There is never a better time to Make Friends than on the first day of school, since that is when everyone has not already Made Friends and turned their attention to other pursuits. Who would be a good Friend? There's enclavers but after he tries standing around near some for a bit he doesn't get invited to join the conversation and eventually they switch to speaking Mayan or something and he hightails it out of there. Okay, who would like to be Friends and is not necessarily an enclaver?
Malak has had enough water that her thoughts are flowing more clearly, and has some leads on making it back to her room, which means it's now time to try to find associates. "Friends" is the sort of thing she's pretty sure you're not supposed to have until after school (Especially if those "friends" are boys, Mother was very clear about that). That guy over there looks associable and if he's one of the poor American mundanes who'll be dead in the first week she'll at least be able to exit the conversation quickly.
"Hi, I'm Malak but if you don't have very many languages" (meaning, if you're a doomed American mundane) "you should pronounce it 'ma-lick' instead so you don't get the vowels wrong and attract the attention of an ancient demon. I'm from Istanbul but not part of either enclave."
Well there's some goodwill cheaply bought. Probably not particularly valuable goodwill, but maybe he'll survive and wind up with an affinity for immortality elixirs or something like that.
...Also God teaches us to be kind to others and while Mother has made it abundantly clear that that does not extend so far as to endanger yourself at school this seems pretty safe and she wants to make it out of here at least slightly a good person.
"Well, I'll find you here tomorrow if I've got anything good. And do let me know if you get a big book of Portuguese invisibility spells or something like that, I'd pay a ton to copy some of those. Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm sure we both want to go make some more impressions while everyone's milling about here."
And with that she wanders off in search of more associates.