She shrugs. “A small farm with cows and goats and a view of the mountains. I’d leave the trees for the birds, and the fields for the wild animals. There’s a river to swim in, and I have . . . uh . . .” Lottie leaves the sentence hanging and motions to Jane Eyre. “Enough about us. How’s Jane going to find a job and get free?”

I’d love to know the secret word that Lottie left off the end of her sentence, but now is not the time to push. The two of us speaking honestly to each other is wonder enough. I give her Jane Eyre and say, “Your turn.”

Lottie licks her lips and clears her throat. Reading aloud in class is indeed excruciating. Mistakes aren’t allowed. Mispronunciations are greeted with the whack of a ruler across your palm if the teacher is being kind, and a rap across the knuckles with the metal edge if the teacher is not.

“Go slow,” I say. “We’ve got plenty of time till lights-out.”

“Here a bell, ringing the hour of supper, called me downstairs.” Lottie begins reading where I left off, and I am Jane Eyre and I am also Adele Joubert, a mixed-race student at Keziah Christian Academy in the British protectorate of Swaziland, where lightning strikes outside the windows and wind tugs at the red flowers of the Christ-thorns. I am here, and I am there—balanced between two worlds.

It’s wonderful.

I forget that the Lord giveth and . . .

15

The Lord Taketh Away

A bell rings from far off, and the sound grows louder as another bell near the dining hall dings. Outside the high window that faces Mrs. Thomas’s house, a third bell joins the chorus. Footsteps hurry across the dirt yard. The dormitory door flies open and hits the inside wall, and bang . . . I am 100 percent back in Swaziland.

“Fire,” Mrs. Thomas shrieks. “Fire!”

Lottie drops Jane Eyre on top of my pillow and jumps up to open the wardrobe. She pulls my sweater from the hanger and throws it across the room.

“Put it on.”

“But fire is hot,” I say even as I shove my arms into the sleeves and do up the buttons with shaking hands. Alarm bells ring from every corner of the school grounds. Lottie shrugs on her thin sweater and drags me into the hall, where dozens of frightened girls gather. Mrs. Thomas stands in the doorway and rings the alarm bell for all she’s worth. Her arm shakes from the weight of swinging an actual brass bell with the word alarm written across the handle in blue pen.

“Where’s the fire?” Brenda, the student with the nasal voice, yells over Mrs. Thomas’s clanging. Everyone knows that Brenda has a brother with a limp, and that it’s her job to take care of him in a flood or, like now, in a fire.