Olive and Liza, the crooked accountant from the ship, had become inseparable. They emboldened each other. Olive altered her uniform, trimming and tying and hemming it to show more cleavage and leg. Liza painted her lips with berry juice and rimmed her eyes with charcoal. They nuzzled each other’s necks in the courtyard and pinched each other’s backsides when the guards’ backs were turned. By bribing a susceptible guard, they even managed to sleep together in the same bed.

One afternoon, when several dozen members of the Flash Mob were singing and dancing loudly in yard one, the matron arrived, flush-faced, to see what the commotion was about.

“Who is the ringleader?” she demanded.

Usually the Flash Mob fell silent when the matron showed up, but this time they did not. They squatted on the floor, hooting and stamping their feet, chanting, “We are all alike, we are all alike, we are all alike.”

“This is your chance to declare that you are not a member of a mob,” Mrs. Hutchinson shouted. “Every one of you risks severe punishment!”

The women yelled and clapped and clacked their tongues.

In the chaos of the moment, Olive managed to slip out of sight. But nine convicts were sentenced to the crime yard for six months, with a month in solitary after that, and two of the instigators had years added to their time.

Hazel watched from a distance. She wasn’t interested in getting away with anything. Her only goal was to earn her ticket of leave as early as she could for good behavior, like some women did, and make a new life for herself and Ruby, somewhere safe and free.

At the height of summer, the sun was so hot that it burned the tips of the leaves on the trees and baked the dirt on Macquarie Street until it cracked. But deep in the valley, inside the high stone walls of the prison, it was gloomy and damp. The stone floors were often soupy and slick. When the rivulet overflowed, the entire place was ankle-deep in foul water. It was a relief to leave the premises each day, to walk to the nursery past picturesque cottages with neat picket fences and hills wheaten in the distance, dotted with sheep.

Over the weeks and months, the faces of the women walking to the nursery changed, but the numbers stayed roughly the same. New mothers joined the line; those whose babies were six months old were sent to serve their time in the crime yard. When Ruby turned six months old she was forcibly weaned, and Olive was discharged. Hazel was only allowed to stay in the nursery because of her skills in the delivery room and treating sickly infants. Knowing that the eyes of the overseer were always on her, she was careful to make the rounds, to hold and change the other children, but her heart kept tugging her back to Ruby as if tied to the baby by a string.