Matron, who lives in a green cinder-block house attached to the little-girls’ dormitory, comes out to greet us. Matron is fat and brown, and wears a black wig that flips up at the ends. From her two-room house, she hears every suspicious rustle and bad word, no matter how softly it’s spoken. We call her Matron to her face, and the Elephant behind her back. It’s the perfect nickname for a hefty woman with sensitive hearing, and even I use the name, but only when I’m absolutely sure there are no adults around to hear me.

Matron claps her hands, and we fall into four straight lines on the side of the road that leads past the orchards, the kitchen gardens, the low-roofed classrooms, and the big-boys’ dormitory built on the edge of the dried playing fields.

“Come, come,” Matron says. “Quick sticks.”

Take too long and Matron will single you out for public punishment. Either a flick of a switch against the back of your legs or a long lecture on obedience and respect for your elders. I prefer the switch. It’s quicker.

Lines form. I move to the end of the first row and find that my usual place is taken by Sandi Cardoza. Of course. I’ve been dumped, and I have to find another space quickly. No way will I be the first student punished for tardiness this term. That honor is usually reserved for Richard B, Gordon Number Three, or Lazy-Eye Matthew.

I slot in beside the scrawny Bartholomew twins and three down from Lottie Diamond. At Keziah, boys and girls make separate lines. We never line up together, and from now until the end of term, the different sexes will eye each other with wary curiosity and intense longing.

“Welcome,” Matron says when the last of the bags flies from the roof of the Ocean Current. “What will you do from now on, boys and girls?”

“Bring honor to the Lord,” we respond.

“How will you behave?”

“With goodness and mercy.”

“Who will you fight?”

“Temptation and the devil.”

“What is your reward?”

“My reward is eternal life.”

I glance sideways as the answer to Matron’s question slides off my tongue with no effort and even less thought. Lottie Diamond keeps her mouth zipped shut. Every school term starts with the same call-and-response. Lottie knows the answers to Matron’s questions. We all do. She simply does not care to say them.

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