Planet Omar: Accidental Trouble Magnet

H₂O, Omar’s imaginary dragon, illustrates Omar’s creativity. It acts as a protective mental barrier against Omar’s fears, worries, and emotional pain. Omar invents H₂O when he is nervous about starting his new school. Imagining the dragon’s antics encourages and strengthens Omar. By envisioning the dragon mocking Daniel or swatting him with his tail, Omar is better able to cope with Daniel’s bullying. H₂O, though fictional, is larger and stronger than Daniel and represents Omar’s mental efforts to reverse the power imbalance between him and Daniel. When Reza seems to confirms that Pakistani people will be kicked out of England, the thought of H₂O also helps assuage Omar’s fears of change and moving to a strange country. Omar says: “It made me feel better to know what wherever we had to move to, I could take him with me” (98).

When Omar’s power imbalance with Daniel is resolved and turned into a friendship, Omar imaginatively allows H₂O to become a tiny dragon: “I didn’t need a huge dragon to make me feel better anymore” (197). Omar no longer needs a protective shield.