“Yeah, I mean I don’t know what’s going on—but it totally sucks,” I said—wincing at my awkward attempt.

Vi came back inside and bustled around the kitchen again.

“You kids going to set the table or what?” she called out, and we got up.

She did not put the radio back on.

12

Boundless Plains

Sam was going to his dad’s for the first week of the Easter holidays. They spoke on the phone most nights, but you could tell from the way Sam was constantly going on about it that he was excited to spend time with his dad—and I was pretty happy that he wouldn’t be around for a bit.

On the last day before Easter break, Anika drove Sam and me to school because she had a doctor’s appointment after. Her belly was so much bigger than it had been in January, and now her driver’s seat was pushed back to make room for her bump and her arms stretched out more to meet the steering wheel.

It had been raining so much that the gutters of our school overflowed and the water seemed to roar down like rapids outside the window. It was the start of April and warm outside, so the classroom became sticky from the damp and the heat. Or maybe that was just from the questions that we had burning inside us.

After recess Jed stuck his hand up. “What about the national anthem?”

Mr. Khouri could say a lot with his eyebrow arch. This time the eyebrow seemed to say, Go on, continue.

“It’s like, we have to sing it every week in assembly—but does it even mean anything?”

“What line are you thinking of specifically?” Mr. Khouri asked the question like he already knew the answer.

And Jed probably only meant to speak, but after so many years singing the anthem, his voice came out with a sing-song lilt—like the words wanted to rise up. “‘For those who’ve come across the seas, we’ve boundless plains to share.’”

The sound of us agreeing with him was a hum, low and sure.

“You’re right,” Mr. Khouri said. “Those words are in our national anthem.”

“Are we just supposed to sing them but not believe in them?” a fifth-grade girl asked.

Mr. Khouri leaned forward in his chair at the front of the room, put his hands on his knees, and looked at us.

“I think that’s something each of you will have to ask yourselves,” he said. “What is the purpose of a national anthem, and what does it mean when a country refuses to live by its traditions?”

He wasn’t like other teachers we’d had or other grown-ups we knew. On the first day of term he’d written the words Not all those who wander are lost at the top of the blackboard, and they were still up there, looking down on us.