“Human beings,” I whispered, and then a little louder when Mr. Khouri raised an eyebrow at me. “Human beings, and how we move across the Earth’s surface.”

Mr. Khouri nodded. “And human beings can rarely be contained simply by drawing lines on a piece of paper, forcing them together or tearing them apart now, can they?”

Someone else stuck their hand up, but Mr. Khouri waved them away. “I know you all have a lot of questions, and you’re very curious—and that’s a good thing! But it’s early days yet. We’ll have a lot more time to talk about this, I promise. But no more today, okay?”

Mr. Khouri went back to the board to pick up where we left off with fractions and pie charts. Which just made me think how wars sounded like someone was always trying to cut countries into pieces, and people were fighting over who got the biggest slices.

19

A Welcome Sign

The refugees arrived in the middle of the night.

That evening, Luca was getting ready to drive out to help greet them and get them settled. I wanted to go, too, but Luca kept telling me it wasn’t possible.

“How come? All those other times on the news there were people waving and saying hello when they arrived. . . .”

All the primary schools in Sorrento had gotten their students to make signs. On big pieces of poster paper we’d used markers or paint to write the message “Mirësevini në Australi!”—Welcome to Australia!—again and again.

Luca turned around and smiled sadly at me. “I know, but they’ve flown in too late tonight, and the Red Cross wants to get them checked off and settled into the barracks as soon as possible. . . .”

When Luca was all ready to go, he stood behind Anika, bent down and kissed her forehead, and then offered his hand to rub her giant belly. Then he reached over to Sam and ruffled his hair.

“You be careful, babe,” Anika said, and Luca replied, “Always.”

He came back to me and crouched just a little so we were at eye level. “Freddo, I promise I’ll tell you everything that happens as soon as I get home—and I’ll ask about when a welcoming party can get together and go out there . . . but I need to be going now, okay?”

I nodded once, then got an idea—I held a finger up for Luca to wait for me, and then I dashed into my room.

When I came back he was at the door, pulling a woolen beanie over his buzz cut and grabbing his keys. I thrust the rolled-up poster paper at him.

“What’s this?” he asked, taking the fluorescent orange scroll from me.

“A welcome sign—we were making them in school,” I said. “It’s not finished yet—I haven’t added the glitter—but maybe you could hang it up somewhere?”