I think about it. Maybe I was wrong about losing the pretties at lunchtime. Tonight could be my last-ever chance to regain a place with them. Surely, it’s worth another try? But I stay where I am. I don’t move, not even to scratch my itchy nose. Lottie, meanwhile, leans close to the candle flame and reads a book. We’re allowed only one book a week from the novel box in Mrs. McDonald’s English class, and she’ll be finished with hers in no time if she doesn’t slow down and ration the pages. She reads the way she eats: fast and with single-minded focus.

I open the bottom drawer of our shared dresser and take out a piece of paper and a pen. Mother expects two letters per term, mostly to let her know my test scores so she can pass them on to Father via the telephone. I place the paper on top of the dresser, where it catches the light, and I write:

Dear Father,

Does your house in Johannesburg have flowered carpets on the floor and cold beer in the icebox? Once, when you were in the bedroom with Mother, Rian and I looked through your wallet, which you’d left on the side table with the porcelain angels. We thought we’d find a photograph of the others but there was nothing. Just money. It was naughty and Mother would be furious if she knew what we’d done, but we were curious. What do the other children look like? Are they young or old? Tall or short? Do they have curly hair or straight? And what about your wife . . . is she beautiful like Mother only white and do you dance with her to the music on the radio?

I want to know all these things, though Mother says to be grateful for what we have. She says it’s greedy to ask for more. What good will knowing about the others do us? We have a house, a roof that doesn’t leak, beds with mattresses and blankets . . . “Stop asking questions, Adele,” she says. “Be nice. Smile. Make sure that Daddy knows that you love him.”

I am nice. I am grateful. I smile. Sometimes it’s not enough. Sometimes you lose your friends even when you do all the right things. I can’t tell Mother what’s happened to me. I can’t tell you. That’s how things are but I wish that things were different.

Love, your daughter,

Adele Xx