Chapter 1

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DEDICATION

For every child who has been scared and done the brave thing anyway — the world is better because of your courage.

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Seven-year-old Nadia Okonkwo was afraid of a lot of things.

She was afraid of dogs (even small ones), thunderstorms (especially the loud ones), the dark (specifically the corner of her room near the closet), spiders (all sizes), raising her hand in class (what if the answer was wrong?), and talking to people she didn't know (what if they didn't like her?).

She didn't tell people about most of her fears. She kept them inside, stacked neatly like books on a shelf, where no one could see them. On the outside, Nadia was quiet, careful, and polite. On the inside, she was a seven-year-old girl carrying fourteen invisible books that were getting heavier every day.

Then Ms. Becker gave the class an assignment.

"This week," Ms. Becker said, standing at the front of the room in her yellow cardigan and her glasses that always slid down her nose, "we're going to talk about courage. Who knows what courage means?"

Hands shot up. Marcus said it meant being brave. Lily said it meant fighting bad guys. Tomás said it meant not being scared.

"Those are all interesting answers," Ms. Becker said. "But I think courage is a little different from not being scared. Courage means being scared AND doing the thing anyway. Courage isn't the absence of fear. It's what you do when fear shows up."

Nadia felt something stir in her chest. Being scared and doing it anyway. That was different from what she'd thought. She'd always assumed brave people weren't afraid. That courage meant having zero fears instead of fourteen.

"Your assignment," Ms. Becker continued, "is to make a Courage List. Write down five things that scare you. Then, this week, try to do at least one of them. Just one. Not to prove you're not scared, but to prove that scared doesn't have to mean stopped."

Nadia stared at her blank piece of paper. Five things from her shelf of fourteen. Just five. And then do ONE.

She folded the paper and put it in her pocket. Five fears. One week. One brave thing.

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Monday. Day one of the Courage List.

What if the answer was wrong? What if everyone laughed? What if Ms. Becker looked at her with that patient, slightly pitying expression adults used when a kid said something silly?

Ms. Becker was asking about butterflies. They were studying metamorphosis — how caterpillars turned into butterflies. "Who can tell me what the caterpillar builds around itself before it changes?"

Her hand stayed in her lap. Her heart pounded. The scrambled eggs started.

Then she felt the folded paper in her pocket. The Courage List. Five fears. One brave thing.

Scared doesn't have to mean stopped.

Nadia's hand went up.

It went up slowly, trembling slightly, like a flower pushing through concrete. But it went up. And Ms. Becker saw it, and her eyes widened with pleasant surprise, and she said, "Nadia?"

"Chrysalis," Nadia said. Her voice came out smaller than she wanted — more of a whisper than a word. But it came out.

"That's exactly right! A chrysalis. Wonderful, Nadia."

The moment passed. No one laughed. No one gave her a pitying look. Marcus gave her a thumbs-up. Lily smiled. Ms. Becker moved on to the next question.

And Nadia sat in her chair, heart still pounding, but with a new feeling mixed in with the fear — a small, warm spark of something that felt like pride.

She'd done it. One fear. One small hand raised. One word spoken. And the world hadn't ended.

She took out her list and made a tiny check mark next to "Raising my hand in class." One down. Four to go.

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At lunch, Nadia sat at her usual spot — second table from the window, end of the bench, next to her friend Priya. Priya was the only person Nadia felt completely comfortable with. They'd been friends since they were four, which meant Priya had been pre-fear — a friend from before the shelf started filling up.

But today there was someone new. A boy Nadia had never seen before sat three seats down, eating a sandwich and looking at the table. He wasn't talking to anyone. No one was talking to him.

Nadia knew that feeling. Eating alone. The silence that pressed in from all sides, making you feel invisible.

"Who's that?" she whispered to Priya.

"New kid. Started today. His name is something... Ravi? I think?"

Nadia looked at Ravi. He took a bite of his sandwich. He looked at the ceiling. He looked at his hands. He did not look at anyone else, because looking at people when you were new and alone felt like asking for rejection.

Fear number two pulsed in Nadia's pocket. Talking to someone new. This was it. This was the moment.

But what would she SAY? She didn't have a script. She didn't have a plan. She just had a sandwich of her own and the knowledge of what it felt like to eat lunch alone and a Courage List that was daring her to be bigger than her fear.

She picked up her lunch tray, walked three seats down, and sat across from Ravi.

"Hi," she said. "I'm Nadia."

Ravi looked up. His eyes went wide — not scared, but surprised. Like someone who'd been sitting in the dark and suddenly a light had turned on.

"Hi," he said. "I'm Ravi."

"Is this your first day?"

"Yeah. We moved from Portland. I don't know anyone yet."

"Now you know me," Nadia said.

"Do you like butterflies?" Nadia asked, because it was the only conversation topic she had ready.

When lunch ended, Ravi said, "Thanks for sitting with me. I was really nervous."

"Me too," Nadia admitted. "I'm nervous about a lot of things. But I'm trying to be brave this week."

"I think you're already brave," Ravi said.

Nadia walked back to class with another check mark on her list and a new friend in her life. Two down. Three to go.

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This was a nighttime fear, which meant Nadia had to wait all day, knowing what was coming, which was almost worse than the fear itself. Anticipation was like fear's annoying older sibling — it showed up first and made everything worse.

At bedtime, Nadia put on her pajamas, brushed her teeth, and stood in the doorway of her room. Her mom had already said goodnight. Her little sister, Amara, was asleep in the next room. The house was quiet except for the hum of the refrigerator and the tick of the clock in the hallway.

Nadia's room had a nightlight. It had ALWAYS had a nightlight — a small, glowing moon shape that kept the worst of the darkness at bay. The corner by the closet was still shadowy, but the nightlight made it manageable.

Tonight, Nadia was going to turn it off.

She stood by the nightlight, her hand on the switch. The Courage List was on her nightstand. Three fears down if she could do this. Just one small switch.

She turned it off.

The darkness was immediate and total. Not the gentle, nightlight-softened dark she was used to, but real, complete darkness that pressed against her like a blanket. The corner by the closet disappeared into shadow. The shapes of her furniture became uncertain — was that her chair or something else? Was the closet door open? Had it always been open?

Nadia's heart raced. She climbed into bed, pulled the covers to her chin, and squeezed her eyes shut.

Then she opened them.

Because Ms. Becker had said courage wasn't the absence of fear. It was what you did when fear showed up. And right now, fear had shown up, and Nadia was going to look at it.

She lay in the dark and watched. The shapes that had seemed threatening slowly became familiar again — that was her chair, with her jacket hanging on it. The closet door was half open, the way she'd left it. The corner was just a corner.

And through the window, stars. Not many — this was a city, after all — but three or four, bright enough to pierce the clouds, steady enough to feel like company.

Nadia looked at the stars and felt her heart slow down. The dark wasn't empty. It was full — full of silver light and stars and the quiet sounds of a sleeping house. It was just a different kind of full than she was used to.

She fell asleep looking at the stars. In the morning, she made her check mark — bigger this time, bolder — and felt something shift inside her. The shelf of fears was still there. But it felt lighter. As if the books were being removed, one by one, and replaced with something else.

Three down. Two to go. And the hardest ones were still ahead.

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This was the fear Nadia had carried longest. When she was three, a big dog at the park had knocked her down, barking and licking and overwhelming her tiny self with its bigness and loudness and too-much-ness. She hadn't been hurt — the dog was friendly — but the memory had crystallized into a fear that grew harder and more certain every year.

She avoided dogs on sidewalks. She crossed the street if she saw one coming. At friends' houses, she stayed in whatever room the dog wasn't in. It was exhausting, this constant navigation around one fear, and it made her feel small in a way she hated.

After school, Priya invited Nadia to walk home together. They took the route past Maple Street, where Mrs. Nakamura lived with her golden retriever, Sunny.

Sunny was in the front yard, lying in the grass like a furry golden puddle. He was old — twelve, Priya said — and moved slowly. His tail wagged gently when he saw the girls, but he didn't get up.

But the Courage List said otherwise.

"Can we stop?" Nadia asked. Her voice shook.

"Really? You want to stop by Sunny?"

"I want to try."

They walked to the fence. Sunny's tail wagged faster. He lifted his head and looked at Nadia with soft brown eyes that held nothing but gentleness.

"You can put your hand over the fence," Priya said. "He'll sniff it. That's how dogs say hello."

Nadia extended her hand. It trembled. Sunny stood up — slowly, with the careful movements of an old dog — and walked to the fence. He sniffed her hand. His nose was cold and wet. His breath was warm.

Then he licked her fingers. One gentle lick, like a handshake.

"He likes you," Priya said.

Nadia stood very still. Her heart was pounding, but not just from fear anymore — from something else too. From the softness of Sunny's eyes. From the warmth of his breath. From the realization that this creature, this dog that she'd been afraid of for four years, was just a gentle old animal who wanted to say hello.

She reached over the fence and touched the top of his head. His fur was softer than she'd expected. He closed his eyes and leaned into her hand, and Nadia felt a wall inside her crack — not break, not disappear, but crack, just enough to let light through.

"Good boy," she whispered.

She didn't stay long. It was enough. One hand on one dog's head for thirty seconds. But those thirty seconds rewrote a story she'd been telling herself for four years — the story that dogs were dangerous, that she was too small, that fear was the only response.

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Friday. The last fear. The biggest one.

All week, Nadia had been doing brave things — raising her hand, talking to Ravi, sleeping in the dark, petting Sunny. Each one had been hard. Each one had changed something inside her. But this last fear was different from the others. The others were about doing something despite being afraid. This one was about SAYING she was afraid. Out loud. To another person.

It was the fear under all the other fears. The root of the whole shelf. Because if she could tell someone she was scared — really tell them, not just hint or whisper or pretend it was fine — then she wouldn't be carrying the weight alone anymore. And the idea of putting that weight down was both the most terrifying and the most hopeful thing she could imagine.

She thought about who to tell. Priya already knew some of her fears. Her mom knew about the nightlight. But no one knew about the LIST — the fourteen fears, the heavy shelf, the feeling of carrying invisible books that got heavier every year.

At school, she sat next to Ravi at lunch. He was drawing a butterfly in his notebook — a monarch, orange and black, with wings spread wide.

"Ravi," she said. "Can I tell you something?"

"Sure."

"I'm scared of a lot of things." She took a breath. "Not just a few things. A LOT of things. Fourteen things, actually. I counted. Dogs and the dark and thunderstorms and spiders and raising my hand and talking to new people and escalators and eating alone and —"

She was talking fast now, the words tumbling out like water from an overturned glass.

"— and the thing I'm most scared of is telling people that I'm scared, because I think they'll think I'm weird or weak or too much."

She stopped. The words were out. They sat in the air between her and Ravi, visible and real and impossible to take back.

Ravi put down his pencil. He looked at her with his serious, thoughtful eyes. And then he said something that Nadia would remember for the rest of her life.

"I'm scared of eleven things," he said. "Moving, loud noises, swimming, heights, asking questions, the sound balloons make when they pop, getting lost, being forgotten, my parents being disappointed in me, making mistakes, and — this one's weird — ketchup."

"Ketchup?"

"The way it comes out of the bottle. I can't explain it. It's irrational."

Nadia stared at him. Then she laughed. Not a mean laugh — a surprised, relieved, joyful laugh. The laugh of someone who has just discovered that she is not alone.

"You have ELEVEN fears?"

"And you have fourteen. So between us, that's twenty-five fears. And here we are, eating lunch together, which means we're both being brave right now."

"You're right. We are."

"Nadia, everyone is scared of stuff. EVERYONE. The difference isn't who's scared and who isn't. The difference is who talks about it and who pretends they're fine."

Nadia felt something release in her chest — a tightness she'd been carrying so long she'd forgotten it was there. The shelf of fourteen fears didn't disappear. The books were still there. But they weren't invisible anymore. She'd taken them off the shelf and shown them to someone, and that someone had shown his books too, and together they'd discovered that everyone's shelf looks the same.

She made her last check mark. Five for five. The Courage List was complete.

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On Saturday morning, Nadia sat at her desk and looked at the Courage List. Five fears, five check marks, one week of being braver than she'd ever thought possible.

She'd raised her hand. She'd talked to a stranger. She'd slept in the dark. She'd petted a dog. She'd told someone the truth about being scared. Five things she never thought she could do.

The difference was that now she knew she could do it anyway. The fear was still there, but so was she. And she was stronger than the fear. Not because the fear was small, but because her courage was big enough to carry it.

Fear had shown up fourteen times, and Nadia had faced five of them. Nine more to go. But there was no rush. Courage wasn't a race. It was a practice — something you did again and again, not to make the fear disappear, but to remind yourself that you could carry it.

Because courage, Nadia had discovered, was contagious. Not like a cold — like a candle. One flame lighting another, then another, then another. One scared kid telling the truth, and suddenly every scared kid in the room feels a little less alone.

She put the copies in her backpack, ready for Monday. Then she went to her window and looked outside. It was a bright, clear morning. Birds sang. The sun warmed the glass. And in Mrs. Nakamura's yard, two houses down, Sunny the golden retriever lay in the grass, golden and gentle, his tail wagging at nothing in particular.

Nadia smiled. Then she went downstairs, put on her shoes, and walked outside — into the sunshine, into the world, into the beautiful, terrifying, wonderful life that was waiting for anyone brave enough to step through the door.

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She found Ravi first, at his desk, drawing another butterfly. "I made you something," she said, and handed him a blank list.

Ravi looked at it. "A Courage List? For me?"

"You said you have eleven fears. Pick five. Try one this week."

Ravi's eyes lit up. "Can I start with ketchup?"

"You can start with whatever you want."

She gave one to Priya during morning meeting. Priya studied it and nodded slowly. "I'm scared of singing in front of people," she admitted. "And of telling my mom when I'm upset. And of the monkey bars."

"Write them down. Then pick one."

At recess, she found Marcus by the swings. He was reading a comic book — the one thing he'd read willingly, because comics had pictures and pictures didn't judge you.

"Marcus," Nadia said. "I heard you're scared of reading out loud."

Marcus stiffened. "Who told you that?"

"Nobody. I'm scared of things too. Fourteen things. I made a list last week and faced five of them. It was the hardest and the best thing I've ever done."

She held out the blank list. Marcus looked at it like it might bite him.

"You don't have to," Nadia said. "But if you want to, you don't have to do it alone."

Marcus took the paper. He didn't write anything on it — not yet. But he put it in his pocket, which was where courage lived until you were ready to take it out.

By Wednesday, something had shifted. Ravi had faced his ketchup fear by squeezing a packet onto his lunch tray (he reported that it was "gross but manageable"). Priya had sung — very quietly, barely audible — during music class (she cried afterward, but said they were "good tears"). And Marcus hadn't read out loud yet, but he'd written his five fears on the list, which was its own kind of brave.

Word spread. Not because Nadia announced it, but because courage makes noise — the quiet kind of noise that other scared kids can hear.

By Friday, seven kids in Ms. Becker's class had Courage Lists. By the following Monday, twelve. By the end of the month, the whole class.

Ms. Becker noticed. She asked Nadia what was happening.

"We started a club," Nadia said. "The Courage Club. It's for kids who are scared but want to try anyway."

"What are the rules?"

Ms. Becker smiled — not the patient, pitying smile Nadia had always imagined, but a real, full, proud smile. "Can I join?" she asked.

"You're scared of things?"

"Nadia, I'm scared every single day. Of not being good enough for my students. Of saying the wrong thing. Of the day you all graduate and I have to say goodbye."

Nadia stared. Ms. Becker — wonderful, confident, yellow-cardigan Ms. Becker — was scared. Of things. Like everyone else.

"Welcome to the Courage Club," Nadia said.

"I am brave. Not because I'm not scared. Because I am scared, and I keep going anyway."

One step. That's all it takes.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Crimson Ark Publishing publishes fiction for readers of all ages, drawing on the spiritual principles and rich cultural heritage of the Bahá'í Faith. Our stories explore themes of unity, justice, courage, and the transformative power of love — through characters and communities that reflect the beautiful diversity of the human family. Every book is an invitation to see the world not only as it is, but as it could be.

Visit us at crimsonarkpublishing.com