Lottie spins the dreidel while I fold the letter into an envelope and write Mother’s address on the front. “Are you going to send the letter on purpose this time?” she asks. “No accidents with Mrs. Thomas?”

“I’ll post it,” I say. “Who knows? Mother might actually answer my questions.” Writing the second letter is the only way that I can think of to make things different.

The electricity cuts out, and the room goes from light to dark in a blink. I lie on my cot and turn to face Lottie.

“Why did you let me try your dreidel?” I ask. The Jewish spinning top is the last piece of Lottie’s dead father, who is now, according to her, “just bones in the ground.”

Cot springs squeak as Lottie turns to face me in the gloom. I hear the slow inhale and exhale of her breath from across the room.

“When Delia stole my undies, you gave me a new pair and you never asked for it back. We fought the fire and sat with Darnell’s body in the valley. We both hate Bosman and love to read.” Lottie sighs in the darkness. “I gave you the dreidel because you’re my friend, Adele. You’re the best friend I’ve ever had. And when I get that farm, that’s what I want. Friends.”

The lump in my throat makes it hard for me to swallow, and tears sting my eyes. Lottie has put my feelings into words, but writing the second letter to Mother has eaten up all my courage, so I turn to the wall and mash my face into the pillow.

“Night, Lottie,” I say through my tears.

“You big baby,” she says, and her insult makes me laugh.

• • •

The next morning, the Go Lucky Boy bus to Manzini pulls out of the school grounds with the second letter to Mother in its mailbag. Two letters in one week—won’t she be surprised? Maybe she’ll reply to one or both of the letters. Maybe she won’t reply at all.

That night, I reopen Jane Eyre and dive back into the story, desperate to take my mind off the letters and Mother’s reaction to their content. Darnell’s funeral and the whispers that followed us afterward threw us off course. Jane was pushed to the back of our minds but, once again, Jane is here to save us. Jane will take us far from Swaziland and from our troubles.

Lottie reads her fair share of the story, and I find that I actually enjoy being a listener, free to imagine the windswept moors and the poor schoolhouse where Jane found work after she ran away from Rochester and the mad wife he kept hidden in a secret room.