Hi. My name is Nadia. I'm 13 years old and I live in Charlottetown, P.E.I. I have five older brothers and my family lives above the corner store my parents own in our neighbourhood.

It's not easy being the only girl in my family, even though I am the only one with my own room. I have to go to a different school than my brothers and wear a uniform every day. My brothers can stick up for each other whenever someone picks on them, but I'm on my own.

People sometimes tease me because I have a strange name and my parents came from a faraway country called Lebanon. Mom and Dad always tell us the teasing will stop once people get used to someone different than them. People have definitely gotten used to my parents because almost everyone in our neighbourhood comes to our store!

Sometimes it's fun having our own store right below us. My friends like coming to the store because Dad always gives them a stick of candy or a little toy. But sometimes it's hard work, like when we have to help stack the cans or weigh stuff or put all the big boxes of food into little packages. It's really hard to tell the sugar and salt apart!

Not being allowed to eat the extra cookies and candy in our house is probably the hardest part of all, though! Whenever Dad catches any of us sneaking food, he just sends us to our room and gives a really long speech about how we should be grateful to have enough food to eat when there are so many starving people in the world. That always makes us feel much guiltier than if he just yelled at us like most of our friends' parents.

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