Free Number 8 by Anna Fienberg Page B

that low purr of the Mustang again. It’s out front this time, stalking up our street. Why ours? The skin on the back of my neck prickles. 777 snakes behind my eyes…
    Mom serves the pasta up in front of the television. The news is on. We sit in a row on the floor, cushions under our butts, bowls on the coffee table in front of us. The seafood is delicious—calamari and tender bits of fish all mixed in together. We’re relishing it in silence, spoons scraping away when the prime minister comes on.
    Quickly I go for the remote control but Mom snaps, “Leave it.”
    â€œYou have not been listening,” the prime minister is saying patiently, as if the reporter is a naughty little kid. “I’ll restate it for you. Australia has a perfectly good immigration system, and people should use it. If they want to come to Australia they should make an application and proceed in an orderly way. We will not allow line jumping or any other illegality. That is the law of the land.”
    Mom chokes on her calamari. She’s spluttering something, banging her fork on the table and I’m just glad the seafood is muffling her vocal cords.
    â€œBloody fool,” she gets out, “how do you stand in line in the middle of a war? Or a famine? You just have to run, don’t you? He thinks the world is like a sleepy little post office—“after you, oh no, after
you
!” Smug little man, wouldn’t know what hit him in the real world … Don’t you agree, Asim? God, what you and your father must think of this country!”
    She’s shouting now. I look at Asim. He’s glancing around nervously, patting the air near Mom, trying to calm her.
    â€œNo, it is okay, this is all okay, I love Australia.” And he actually puts his hand on his heart.
    Asim once told me that after his father, he loves math and Australia more than anything. Or Australia and math would be the right order. He thinks everything about Australia is good, even the thorns in the grass and the lethal snakes. He says there’s nothing as lethal as chemical gas. Or racism. Or hate.
    Mom snorts. “Oh, right. You love Australia, with our stingy selfish policies, punishing refugees, locking them up in jails? Even their kids? As if it’s
their
fault they happened to be born in a country where they were hunted down and tortured!”
    â€œMom, shut up!”
    Asim has tears in his eyes.
Cry about it
, says Badman.
    â€œOh, I’m sorry,” cries Mom, flinging her arm around Asim. “You don’t need to hear all this. I just get so riled up, with this f—”
    â€œMom,
don’t
say it. You’re just making things worse. You know Asim and his dad are on a temporary visa.”
    â€œThat is right,” whispers Asim. “We have three months more. We maybe need to be careful. What if the government hears bad things about us? But if we are good then maybe, maybe it comes true, and we will be Aussie citizens!”
    We all smile and Mom gives Asim an extra squeeze. I turn the TV down, and I can see Mom taking a deep breath. I know she wants to protest that the walls don’t have ears and in a democratic country we’re
supposed
to be able to say what we like. She wants to throw her shoes at the screen, the way she did when the Pakistani children were hauled back to the detention center in the desert after they’d escaped. But she controls herself. I smile encouragingly at her. Thereis a small silence while we all try to think of something harmless to say.
    â€œWell, you’ll be glad to know that Polly’s knees were better today and the cook was charming,” she begins, making a face. “Turns out he’s a Scorpio whose moon has been in Uranus for the last year—”
    I snort and look at Asim.
    â€œâ€”making him cranky and now his moon has come out the other side or whatever it does and he’s a different person.” She laughs.