered comments, off he pissed.
Then a slow, sarcastic clap started to Zaf’s right, which was all it took for him to realize that his niece had entered the building. He turned to face her, his standard bad mood evaporating. “Fluffy! What are you doing here?”
She widened her kohl-rimmed eyes in warning, jerking her head pointedly at the group of girls behind her.
Zaf cleared his throat and fought the twitch of his lips. “Sorry. Fatima, I mean.” He gave the girls a little wave. “Hello, Fatima’s friends.”
“Will you relax?” she whispered. “You’re so embarrassing.”
“I was aiming for mortifying. I’ll have to try harder.”
She growled at him like a little lion and turned to wave off the girls. “I’ll meet you upstairs, okay?” When they nodded and melted away, she turned back to him. “I see now why you chose this job. You get to bitch at people on a professional basis.”
“Dream come true,” Zaf said dryly, and sat down. Tucked behind the tall security desk was the table he actually used for work. He tapped his computer to bring up the time . . .
Not that he was watching the clock for anyone in particular. He had absolutely no reason to do that.
“You look tired,” Fluff was saying. “Mum reckons you run yourself ragged and you’ll regret it in your old age.”
“Add it to the list. And I don’t look tired, I look mysterious.”
“Mysterious like a zombie,” Fatima said.
“You’re such a rude girl. Respect your elders.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, tilted her head mockingly, and simpered, “Please, dearest Chacha, sleep eight hours a night instead of writing charity letters or whatever it is you do, and maybe you will not be at work looking like a dead thing, inshallah.”
She was just like her father. The thought was bittersweet. “I’ll think about it. Why are you here? There’s nothing wrong, is there?” In the months since Fatima had enrolled, Zaf had only caught glimpses of her on campus from afar. He usually pantomimed his best Embarrassing Uncle routine, and she usually skulked away while shooting daggers in his direction—but now here she was, in his building. A kernel of anxiety skittered within his chest, always ready and waiting to blow. His Protective Uncle routine was even more intense than the Embarrassing Uncle one.
But Fatima rolled her eyes—she had a minor eye-rolling addiction—and sighed, “No, Chacha. Nothing is wrong. I just moved a class around to fit in Level 1 Punjabi.”
Zaf raised his eyebrows. “Your Punjabi is fine.”
“Exactly. I look forward to my distinction. Of course, I didn’t know my rescheduled lit seminar would be”—she wrinkled her nose, looking around the foyer with blatant disgust—“here.” Echo was a squat, gray relic of a building halfway down University Road where medical-science students did weird things to dead bodies and animal organs.
“Ah, it’s not so bad,” he told her cheerfully. “At least you’ll get to see your favorite uncle more often now.”
“I see you almost every day, and you are my only uncle,” she tutted, shifting her handbag from her left arm to her right. He’d told her countless times to wear a rucksack for even weight distribution, but she was a little fashion plate like her mother.
“Grouch as much as you want, Fluff. I know you love me. Now hurry up to your lesson, or