Mr. Khouri said to think of it like the Earth was a car we were all traveling in. Then imagine if that car accelerated or braked all of a sudden—that’s when you’d feel it. The Earth would be thrown off its axis and we’d either be flung back in our seats or sent flying through the windshield. . . .

That’s how it was in the days after the refugees arrived—like we were braking and moving in slow motion. Or maybe it just felt that way because we were frozen in those wintry June days, feeling like our feet were ice blocks and our noses were about to drop off.

I kept wondering about the refugees over at Point Nepean—what they were thinking of Australia and the peninsula, overlooking it all from up on those limestone cliffs, and feeling the blustery winds coming in off the bay.

“Dad thinks they’re still protesting,” Aidan said one lunchtime, a few days after Operation Safe Haven had started.

It was cold, but not raining. We were all outside, bundled in our sweaters and jackets. Aidan, Keira, Jed, and I were sitting on the rocks as usual—except Sam was with us too. Jed had waved him over one day after the fight with Lachie and our detention. And every lunchtime since, Sam would quietly follow us to the rocks and sit with us, but also a little apart. He never said much, unless Jed or Aidan asked him a question. I was too tired to fight about it, either with Sam or Jed.

“What do you mean, ‘still protesting’?” Keira asked.

Aidan cupped his hands around his mouth and huffed into them to warm them up—he’d forgotten his gloves and beanie again. “They’re shoving clothes down the toilets so they back up and stuff. They’re just doing it so they’ll get moved to fancy hotels instead.”

It wasn’t the first I’d heard of protests at the Quarantine Station. The local newspaper had run a story only a few days after the refugees arrived with the headline:

KOSOVARS TRAMPLE ON HOSPITALITY

The story said that on the night they arrived, some of the refugees had gotten back on the bus that brought them and refused to get off again until better accommodations were found. The newspaper ran a two-page “vox pop,” which Mr. Khouri explained to us meant “Voice of the People” when Aidan brought the newspaper in to show our class.

They asked a bunch of locals from up and down the peninsula what they thought of the refugees being here and their protesting. And Aidan’s dad—“Bill McMillan: forty-one, café owner, Sorrento”—had been one of the people whose voice was heard. And what he had to say was this: “Beggars can’t be choosers, can they? If they are, then it means the whole deal is suspect.”

Whatever that meant.