Laura edged up through the crowd. Everyone was shouting, and their hands were full—not with weapons, but with all kinds of strange stuff: bags of bread rolls, transistor radios, even a handful of marigolds snatched from some windowpot. They were thrusting them at the police, begging them to take them. A middle-aged Chinese matron was shouting passionately at a police captain. "You are our brothers! We are all Singaporeans. Singaporeans do not kill each other!"