Free Children of Exile by Margaret Peterson Haddix

nostrils.
    â€œShe’s got that kind of nose?” he asked. “What color are her eyes?”
    I opened my mouth to answer—or maybe to ask what was wrong with my nose—but the woman spoke first.
    â€œBrown,” she said quickly. “They’re dark brown, almost black, just like yours.”
    My eyes aren’t brown, but green. Like . . . well, like the woman’s own.
    The woman squeezed my shoulder warningly. I turned to look at her. She put a finger over her lips and shook her head fiercely, her scowl deepening.
    I glanced at Bobo. It wouldn’t have been surprising for him to chime in, “Oh, don’t you know your colors yet? I do! See, this is what brown looks like, and that is what green looks like,” pointing first to his eyes, then to mine.
    Bobo was turned away from the rest of us. He was watching a spider make a little web between the wall and the leg of the man’s chair. He didn’t say anything.
    The woman jerked me up and back, away from the man.
    â€œIt’s almost time to eat,” she said. “Rosi can help me make supper.”
    â€œOkay,” I said, trying to sound cheerful and helpful and kind. Not puzzled and angry and sad, like I really felt. “Bobo’s good at setting the table, so we can both help.”
    Bobo still didn’t say anything. I suddenly realized that if Bobo was really that interested in the spider, he would have pointed it out to the rest of us. He would have turned around exclaiming, Look! Look! How does that spider do that? Why can’t I spin sticky web stuff out of my belly? Instead, he was standing there motionless, except for his shoulders quivering every now and then.
    Bobo was crying, and trying not to let anyone see.
    I recast the way I’d heard him say “That tickles” when the man was feeling his face. I recast the giggle I’d heard. Bobo’s moods could turn like that, a giggle twisting into tears in an instant.
    I remembered that Bobo sometimes hated being tickled.
    I was a terrible sister for not remembering sooner.
    I put my hand on his shoulder.
    â€œCome on, B,” I said. “We’ll work together.”
    But the man slashed his one arm through the air and slapped his hand against his leg.
    â€œMy son doing women’s work?” he said. “Never!”
    Bobo’s shoulders shook harder.
    â€œWomen’s work?” I asked. “Setting the table isn’t women’s work or men’s work! Preparing meals is everyone’s work!”
    Bobo whirled around.
    â€œFred-daddy cooks for us all the time!” he said. “I want my Fred-daddy! I want my Fred-mama! I want to go home! My real home, I mean, in Fredtown!”
    I’d thought the woman was scowling before. Now her face was like the sky before a thunderstorm. Terrifying.
    â€œPunishment,” the man said. “They must be punished. They have to learn—”
    â€œYou’ll go to bed without supper,” the woman said quickly. She yanked me backward. Because I still had one hand on Bobo’s shoulder, I jerked him backward, too. He tipped against me.
    â€œBut—,” I began.
    â€œ Both of you will go to bed without any supper,” the woman said. “Now. In there.”
    She pointed to a break in the wall where a tiny room seemed to hide. A hanging cloth in the doorway separated it from the rest of the house.
    But it’s still light out, I wanted to say. And we don’t even have our bags delivered from the airport. We don’t have any clothes to sleep in. And . . . we didn’t do anything wrong.
    The Freds had taught us to stand up for ourselves when we were falsely accused. They’d taught us to explain away misunderstandings calmly and peacefully. They’d taughtus everything about how to behave in Fredtown, with Freds.
    But we weren’t in Fredtown anymore. These adults weren’t anything like Freds.
    There was