Hollow Fires

In shock after the hack, Safiya researches the name Ghost Skin, discovering “‘ghost skin’: a white supremacist who hides their beliefs to blend into a group or society and be undetectable” (39). Safiya and Asma move through the halls to get to their journalism teacher, Mrs. Cary, but they are intercepted by Dr. Hardy, the principal. Dr. Hardy confronts Safiya about the hack and tells her that all future stories must be approved by him before publication or the paper will be shut down. Safiya offers to address the hack in a column, but Dr. Hardy refuses: “If we don’t talk about it, it will simply die out” (43). Safiya decides she must uncover Ghost Skin’s identity before Dr. Hardy is able to shut down the paper.

Jawad observes his English teacher sometimes, even though it makes him angry. Jawad lists mundane items that people have mistaken for bombs, including backpacks, clocks, cameras, and science projects. None of the items were bombs, but all the people who were accused were Brown or Muslim children.

In the present day, Safiya explains how the media framed Jawad’s excused absences to attend a family wedding as “truancy” in the news following his arrest, and “spliced the footage to make it seem suspicious” (47). Safiya explains other facts about Jawad’s life that were either omitted by media coverage of his arrest, or were misrepresented, and she outlines several lies that the media reported.

Safiya records a call with Mrs. Jensen, the teacher that called the police on Jawad for his jet pack costume. Mrs. Jensen is adamant that she did the right thing by calling the police, and that “one of the cops told me I’d done the right thing. That these people infiltrate our schools” (49). When Safiya asks Mrs. Jensen why she had Jawad removed from her class even though he was innocent, Mrs. Jensen pushes back, claiming that Safiya is harassing her. Then, she hangs up.

Jawad describes Muslim grieving practices: the body is buried in a closed casket within 24 hours, and then the community prays for the family over a three-day mourning period. Jawad wishes that his parents knew he was dead, not just missing.

Mrs. Cary asks Safiya if there might be anyone working at the paper who has alt-right sympathies since the purposeful hack of Safiya’s column points to a white supremacist. Safiya considers white supremacist activity during her lifetime:

It’s white supremacist, oath-taking Proud Boys storming the Capitol. It’s a Nazi rally with torches raised high in Charlottesville, Virginia. It’s shooting the Emmett Till memorial sign [...] It’s arguing at the school board meeting that the Civil War was about ‘states’ rights [...] (53).

Safiya notes that four of the five members of the paper are BIPOC, and the fifth is Jewish. Mrs. Cary plans to talk to IT about who had access, and Safiya plans to investigate on her own.

A news article references a 2018 update of a 2006 report from the FBI that outlines attempts by the Ku Klux Klan and other neo-Nazi groups to infiltrate military, law enforcement, and government.

Three days after the Ghost Skin hack, Safiya has been unable to get a meeting with Dr. Hardy to explain her suspicions that white supremacists at the school perpetrated the hack. Asma leaves Safiya alone with Richard in the hallway who flirts with her about the Winter Ball. He drops hints that he’d like to go with her. Later that day, Safiya and the other members of the Spectator go over what they know about Ghost Skin. Usman and Rachel have already started a list when Safiya arrives in the room. Usman has discovered that several of the lines from Ghost Skin’s article were Nietzschean quotes and that Nietzschean philosophy was popular with Nazi and neo-Nazi groups. Suddenly, the school fire alarm rings, followed by police sirens.

Jawad is moved into a different English class after his arrest and his old English teacher avoids him in the hallways. Jawad remembers that the first assignment after his arrest is to read the poem, “The Hollow Men.” Now, after his death, Jawad recognizes that some of the lines from the poem are used in the threatening texts sent by his murderers.

In an interview transcript between Safiya and Rachel, one of the students on the staff of the Spectator and a member of the Jewish Student Association, Rachel describes the day that the fire alarm went off. The whole student body was evacuated out into the cold, and a swastika was painted in red on the side of the school. She says, “I remember Hardy signaling the all clear and the fire trucks pulling away. That’s when we saw it. I couldn’t move. My brain felt frozen” (70). Rachel describes how Dr. Hardy started telling the custodians to clean up the paint immediately, not calling the police or starting any kind of investigation. She alludes to the fact that some people took pictures before it was cleaned up, and that Safiya wrote an article about the vandalism that led to her suspension.

The article Safiya writes in response to the swastika on the school building connects the Ghost Skin hack to the swastika and challenges the school administration over their inaction: “And instead of weeding out white supremacists, all the administration wants to do is erase the facts” (73). Safiya asks her readers: “[...] if you’re alive and paying attention to this world, why aren’t you angry?” (73). She encourages the student body to email the board of trustees and the administration of DuSable Prep, asking for them to initiate an investigation.

Safiya posts the column and leaves the school, knowing that she’ll be suspended. She goes to her parents’ store, Mirza Emporium, and prepares to tell them what she’s done. Safiya is certain that though her parents will be upset, they will understand her motivation. Just as Safiya arrives at the store, an Amber Alert for Jawad Ali lights up her phone. First, she notices that the location is in her neighborhood, then she remembers who Jawad is: “the boy with the jetpack. Bomb Boy” (78).

Jawad’s final thoughts as he lies dying in the snow are about his parents, who will be worried about him, and about his shoes. His mom told him to wear warmer shoes that morning.