All Faculty Excerpts

Bashir Boutros and the Jewel of the Nile

The following is an excerpt from George Jreije's middle-grade novel, Bashir Boutros and the Jewel of the Nile.

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Bashir felt a sudden chill and peered down. Lines of sticky orange, red, and blue ran down his belly. Wassim and Farrah quieted down, noticing his mess. He wrapped his arms around his chest, wishing he could just curl up into a ball and hide his embarrassment. But instead of laughing, Farrah handed him a napkin from her polka-dot beach bag.

Wassim pointed at the napkin and said, “Give me one of those for my nose.”

“I’m out,” she said flatly.

“Yeah, right!” he said, throwing his whole body behind Bashir to get to her bag. “Give me a napkin.”

“Watch it,” she said. “You’re going to push Bashir into the—”

It was too late. Wassim’s elbow accidentally knocked into Bashir, who slipped right off the rocks. The sea swallowed Bashir whole as he reached up for help, kicking and flailing his arms. Panic froze his legs, and he sank even deeper.

Farrah and Wassim didn’t know he couldn’t swim. In past summers, he and Farrah had always lounged in the shallow waters. Only adults swam here in the deeper waters. There were jellyfish and pointy- shelled things that pricked your legs.

But years of holding his breath in smelly school bathrooms earned him some extra breathing time. Opening one eye, then two, his sight settled in quickly. The depths were a

murky green amid the sea plants, and the water grew cooler as he kept descending. The chill relaxed his limbs and soothed his sunburns but did nothing to help him get back to the

surface. Entire schools of fish darted by.

Bashir really hoped those fish wouldn’t be the last living thing he’d see before he ran out of breath as his butt hit the seafloor. Then his eye caught a strange, almost- imperceptible shine. A golden gleam where sand and rock intertwined, where tiny sea creatures crawled in and out of tiny holes.

But what did some lost treasure matter if he was about to drown? Commanding his burning lungs to hold firm, he felt seaweed brush his chest while he maneuvered into a crouch,

preparing to push off the seafloor.

He reached along the rough seabed to brace himself and his fingers found a soft patch of sand, involuntarily digging in. He scooped weeds and pebbles, feeling something crawl

along his knuckles and fall away as he touched the shiny mystery that—

Awakened at last, said a sudden, thundering voice.

A jolt raced up Bashir’s spine, and he blew out a stream of bubbles. The sudden pain felt like sticking a fork in an electric socket (a mistake he’d made years ago), only ten times worse, and it disappeared as quickly as it came. Bashir briefly caught sight of the gleam now radiating from his hand, where on his fourth finger was a shining golden ring.

Then his breath gave out and he opened his mouth, swallowing water. The world went black.

***

Reprinted with permission from Harper Collins. You can learn more about George and his writing here.