Lottie slumps onto her cot with the wad of wet underwear clutched in her hands. “Fight or no fight, it doesn’t matter,” she says. “Mrs. Thomas will check under my skirt at morning inspection, and she’ll see that I’m wearing the same underwear as yesterday. I’ll get detention, and Delia and the others will make sure that everyone knows that I wear the same pair every day.”

Once the underwear story gets out, teasing Lottie will become the school sport. Undies, whether they are old, new, lace or plain, are a juicy topic, and Lottie will be poked fun at for a very long time. Little ones will snicker and point. Bold boys will lift her skirt when nobody is watching and make rude comments about what they see. Mrs. Thomas and the Elephant will seize the opportunity to lecture the morning assembly on cleanliness and how being poor is no excuse for being dirty. We will all know who they are talking about. Lottie’s life will be hell. If anyone can take it, though, she can. I wish I was as strong as her.

The thing is, though, right now, sitting across from her, Lottie doesn’t look tough at all. She is deathly pale, fidgeting with her fingers and frowning. She knows what will happen later this morning, and it pains her. So she sits and builds her wall higher; she cements the bricks closer and digs the moat deeper. Being impenetrable takes work. It takes effort. And the wall that shields her from the cruelty of boarding school children is not a birthright given by fairies or God above. It is earned. Lottie builds her wall one stone at a time. Time and time again.

Seeing her naked would be less of a shock than seeing her stripped of her defenses. For the first time, I notice her slight body and bowed shoulders, the glimpse of scalp through her cropped short hair and how she is smaller than I imagined her, and how, for some reason, seeing her prepare for certain hurt and ridicule makes me sad. And it makes me mad: mad enough to do a mad, crazy thing.

I rip the third drawer open and fish out a pair of blue undies with a white bow at the front. Mother bought them from the hypermarket on Louw Street, which makes them the perfect pushback against Delia and her girls. They probably own underwear just like this.

“If Matron asks, they’re from the new hypermarket. The one that Sandi Cardoza’s father owns.” I drop the underwear into Lottie’s lap and pull on my uniform. Delia will know that the undies belong to me, but right now, I don’t care.

“You’re sure?” Lottie touches the cotton the same way that Mother skims her fingers over jacket sleeves and dress skirts to judge the quality of the material when we are out shopping.

“Keep them.”