In this chap­ter, the fam­i­ly devis­es a plan to dis­guise Par­vana as a boy, to enable her to nav­i­gate the mar­ket and buy sup­plies while her father is away. Moth­er and Mrs. Weera present the idea enthu­si­as­ti­cal­ly. Noo­ria sug­gests Par­vana will be their cousin from Jalal­abad, which con­fus­es Par­vana. As the con­ver­sa­tion unfolds, Par­vana real­izes the harsh real­i­ty that her friends and rel­a­tives have scat­tered, leav­ing her iso­lat­ed. Moth­er plans for Par­vana to wear her deceased broth­er Hos­sain’s clothes, but Par­vana protests her long hair, fear­ing she won’t con­vinc­ing­ly pass as a boy.

Noo­ria insists on cut­ting Par­vana’s hair, prompt­ing resis­tance from Par­vana, who deflects the blame onto Noo­ria. Ulti­mate­ly, the fam­i­ly agrees that to sur­vive, Par­vana must embrace this dis­guise, real­iz­ing it’s her choice alone. As they pre­pare to cut her hair, Par­vana feels a mix of dread and res­ig­na­tion, yet also a sense of agency in mak­ing the deci­sion her­self. When the hair falls, she begins to feel trans­formed. After a quick cut, Moth­er urges her to change into Hos­sain’s clothes, which feel unfa­mil­iar yet lib­er­at­ing.

Once dressed, Par­vana expe­ri­ences a moment of iden­ti­ty con­fu­sion, espe­cial­ly when Noo­ria crit­i­cizes her appear­ance. How­ev­er, with encour­age­ment and a few essen­tials, she gains some con­fi­dence. As she steps into the world don­ning her dis­guise, she ini­tial­ly fears expo­sure but soon finds com­fort in being just anoth­er boy on the street. She suc­cess­ful­ly shops for tea and rice with­out attract­ing atten­tion, which boosts her sense of accom­plish­ment.

Upon return­ing home, she shares her suc­cess with her fam­i­ly, though Moth­er exhibits signs of dis­tress see­ing Par­vana in Hos­sain’s clothes. Noo­ria sug­gests that to main­tain her dis­guise, Par­vana should wear the boy’s cloth­ing at home too, which deep­ens the fam­i­ly’s strained dynam­ics. The chap­ter con­cludes with a poignant moment where Moth­er calls out to Ali, refer­ring to him as “my son,” high­light­ing her emo­tion­al strug­gle with the changes their fam­i­ly is fac­ing.