The late bus to Manzini, a dusty brown behemoth with the name Lord Have Mercy painted on the side, passes us on our way from afternoon study hall to the senior-girls’ dorm. Dinner is in half an hour, and we have just enough time to wipe the dust from our shoes and wash our faces. Mrs. Vincent has decided that it’s time for Lottie and me to “reintegrate” into the student population, so no more private dinners.

I comb the knots from my hair and drop the brush onto the chest of drawers. My hand stills, and my mind spins. I pull open the drawers and search them one by one, and then I drop to the floor and sweep my hands over the floor while my heart goes flip, flip, flip.

“What is it?” Lottie asks.

“The letter to my mother. It was right here on top. Right here. Did you take it?”

“No. I’ve been with you the whole time, remember?” Lottie runs a plastic comb through her short-cropped hair, and it’s true that we are a society of two. We eat together and walk from blue classroom to blue classroom together, all the while pretending that being outcasts doesn’t bother us one bit.

“Then it might . . .” Two terrible thoughts hit me at once. Either Delia has stolen the letter as payback for the slap and plans to read it out loud to anyone who’ll listen, or something far, far worse has happened.

I hurry outside, sick with fear. Socks the cat sleeps in the last rays of sunlight to fall across the front stairs of Mrs. Thomas’s cement-brick house. I knock, and, on the off chance that Jesus is in the vicinity, I pray. Please let the letter be inside and propped against the endless row of wedding photos.

Socks yawns and stretches out, a hundred miles from care.

“Ah, Adele.” Mrs. Thomas smiles to see me at the door—still in her soft, dreamy mood. “You came about the letter?”

“Yes.” I shift from right foot to left foot. “That’s correct.”

“It was a rush, but I got it into the Lord Have Mercy mailbag. It will be in Manzini this evening, and your mother will get it tomorrow or the next day.” She reaches out and touches my shoulder.

I am speechless.

“It’s good that you write to your mother, Adele. Keeping contact with the outside world is important. I’m sure she’ll be delighted to hear from you.”