“Good morning,” Hanna replied. She was startled that her own voice sounded quite calm. Quickly she slid into her seat and opened her reader.

For the moment, it seemed that the girls were following Miss Walters’s example—acting as if nothing was out of the ordinary. They made their way to their desks as the bell rang and the other students began entering. Hanna didn’t dare steal a glance at Dolly’s face.

The younger pupils moved toward the front of the room. None of them took any notice of her. But as the older boys went to their places across the center aisle, Hanna heard whispering. She kept her eyes resolutely on her book even as those whispers seemed to crawl down her spine.

“Quiet, please,” Miss Walters said firmly. “Fifth Reader class, please choose a selection and use it for your grammar lesson. Parse a sentence of at least ten words on your slates. Fourth Reader class, rise and come forward.”

She’s not asking the Fifth Reader class to come to the front. Which spares me having to stand up there.

Miss Walters did not look in Hanna’s direction, but Hanna sensed the most fragile of ties between them.

6

BY THE END OF THE MORNING, all but the youngest students were aware of Hanna. The room seethed with suppressed excitement and curiosity. Miss Walters called for quiet again, this time in a sharper voice, which kept students from turning around to stare.

Hanna was mired in misery. What would happen at the noon hour? Should she stay in her seat? Every student in the school would pass her desk on the way out. She could not bear the thought of their stares and whispers. But if she got up quickly and was first out the door, it would look like she was running away.

Miss Walters was hearing the youngest students recite their arithmetic lesson. When they were finished, she rose from her chair and walked around to the front of her desk.

“I have a special assignment for each one of you,” she said. “LaForge is a new town, and we are all new here. Please go home for your dinners, and return prepared to tell me about where each of you have come from—where you were born and lived before you moved to LaForge. You are dismissed.”

As the teacher was speaking, an idea came to Hanna. She picked up her dinner pail, which had been on the floor at her feet, and put it on her desk. Then she bowed her head, folded her hands in front of her face, and closed her eyes.

Not even the boldest student would dare bother her if she was saying grace.

Hanna raised her head and glanced around slowly. The room was almost empty. Near the front, the two homestead children were opening their dinner pails, with Miss Walters knitting at her desk just beyond. No one said anything to Hanna.