The sun was sinking, creating a soft chill that carried the scent of wood fires being lit for the night. Sarah was beginning to feel hungry. The road beyond the school stretched away, across miles of wheat and open fields to the dark band of trees on the edge of the escarpment. When she was out riding, she liked to lean down from the saddle and gather handfuls of seeds and berries. Later she would thread a wire through them and make a bracelet or a choker. They were in demand, these pieces of jewellery she crafted, and she was working on a birthday present for her best friend. She liked Camilla Broughton-Smith, even though she was so organised, always top of their class and very popular. Her father was important and popular too. Perhaps these things ran in families. They had started boarding school together, and on that first evening Sarah had wept inconsolably for hours, after her parents’ car disappeared down the long drive. During the days that followed, her loneliness had increased. The other girls had made fun of her homesickness, of the dip in the hem of her uniform and the new school shoes that were too shiny. Camilla had come to her rescue, scornfully disposing of would-be bullies, offering to help with homework and to share her impressive weekend wardrobe. Camilla’s pen never leaked, never smudged her fingers or her school shirt. Her exercise books were neat and so was her cupboard. She casually dismissed problems that made other people cry. The teachers sometimes said that the girl was unnaturally hard for her age, that her veneer would crack one day, with disastrous consequences. Sarah wished that she had been given the same tough shell.

She glanced up at the darkening sky. There would be deep trouble if they had to send someone out to look for her after tea. It could be nearly as bad as when she had found a grass snake and let it loose in the classroom. It was Hannah van der Beer who had given her away, looking over at Sarah, covering her wide, laughing mouth with her hand as Sister Evangelis shrieked and leapt up from her chair. Hannah, with her thick, flax-coloured hair, her loud voice and flat accent. Sarah secretly envied the overbearing manner of the Afrikaans girl. She made you feel inadequate, a weakling. Boers, her mother said they were, people of Dutch origin from South Africa. They had come at the turn of the century, trekking in their covered wagons to reach the highlands of Kenya and carve their farms out of the bushland.