Delia, Peaches Armstrong, and Natalie van der Sell are popular girls. They are pretty, and iron their hair straight so it falls in a limp curtain to their shoulders. A team of “pets” runs their errands and carries their books from one classroom to the other. If Keziah is a kingdom, Delia, Peaches, and Natalie are the royal princesses. And, even though their parents are properly married and mine are not, I am supposed to be one of them, sharing their space and bathing in their reflected light. Matron has chosen to keep the girls from respectable families together, and thrown me out. Now where will I end up?

“You’ll be moved to another room,” Matron says. “Understand?”

The baggage handlers lower the generator from the roof of the bus, careful to avoid chipping the pale-blue wave painted along the side. A pickup truck driven by Mrs. Vincent, who wears her ash-blond hair in crooked pigtails, reverses into place, and Gordon Number One, an older boy with brains, helps the bus crew lower the machine onto the flat bed.

“Yes, Matron,” I say. “I understand.”

My eyes sting, and I want to go home.

• • •

A row of tall Christ-thorns, covered in spikes and cheerful red flowers, separates the junior-girls’ dormitory, for the little girls, from the senior-girls’ quarters, for the big girls in their last three years of high school. The prickly hedge, which is planted closer to the big-girls’ dorm, is nicknamed ‘the silent policeman.’ The school claims the thorny plants are meant to shield the windows from prying eyes, but in reality they are there to keep the naughty girls inside at night and to keep the naughty boys outside at all times. If the thorns don’t get you, the poisoned white sap in the leaves will make your skin itch, and then everyone will know you’re one of the bad girls who can’t be trusted.

The weight of the cans and the books that Father brought me from Joburg slows me down, and my right shoulder aches as I hurry toward the long brick building that houses the big-girls’ dormitory. By the time I get there, everyone in the yard is already split into groups of ten, six, and four. Some are obviously happy with their roommates, and others are sullen about who they’ve been assigned to share a space with for the next year.

Delia, Peaches Armstrong, Sandi Cardoza, and Natalie van der Sell link arms and lean against each other, like one tree with four intertwining trunks. They are four pretty girls who glow with pride at being themselves. I pretend they are invisible, and look for a group waiting for me to fill out their uneven number.