Jed shook his head. “Nah, nothing like that. It’s just . . .”

I yanked on the strap of his backpack then, making him stumble and stop short with me so I could raise my eyebrow at him. (Or try to—I wasn’t as good at it as Mr. Khouri.)

“All right, all right!” Jed huffed. “His dad reckons Luca and Anika having a baby together isn’t . . .” Jed waved his hands, trying to find the words. “Isn’t a good thing—because they’re not married.”

I didn’t know what to say to that. So I’d stalked off, and made Jed run to catch up to me. Sam was way ahead of us by then, and I made Jed swear not to say anything. Which he hadn’t.

Standing in the supermarket aisle I was still lost in my thoughts of what Anika had said, and the gossip that Aidan’s dad was spreading, when Sam suddenly tugged sharply on my sleeve.

“What?” I said, and turned to him—only to see exactly what he was staring at: a little girl about his age, standing in the middle of the cereal aisle with her mouth hanging open and eyes just as wide.

She was one of the refugees from the safe haven.

For one thing, she wasn’t in uniform even though school had just got out—instead she was wearing a black tracksuit top and bottoms, and really old, scuffed runners, and her brown hair was sticking out all over, like she needed a haircut and a brush. For another, she was excited to be at the supermarket—one of the most boring places on Earth.

Three more people rounded the corner—two women wearing headscarves and another little girl in a matching tracksuit who looked like the first one’s little sister. The adults seemed a little . . . worried? But the two girls were practically vibrating with excitement and then they started dancing—right there in the aisles.

They grabbed each other’s hands and started twirling and spinning and giggling, until they twirled and spun a little too fast and knocked over a display of cereal boxes. One of the women scolded them immediately, grabbed one of each girl’s wrists and told them off until they looked like they were about to cry.

“Sam, Fred—go help them.”

I turned around when Anika said that, but she wasn’t looking at the refugee family or the mess they’d made—she was turned toward the other customers in the supermarket, who had stopped what they were doing and were frowning at the family or shaking their heads as they walked away.

“Now, please!” Anika said.

Sam and I hurried over. We both smiled awkwardly while the women kept talking in hushed, angry words to the two girls. The girls stared at us, their eyes still round and curious as we crouched down to stack the boxes back up.