Torn is about a Muslim, Pakistani 7th grader girl being bullied for her religion. Her and her friend, Janelle come up with a plan to stick up and fight for freedom.

“Ring, ring, ring!” The alarm clock rang as I was struggling to wake up. Another day at the cruelest place ever. I thought as I wake up for school putting my hijab on. As I make my way down stairs for breakfast, I think of what will people say about me again for the billionth time.
“Good morning baby,” my mom says.
“Mm yeah,” I mumble as I slowly fall asleep while eating my breakfast.
“Ready for another day at school?” She says.
My heart stops for a second as I happily try to say,
“Of course,” But in a sarcastic tone.
“Oh sweetie you’re getting close to the end of the school year don’t worry,” She says.
She really didn’t know why I said it in a sarcastic tone but my hopes get up as I see in the corner of my eye that the bus is on its way.
“Oh my,” I say while stuffing food in my mouth.
I hurry and get my stuff for school and ran out the door not even hearing what my mom said as I left.
As I get to the bus stop, I see my best friend, Janelle giving me cautious eyes to hurry up.
“Arissa if you don’t hurry up,” She said, while I try to eat the food I stuffed in my mouth and run, which isn’t a very good idea to do by the way.
Thankfully, I made it to the bus stop in time.
“Congratulations, you beat the bus,” Janelle says, as I roll my eyes at her and laugh.
We sat down in the usual spot, the very front by the bus driver where no one could say anything rude to me without getting in trouble.
“You know you don’t have to sit with me,” I say to Janelle, even though I don’t mean it, she’s basically my only friend.
She looks me deep in the eye and figured out in a second that I’m lying.
“Girl, I wouldn’t sit by anyone else. Anyway, who would want to sit by Jeremy the nose picker, Charles the gamer,” She says as I would say! We truly are good friends when I think about it. 
“Or, the Mann sisters, the next gossip girls of USA.”
We laugh together silently as the bus driver slowly turns his head at us as we try to stop laughing.
As we arrive at school, I look down at the nasty bus floor as the voice in my head makes deep conversations with itself. “I’m going to cry. I’m a loser. Don’t tell yourself that, you’re so strong!” As these conversations go on I’m awaken by the warm breeze that has come in through the door that has opened to the worst place yet. Janelle looks at me and gives me a nod.
We make our way into school as I see Alex and her buddies laughing and talking about me. I walk straight into school. Here, we go again. I think as I make my way closer to the lockers.
“Hey there Arissa, what are you going do today? You going ask your little Muslim buddies to bomb our school? ” a typical Alex joke with the immediate laughter. It has got to get boring, but then again it never will.
By my side, Janelle tells me “It’s okay, it’s okay,” Repeatedly.
I hear these things every single morning five days a week, usually. As Alex and her ignorant friends push me into the lockers lightly I just know I’m on the edge of tears. Janelle yells at them and tells them to stay away. I don’t look up until Janelle tells me that Alex and her disgusting friends are gone. I fall to the ground.
“They’re rude, we need to ask someone for help soon about this,” Janelle says.
“I don’t want to make such a big deal out of it,” I say.
“You know you’re tired of it, you can’t let people get to you for being a sweet Pakistani, Muslim girl who has a great future,” Janelle says, as I try to think of what had just happened.
“I know, but I don’t want people to ambush me even more,” I say sadly as the first period bell rang.
Janelle and I make our way to science class to find out we have a guidance class. Today, we were learning about motivation, which I didn’t really care about until Mrs. Brown started talking about standing up for yourself and how to help others going through tough times. After that lecture classes after classes passed until lunch.
“We need to talk about what was said in guidance lecture that really motivated me to do something about this whole situation, “Janelle said.
“Yea, it kind of motivated me too,” I said.
“Yes!! Finally, I can’t wait to kick some bully butt!” Janelle was getting too excited.
“What are we going to do anyway?” I said.
“Oh don’t worry I have a plan,” Janelle said as I started to have an adrenaline rush inside of me.
Finally the day had ended as soon as Janelle and I got off of the bus we ran to our usual spot, the old willow tree where nobody disturbed or ever thought of looking for us.
             “What’s your plan?” I said
“I was thinking, how about we make everyone plus the people that get treated cruelly by Alex and her friend wear full sleeves, long pants, and the girls can wear hijab!” Janelle said.
“No one will be willing to do that,” I said.
“I’d be willing to do it,” Janelle said.
I didn’t say anything, I got up quietly and hugged Janelle.
“You’re the best friend ever!”
That night Janelle I texted, emailed, whatever we could to spread the word. I got into bed and thought what the morning would have waiting for me.
The next morning I woke up with butterflies in my stomach. Today was the day everyone was sticking up for me. I got dressed rapidly, went downstairs took a banana, kissed my mom goodbye and left my house. I ran to Janelle to see she was wearing a beautiful blue hijab that was as clear as the blue sky and the most fashionable clothes to match. I looked at her in an adorning way.
“You okay?” Janelle said with worry in her eyes.
“Anticipated and may I say, you look beautiful!” I said without even knowing what I was saying. Janelle blushed and thanked me
We waited in silence for the bus to come, we also sat on the bus in silence wondering if everyone was willing to go with the idea. Once the bus doors open Janelle and I ran into the school waiting to see if all the people we told the idea to actually do what we had pleaded. I smiled ear to ear to see that everyone was wearing full length clothes and the girls were wearing hijabs. Some of the popular girls were wearing hijabs too! I was shocked. But my smile turned into a frown, it hadn’t even been a minute of happiness. Alex came up to me.
“Look at you, you’re so evil you made everybody into a terrorist like you,” Alex said with actual evilness coming out of her. I shivered. Everyone that had been wearing a scarf, full length clothes came, surround Alex and me.
“Don’t treat Arissa like that,” I heard
“Leave Arissa alone or we’ll tell everyone especially staff about what you’ve done,” I heard again from another person surrounding us.
“We are humans, we have feeling, we are humans, we have feelings,” was being chanted all around and even I started chanting.
Alex was outnumbered, confused, she yelled. A teacher came to ask what was going on and had took Alex to the guidance consular and later on was suspended for the people she had torn apart. My days in school were normal more spectacular. There was no need for sitting in the front of the bus, no need of being scared of saying what I wanted, no need of hoping I wouldn’t have any friends. For the first time there was no need of being scared of going to school every morning which scared me every day. I was happy and free and most of all I was proud to be a Muslim.