All night I have nightmares.
In the last one, I’m in an underground mine. It’s pitch black. Mom and Dad are with me. There’s dynamite going off. If we don’t get out, we’ll be buried alive. We race down narrow corridors, feeling the walls with our hands. An explosion. Rocks crash. “Sami!” Dad’s under the rubble. I scramble to free him. “Sami!” His voice is far away. The more I dig, the farther it gets. And where’s Mom? Another explosion. The floor gives way. I’m falling. Help!
“The devil finds work for idle hands.” That’s what Mom tells me Monday morning.
My suspension’s over, but I was hoping to stay home from school a while longer. I’m afraid of what’ll happen when I go back.
“Nothing will happen,” Mom says. “Just hold your head high and carry on.”
Easy for her to say. She’s taken off work to wait for word from Mr. Bhanjee. If he gets Dad a hearing, she’ll call the Academy and take me with her to the courthouse.
All the same, even Mom knows it’s not business as usual. She drives me to school early, for fear reporters will hassle me if I’m alone on my bike. There’s only a few of them outside now, plus a couple of skinny losers with bad tattoos and fancy cameras: freelance paparazzi for the tabloids. I hold my knapsack over my face at the end of the driveway, as they flash through the car windows. Two or three days and they’ll be gone, I hope, along with the police tape.
Mom drops me off at the main entrance to the Academy. I glance at the statue of Teddy Roosevelt. I wish I had balls like the ones on his horse. Oh well. I bound up the steps to the doors, concentrating like crazy so I don’t trip.
I’m not sure what I was expecting, but this isn’t it. I mean, usually it feels like everyone’s staring at me, but they really aren’t. Today it’s like nobody’s staring at me, but they really are. All down the hall, students are hanging out at their lockers, bragging about their weekends. But the minute they see me, they go quiet and stare at their gym bags. I pass, and it’s whistles and talk again.
The entire day is like this. At least I manage to avoid Eddy Duh Turd. Until last period, that is.
I take my seat in Mr. Bernstein’s class. I’m the first one there. He nods at me, all friendly, his smile so normal it’s bizarre. Does he think I don’t know that he knows about Dad? That he’s just landed from Mars or something? The giveaway is, he doesn’t say anything. Cuz, what can he say? How was your weekend, Sami?
The class spills into the room. It’s like in the halls: Idiot Central till they see me, then they act like they’re in chapel. Except for Eddy. On his way past, he mouths “Osama” and gives me a creepy wink.
Mr. Bernstein revs into gear. “We’ve spent the last week and a half discussing the Cold War, yes? On the one hand, our very real need to guard against dangers at home and abroad. But on the other, our equally real need to remember what happens to freedom when we cross the border into the land of fear.” And he leaps into a riff about other examples: the attacks on the labor movements of the early 1900s, the spying campaign against African-American leaders before the Civil Rights Act, and the internment of Japanese-Americans during World War II.
Out of nowhere he stops and grins. “Your turn.”
Silence.
Hunh? Normally there’s questions. Arguments. Ideas bouncing back and forth like balls at a ping-pong tournament. Not today.
“Come on,” Mr. Bernstein smiles. “I hope I said something to offend you.” More silence. “Really? You accept everything I say? Nothing to challenge? Oh please. There’s always something to challenge. Something to get excited about.”
Everyone stares at their desks, like they know something’s up. Then Eddy raises his hand. Not excited or anything. Just casual, almost bored. Mr. Bernstein waits a bit to make sure he’s not just stretching.
“Mr. Harrison,” he says. “How can I help you?”
Eddy curls the corner of his lips. “Well, sir, we get why you go on about minorities and all. But what if a minority needs watching? What if it’s a deadly enemy?”
“Once upon a time,” Mr. Bernstein says, “every group I’ve mentioned was thought to be an enemy that needed watching.”
“But today is different, isn’t it, sir?” He says it cold, like a statement. “If you have a cancer, you don’t pretend it doesn’t exist, do you, sir? No. You cut it out.”
The room goes dead. I grip a pencil, keep my head down.
“We remove individuals, Mr. Harrison,” Mr. Bernstein says calmly. “Not groups.”
“Even when those groups are full of terrorists?” Eddy taunts.
Die, die, why can’t I die?
Mr. Bernstein leans against his desk. “The Holocaust was so indescribably evil, it represents the worst terrorism the world can imagine,” he says. “Nonetheless, we blame the Nazis for its horrors, not the entire German population.”
“With all due respect, sir, that was then. There. I’m talking here. Now. There’s terrorists in Meadowvale. One got arrested Friday.”
“An alleged terrorist,” Mr. Bernstein interrupts.
“Yeah, well, we’re lucky to be alive. I say we round ’em up and send ’em back where they came from.”
I whirl around. “I was born here, Eddy, same as you.”
Mr. Bernstein leaps up. “Boys. Let’s keep the personal out of this.”
“How?” I say. “How???”
Eddy grins, his face a bubble of puss-joy. He’s got me.
But Mr. Bernstein throws a curve. “We’ve had terrorists in this country before,” he says, his voice edgy as razors. “Ever heard of the Ku Klux Klan? It lynched African-Americans and torched their communities. It murdered Jews too, and attacked Catholics, homosexuals, and immigrants.” Mr. Bernstein’s voice pitches higher. “By the early nineteen-twenties, its members included fifteen percent of all adult, white, Protestant males, including society leaders, several governors, and judges. And it had at least one very sympathetic president.” He pauses. “Today white supremacists thrive in violent, underground militias. That’s here! That’s now!” A beat, and he swoops in for the kill. “Tell me, Mr. Harrison, what would you say if your father was treated like a terrorist, simply for being a white, Christian male?”
An ugly smile rolls across Eddy’s face. “Are you saying my father’s a white supremacist, sir? Are you calling him a Nazi terrorist?”
“No,” Mr. Bernstein snaps. “I’m saying that we condemn the bloody terrorism of white supremacists, but not the entire ethnic and religious group from which they come.”
Mr. Bernstein and Eddy eyeball each other. Neither backs off.
“I want each of you to write a short essay for discussion,” Mr. Bernstein says to the class. “Where should we draw the line between liberty and security? When, if ever, should we give up our rights?”
Eddy pulls out his laptop; it’s his excuse to look away.
Mr. Bernstein sits behind his desk. He watches us for a while, then opens a file folder full of paperwork.
Suddenly…
Rata-tata-tata-tata-tata-tata-tata!
We leap from our desks. Somebody’s tossed a string of firecrackers into the middle aisle.
Mr. Bernstein’s eyes blaze at Eddy. “Who did this?”
Nobody says anything. Like me, they didn’t see. Or they’re too scared to say.