“Fight! Fight! Fight!” The call goes out from the yard behind the little-girls’ dormitory, and students run from all directions. The big-girls’ dorm empties, even though we are meant to be cleaning our rooms for Mrs. Thomas’s Wednesday afternoon inspection. Fights help to break up the monotony of school life, and they are must-see events. I push to the front of the mixed-race crowd with the other older girls. The Bartholomew twins face each other with flushed cheeks. Between them is a thick crop of grass, neatly braided and decorated with yellow thread. A grass doll. Highly prized.

“It’s mine,” the twin with the white ribbon in her hair says. “I found it yesterday.”

“You stole my yellow thread, so it’s mine,” the twin with the blue ribbon says, and they meet each other with nails and teeth. They roll in the dirt, scratch, and pull hair. White Ribbon holds Blue Ribbon down. Girls yell encouragement.

“Get her!”

“Throw her off!”

“Roll her over. Roll her over . . .”

The twins are evenly matched, and the fight continues, vicious and unrelenting. The crowd grows. The noise intensifies. We forget about the Elephant’s sharp ears and Mrs. Thomas’s sharp tongue and the rule against fighting. Blue Ribbon throws her twin off, and I step back to avoid being kicked. I collide with Lottie, who breaks through the front ranks and grabs White Ribbon by the shoulders.

“The Elephant is coming,” she says in a fierce whisper, and the crowd dissolves. Some run to the stand of wild bananas at the edge of the vacant field; others slip away to the laundry room and the rear of the dining hall. I blink and the twins are gone, the grass doll trampled by the crowd. Beatrice, one of Delia’s pets, is immobilized with fear. If she’s caught on the scene, she will be punished, and then punished again for not giving up the names of those involved in the fight—which no self-respecting student would ever do.

I grab Beatrice and hurry her into the Christ-thorns, where we press against the wall of the big-girls’ dorm. We hold our breath. The Elephant rounds the corner with her wig askew. She catnaps in the afternoons, and heaven help the person who wakes her. The closer she gets to us, the more I realize my mistake. If she glances to the right, she’ll see us stuck to the wall like the insect specimens in the science room.

“Quick.” Lottie holds her hand out of our window. “In here.”