Our rapid elevation to top girls is breathtaking and confusing. I’ve been high and fallen low, and, strangely enough, being low isn’t so bad.

Mr. Vincent continues. “To acknowledge their bravery and courage, Lottie and Adele will receive a Golden Sun Award at a ceremony next Friday, and well deserved. Following the Golden Sun Awards, there’ll be a special dinner to thank you all for the hard work that each of you did in keeping Keziah safe from the flames.”

Excited voices break the silence. Golden Sun Awards are scarce, but nothing compared to a special dinner of roast beef with gravy and slices of corn bread smothered in butter. One of the younger boys claps his hands and says, “I want second helpings!” Everyone laughs . . . a rare sound in the chapel, where we usually try to maintain silence and holiness. Mr. Vincent and the senior teachers let the chatter die down on its own. After the fire, we have all earned the right to make a little noise, and two hours of rest and contemplation before lunch.

We sing the final hymn, “To God Be the Glory,” and Lottie and I leave the chapel with little girls gathered around us like bridesmaids. It’s sweet. We have pets, and it didn’t cost me one piece of impago. Boys stare at us, and final-year girls, who are usually standoffish, acknowledge our existence with quick nods. If there’s a place above the top students, then that’s where Lottie and I now sit. Delia, Peaches, Natalie, and Sandi Cardoza smile stiff smiles and pretend they love us, too, but I see right through them.

“Sour grapes,” Lottie says of them, and I understand their resentment. It’s hard to fall all the way down to ordinary. It feels like failure: a small death that wipes out the old you and replaces her with a cheaper version. I can’t find it in me to care, though. Despite our temporary status, Delia and the others still have pocket money and rich parents and pretty faces. I was pushed off the top shelf and forced to share Dead Lorraine’s room with lower-shelf Lottie Diamond. I survived. Delia and her girls will recover soon enough.

• • •

Lottie and I find a pool of shade under an indoni tree with a distant view of the river. I open a bag of toffee chews and crack open Jane Eyre to where we left off reading in the early hours of this morning. I give the book to Lottie. She’ll read too fast, as usual, but she saved my life last night, so it seems like giving her the first turn is the least I can do.