Free Children of Exile by Margaret Peterson Haddix Page B

do tomorrow:
    I wanted to talk to Edwy.

CHAPTER TEN
    In the morning, when I woke up, the space on the blanket beside me was empty. I was confused for a moment— Blanket? Floor? Where’s my bed? —but then my empty stomach twisted painfully and I remembered everything: Bobo and me being sent to bed without supper, the man who was supposed to be our father yelling that we had to be punished ( for what? ), the woman who was supposed to be our mother scowling and glaring at me, and telling me I babied Bobo.
    Where was Bobo?
    Back in Fredtown, he’d never wandered off in the night, and this new place—our new/old home—had to have scared him yesterday as much as it scared me. . . .
    Just then I heard laughter on the other side of the wall: pure, clear laughter flowing like a river of joy.
    It was Bobo.
    Thinking about how his giggle the day before had been followed by tears, I scrambled to my feet. I was still wearingthe dress I’d worn yesterday—and the entire time on the plane the night and day before that. My hair was probably sticking out in all directions, and I had no comb to tame it. But all I could think of was getting to Bobo.
    I spun around the open edge of the wall, into the next room.
    Bobo was sitting at the small, rickety table—sitting on the woman’s lap, actually. He had a fork raised in the air and his head was tilted back, his curls resting against the woman’s collarbone.
    â€œBobo!” I said, and somehow everything I was confused or worried about made his name come out sounding harsh. “Be careful! If you’re eating and laughing at the same time, you might choke!”
    â€œShe said I could put sugar on my pancakes!” Bobo burbled. “Then . . .” He let out another fountain of laughter. “Then she said that for all she cared, today I could have sugar on my sugar, if I wanted it!”
    The woman shot me a glance that just dared me to remind Bobo that eating too much sugar made him bounce off the walls. She hugged him closer.
    I glanced toward the corner where the man had been sitting the night before.
    â€œHe went to the privy,” the woman said.
    â€œThe father,” Bobo said, as if he wasn’t sure I’d understand.I kind of liked how Bobo put it—“ the father,” not “my” or “our.” I could do that much.
    Bobo stabbed his fork into a mess of pancake pieces on the plate before him, but stopped before bringing it up to his mouth.
    â€œDoes the father feel people’s faces every time he sees them?” Bobo asked.
    The woman—the mother—glanced toward the back wall of the house and lowered her voice.
    â€œHe can’t see,” she said, her face pinched. “That’s why he touches. He wasn’t always like this. Just since—”
    â€œSince what?” I asked.
    The mother shook her head. Now the expression on her face was like a door slamming shut.
    â€œThere’s hotcakes on the stove for you, too,” she said, motioning with her head.
    I walked to the stove. I wanted her to offer me sugar as well. I wanted her to say I could have sugar on top of sugar, just like Bobo. But she didn’t.
    The pancakes left in the skillet were shriveled and not even lukewarm. There was a fly crawling on the one plate laid out on the cracked counter beside the stove.
    My Fred-parents would never expect me to eat off a fly-specked plate, I thought. They would never give me the left-behind breakfast.
    But my brain was rebellious too, that morning. It shot back at me, And if they were here now, they’d say, Rosi, Rosi, Rosi, aren’t you capable of washing off your own plate? Aren’t you capable of heating up your own food?
    I wished my Fred-parents were there to call me Rosi, Rosi, Rosi. I wished they were there even if they were gently scolding me. I washed off my plate in the sink and pretended I didn’t notice the slight brown