Page 87 of His Secret Gift

At that, Kayla and I glance at each other. “Uh…” I’m not sure if there’s a range on the grounds or something.Surely, there’s nothing, like animals, to shoot at?

Dalia smiles graciously when she catches onto our confusion. Then, she mimes taking pictures.”

“Oh! No.”

“Oh, okay. You were just dressed so nicely, I thought you might be a model.”

Kayla beams.

“That’ll just be one hundred and sixty dirhams, then.” I get the money, roughly the equivalence of $45, out of my wallet and hand it to her. She then hands us a map of the grounds. “Have fun.”

“Thank you.” I pause to see if Kayla has more Arabic up her sleeve.

“What?” Her hands raise to her face as if there’s something on it.

“No, no. I was just seeing if you were going to translate for me.”

“Shukran,”Dalia adds.

Nodding, I repeat her.“Shukran.”

We then head outside, and the vast field seems to catch us both off guard.

“Oh, my gosh!” she exclaims after gasping. “It’s beautiful.”

I nod in agreement. “That it is.” And instead of just being all green, there are all types of colors around—purple, yellow, red, orange, you name it.

Not only does she have large sunglasses on, but she’s also put the big floppy hat back one, which she has to hold onto when a large gust of wind comes out of nowhere.

“Where do we start?”

I consult the brochure. “Well, over here,” we walk over by the flat and circular prickly cactuses, “Barbary or Indian figs.”

Her mouth turns downward, and she bounces her head up and down. “Interesting. Oh, my gosh!” She rushes to another one. “Look at that!” She’s pointing at what look like little pineapples.

When I look at the brochure, I have to chuckle. “If you had to guess, what do you think that one is called?”

“Um.” She scrunches her nose as she thinks. “I mean, is it obvious?”

“Yes.”

“Pineapple cactus.”

I turn the page around to show her. “Yep.”

She gasps. “That’s so cool.”

I then continue reading. “I guess they bloom into really pretty yellow flowers.” As I keep reading, I see that the species of cactuses around these gardens are from all over the world—not only Africa. “This one is from America. Arizona, to be exact.” Obviously, that makes sense. It’s hard to imagine that state and not think of cactus, albeit the more traditional type that is mostly all green, stands up straight, and has “arms” sticking out of it. “Oh, and Mexico.”

“Huh.” She crouches down to get a better look.

I take out my phone and show her what the expanded flowers look like.

“That’s so pretty. Their petals almost look like glass, don’t they?”

She’s right.

As we continue walking, she gasps about a dozen more times when we come upon unique-looking plants. Some have names next to them, and others require for me to consult the paper Dalia gave me when we first walked in.

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