Free Zebra Forest by Andina Rishe Gewirtz

could stop a riot. What did they expect them to do, anyway? Scapegoats, that’s what they are. That prison was always understaffed. So what do they do? Give people the boot!”
    I don’t think it occurred to me till then that the Enderfield where everybody worked was the same place Andrew Snow had lived so many years. It was hard to put it together, somehow. But suddenly I did see, listening there in the grocery, that there were people in town — people I might have seen before — who would recognize Andrew Snow. If he ever did come out of our house and tried walking the streets of Sunshine, they’d know him. He couldn’t even walk into town to take the Trailways bus. He’d get caught, if he did that, even in regular clothes. I wondered why I didn’t feel good, thinking that right then. It was certainly something to tell Rew. He’d be happy. And I guess I was, too. But right then I just felt irritated. Maybe because it was hot and I didn’t like buying strange groceries that took too long to find.
    Molly meanwhile was nodding wisely and chewing some more. “Maybe they’ll let it go,” she said. “If they round them all up, maybe they’ll settle down.”
    The woman I didn’t know shook her head and tapped the paper. “See here? They’ve gotten about eight of them, that’s all. Eight out of something like
forty
-eight. No, more of those guys will be fired. I just hope it isn’t Sammy. His wife’s expecting.”
    Molly snapped her gum and shook her head. “Where’d they all go? It does make me awful uneasy — all those murderers and criminals running round the area.”
    “Who knows, by now?” the other woman said. “I heard a couple of them got picked up at the bus station in the next town, and one at a girlfriend’s house. Then there were four idiots who had the bad luck to try to take a van from a couple of off-duty state troopers. But the others, they scattered. They’re probably all in Washington, D.C., by now. Or maybe even halfway to New York. Don’t you worry about seeing them in Sunshine. They’re all a hundred miles up the road. Didn’t the police come to your door the other day, checking?”
    “Yeah,” Molly said. “You’re right. But it’ll hurt people round here just the same. I wonder how many more will be looking for work by next week.”
    I slipped round the woman and put a copy of the paper in with my groceries, heart beating faster as I did it. Then I took a step back and cleared my throat. Molly looked up. “Oh, here you go, Annie. You want to check out?”
    I nodded. Molly swept aside her paper, and the woman moved on into the store, pushing her cart.
    “At least there’s some news around here, right?” she said to me. Then she noticed my paper. To my relief, she only smiled.
    “Guess everyone’s reading the reports now, aren’t they?”
    “Yeah,” I said. “It’s for my gran.”
    She patted my hand as I laid the vegetables on the counter.
    “Well, you tell her not to get too worked up about it,” she said. “Things’ll settle down quick enough.”
    I tried to nod, afraid to meet her eye. Instead, I motioned toward the bottom half of her paper.
    “I’ve been wondering about those hostages,” I said.
    “Oh, them,” she said. “Yeah, they’re still there. Those awful Iranians. Somebody ought to bomb them.”
    “But what about the Americans? They’d still be in there.”
    “Oh, yeah,” she said, snapping her gum again. “I meant after they got ’em out.”
    She gave me my change then. “No gum today?” she asked. But I shook my head. I wasn’t in the mood for gum just then.

W hen I got back home, I had to wait outside, knocking, until Andrew Snow unchained the door and let me in.
    “What took so long?” I asked Rew after Andrew Snow had rebolted the door and taken the groceries into the kitchen without a word. Rew had been on the stairs with his
Treasure Island.
He didn’t seem to read it so much now as just hold it. Whenever Andrew Snow passed