Chapter 47
The boys followed him again, once more placing the hat on his head. He stopped, smiled, gave them some money, and walked away. The stunned look on the face of the boys told me most of what I wanted to know.
“So how much did they want for the hat?” I asked when the boys were out of earshot.
“One hundred dirhans,” he said. Ten dollars.
“And you paid…?”
“Thirty-five,” he said matter-of-factly.
I couldn’t contain myself. “So that’s why they looked so shocked,” I said, once I had stopped laughing. “But tell me, why did you kiss the one boy on only the left side?”
“To tell him that we are not close.”
“You mean that you wanted him to go away.”
“Yes.”
“Well, in America we would just tell someone like that to kiss off. Maybe that’s where the expression came from.” Amir looked at me quizzically. “More American slang. I’ll explain it to you some time.”