“Yes, Matron.” I stand with my arms by my side and my gaze pinned to the tops of my shoes. Making eye contact with an adult is a sign of disrespect, and I always follow the rules. Ants scurry across the dirt, carrying crumbs that have fallen from the clothes of those who ate their impago on the bus. My stomach rumbles.
“Now listen, Adele. Some things have changed.”
My head jerks up at Matron’s overly sweet tone. “What things, Matron?”
“Well . . . Mr. Cardoza is very concerned that his daughter fit in at Keziah. He heard we had trouble with the power generator, and he donated a new one so everything goes smoothly. He wants Sandi to be comfortable, so she’ll be sharing a quad room with Delia, Peaches, and Natalie.”
That is my place.
Delia, Peaches Armstrong, and Natalie van der Sell are popular girls. They are pretty, and iron their hair straight so it falls in a limp curtain to their shoulders. A team of “pets” runs their errands and carries their books from one classroom to the other. If Keziah is a kingdom, Delia, Peaches, and Natalie are the royal princesses. And, even though their parents are properly married and mine are not, I am supposed to be one of them, sharing their space and bathing in their reflected light. Matron has chosen to keep the girls from respectable families together, and thrown me out. Now where will I end up?
“You’ll be moved to another room,” Matron says. “Understand?”
The baggage handlers lower the generator from the roof of the bus, careful to avoid chipping the pale-blue wave painted along the side. A pickup truck driven by Mrs. Vincent, who wears her ash-blond hair in crooked pigtails, reverses into place, and Gordon Number One, an older boy with brains, helps the bus crew lower the machine onto the flat bed.
“Yes, Matron,” I say. “I understand.”
My eyes sting, and I want to go home.
* * *
• • •
A row of tall Christ-thorns, covered in spikes and cheerful red flowers, separates the junior-girls’ dormitory, for the little girls, from the senior-girls’ quarters, for the big girls in their last three years of high school. The prickly hedge, which is planted closer to the big-girls’ dorm, is nicknamed ‘the silent policeman.’ The school claims the thorny plants are meant to shield the windows from prying eyes, but in reality they are there to keep the naughty girls inside at night and to keep the naughty boys outside at all times. If the thorns don’t get you, the poisoned white sap in the leaves will make your skin itch, and then everyone will know you’re one of the bad girls who can’t be trusted.
The weight of the cans and the books that Father brought me from Joburg slows me down, and my right shoulder aches as I hurry toward the long brick building that houses the big-girls’ dormitory. By the time I get there, everyone in the yard is already split into groups of ten, six, and four. Some are obviously happy with their roommates, and others are sullen about who they’ve been assigned to share a space with for the next year.
Delia, Peaches Armstrong, Sandi Cardoza, and Natalie van der Sell link arms and lean against each other, like one tree with four intertwining trunks. They are four pretty girls who glow with pride at being themselves. I pretend they are invisible, and look for a group waiting for me to fill out their uneven number.
“Ah, Adele, there you are.” Mrs. Thomas, who’s in charge of the senior-girls’ dormitory, looks up from the sheet of paper in her hand. Mrs. Thomas is a skinny mixed-race widow with a gap in her front teeth that makes a whistling sound when she talks, and, though she is also a matron, she prefers being called by her married name. Delia says that’s stupid. Mrs. Thomas was only married for three months before her husband died in a farm accident. “Everyone to your rooms, please. Choose your beds and unpack your clothes. No fighting or you’ll get a week’s punishment. Supper is at six sharp.”
The girls drift inside. Some lug suitcases, and others carry reused flour sacks stuffed with all that they own.
Wait, wait. My heart thunders in my ears. Where am I supposed to go?
Mrs. Thomas clears her throat and waves me closer. Delia and the pretties—a name that Delia herself coined for her group—hover on the front porch, desperate to see what happens next. They have money in their pockets, but gossip is also a form of currency.
“Off you go,” Mrs. Thomas says to the girls in a brisk voice. “It will take a while for you all to unpack your suitcases.”
Delia pulls a face when Mrs. Thomas turns away, and I realize that Mrs. Thomas just made a dig at the amount of clothes, cans, and trinkets that the top girls bring with them to school. Suddenly it doesn’t feel so good to be one of them. Then I remember that I’m not a princess anymore . . . I am standing in the dirt yard with an aching shoulder and dusty shoes, waiting to be assigned a cot inside the dormitory.
“Adele . . .” Color stings Mrs. Thomas’s cheeks, and I know that she has bad news for me. “Matron told you we’ve had to rearrange the rooms?”
Ahh.
I see the bags under Mrs. Thomas’s eyes and the turned-down corners of her mouth. She’s in one of her sad moods, so she’s trying to be nice, but I don’t want to draw the torture out any longer. “Where do I sleep, Mrs. Thomas?”
She flips the piece of paper over in her hand, and girls’ names spin from one side to the other. “We’ve made a special room for you and one other student. When you sweep it out and wash the floors, you’ll see that it’s nice. I think you’ll be happy there, and it’s only for this term. Not for the whole school year, you understand. And maybe, in a little while, if we find another space—”
“Wait. Are you talking about the green room where Lorraine Anderson died?” That room is haunted. There’s disease trapped inside the walls, and the peeling paint is infected with whatever killed Lorraine. Everyone knows that.
“First,” Mrs. Thomas says, “interrupting an adult is against the rules, Adele. You should know better. And, second, whatever you heard about Lorraine is not true. She didn’t die in the room. She died in the Norwegian hospital in Mahamba.”
That is a big, fat lie. Everyone knows Lorraine was stone-cold dead before Mr. and Mrs. Vincent rushed her to Mahamba in the back of their car. The mercy dash to the hospital was for show . . . That’s why the room’s been empty for three years. Nobody will sleep in it. Their parents won’t let them.
“Third”—Mrs. Thomas keeps counting—“there’s nothing to be done about the situation we’re in. You will have to cope.”
I grit my teeth to stop from yelling, My father is white. He pays full fees. I am supposed to get first pick of rooms. My parents aren’t married and my father hasn’t donated a new generator but still . . . That’s how things are. Mrs. Thomas blushes, because she knows the rules have been broken. It is outrageous, and nothing she says will make it better. I grab my suitcase and drag it onto the porch.