When the Ground Is Hard Read online

  That is my place.

  Delia, Peaches Armstrong, and Natalie van der Sell are popular girls. They are pretty, and iron their hair straight so it falls in a limp curtain to their shoulders. A team of “pets” runs their errands and carries their books from one classroom to the other. If Keziah is a kingdom, Delia, Peaches, and Natalie are the royal princesses. And, even though their parents are properly married and mine are not, I am supposed to be one of them, sharing their space and bathing in their reflected light. Matron has chosen to keep the girls from respectable families together, and thrown me out. Now where will I end up?

  “You’ll be moved to another room,” Matron says. “Understand?”

  The baggage handlers lower the generator from the roof of the bus, careful to avoid chipping the pale-blue wave painted along the side. A pickup truck driven by Mrs. Vincent, who wears her ash-blond hair in crooked pigtails, reverses into place, and Gordon Number One, an older boy with brains, helps the bus crew lower the machine onto the flat bed.

  “Yes, Matron,” I say. “I understand.”

  My eyes sting, and I want to go home.

  * * *

  • • •

  A row of tall Christ-thorns, covered in spikes and cheerful red flowers, separates the junior-girls’ dormitory, for the little girls, from the senior-girls’ quarters, for the big girls in their last three years of high school. The prickly hedge, which is planted closer to the big-girls’ dorm, is nicknamed ‘the silent policeman.’ The school claims the thorny plants are meant to shield the windows from prying eyes, but in reality they are there to keep the naughty girls inside at night and to keep the naughty boys outside at all times. If the thorns don’t get you, the poisoned white sap in the leaves will make your skin itch, and then everyone will know you’re one of the bad girls who can’t be trusted.

  The weight of the cans and the books that Father brought me from Joburg slows me down, and my right shoulder aches as I hurry toward the long brick building that houses the big-girls’ dormitory. By the time I get there, everyone in the yard is already split into groups of ten, six, and four. Some are obviously happy with their roommates, and others are sullen about who they’ve been assigned to share a space with for the next year.

  Delia, Peaches Armstrong, Sandi Cardoza, and Natalie van der Sell link arms and lean against each other, like one tree with four intertwining trunks. They are four pretty girls who glow with pride at being themselves. I pretend they are invisible, and look for a group waiting for me to fill out their uneven number.

  “Ah, Adele, there you are.” Mrs. Thomas, who’s in charge of the senior-girls’ dormitory, looks up from the sheet of paper in her hand. Mrs. Thomas is a skinny mixed-race widow with a gap in her front teeth that makes a whistling sound when she talks, and, though she is also a matron, she prefers being called by her married name. Delia says that’s stupid. Mrs. Thomas was only married for three months before her husband died in a farm accident. “Everyone to your rooms, please. Choose your beds and unpack your clothes. No fighting or you’ll get a week’s punishment. Supper is at six sharp.”

  The girls drift inside. Some lug suitcases, and others carry reused flour sacks stuffed with all that they own.

  Wait, wait. My heart thunders in my ears. Where am I supposed to go?

  Mrs. Thomas clears her throat and waves me closer. Delia and the pretties—a name that Delia herself coined for her group—hover on the front porch, desperate to see what happens next. They have money in their pockets, but gossip is also a form of currency.

  “Off you go,” Mrs. Thomas says to the girls in a brisk voice. “It will take a while for you all to unpack your suitcases.”

  Delia pulls a face when Mrs. Thomas turns away, and I realize that Mrs. Thomas just made a dig at the amount of clothes, cans, and trinkets that the top girls bring with them to school. Suddenly it doesn’t feel so good to be one of them. Then I remember that I’m not a princess anymore . . . I am standing in the dirt yard with an aching shoulder and dusty shoes, waiting to be assigned a cot inside the dormitory.

  “Adele . . .” Color stings Mrs. Thomas’s cheeks, and I know that she has bad news for me. “Matron told you we’ve had to rearrange the rooms?”

  Ahh.

  I see the bags under Mrs. Thomas’s eyes and the turned-down corners of her mouth. She’s in one of her sad moods, so she’s trying to be nice, but I don’t want to draw the torture out any longer. “Where do I sleep, Mrs. Thomas?”

  She flips the piece of paper over in her hand, and girls’ names spin from one side to the other. “We’ve made a special room for you and one other student. When you sweep it out and wash the floors, you’ll see that it’s nice. I think you’ll be happy there, and it’s only for this term. Not for the whole school year, you understand. And maybe, in a little while, if we find another space—”

  “Wait. Are you talking about the green room where Lorraine Anderson died?” That room is haunted. There’s disease trapped inside the walls, and the peeling paint is infected with whatever killed Lorraine. Everyone knows that.

  “First,” Mrs. Thomas says, “interrupting an adult is against the rules, Adele. You should know better. And, second, whatever you heard about Lorraine is not true. She didn’t die in the room. She died in the Norwegian hospital in Mahamba.”

  That is a big, fat lie. Everyone knows Lorraine was stone-cold dead before Mr. and Mrs. Vincent rushed her to Mahamba in the back of their car. The mercy dash to the hospital was for show . . . That’s why the room’s been empty for three years. Nobody will sleep in it. Their parents won’t let them.

  “Third”—Mrs. Thomas keeps counting—“there’s nothing to be done about the situation we’re in. You will have to cope.”

  I grit my teeth to stop from yelling, My father is white. He pays full fees. I am supposed to get first pick of rooms. My parents aren’t married and my father hasn’t donated a new generator but still . . . That’s how things are. Mrs. Thomas blushes, because she knows the rules have been broken. It is outrageous, and nothing she says will make it better. I grab my suitcase and drag it onto the porch.

  “Adele . . .”

  I turn my back on Mrs. Thomas, something that I’ve never done before, because nice girls aren’t rude. Nice girls don’t break the rules, but putting me in a dead girl’s room is not nice, so I don’t care.

  5

  This Is Where You Live Now

  The room is small and dusty, with two cots pushed against the pea-green walls. A high window lets in slanted light, and a second, lower window lets in a breeze that stirs the dust motes in the air. I cover my mouth and nose, and try not to breathe too deeply. The dead are lonely. Lorraine’s ghost is waiting for a warm body to move into so she can laugh, talk, and eat again.

  I sit on the edge of the right-side cot, with my sore shoulder slumped. I could call the mechanic’s shop back home in Manzini and get one of the mechanics to go and get Mrs. Button, who lives in the pink house behind the yard where scrap cars are kept for their parts. Mrs. Button is a widow with three children working in South Africa. She has time to kill, so she can walk over to our place and get Mother. Then Mother could use the mechanic’s phone to call the principal’s office and complain to Mr. Vincent about the room. But I don’t want her to know I’ve been dumped. Mother wants me to be everything that she wasn’t: popular and clever with books. The truth will hurt her. Mrs. Thomas is right. I will have to make the most of it.

  This is where I live now: in a haunted room that no one will come near. A shadow falls across the doorway. Lottie Diamond steps inside and throws her sack onto the cot opposite mine like she doesn’t care about Lorraine’s ghost or the dust on the window ledges. Of course. This room is probably a palace compared to the tin shack where she lives, and it’s definitely a step up from the long room that she shared with nine other small-fee and no-fee students last year. Lottie is poor and prone to fighting, but
she gets good marks and, with the help of the money that the Vincents raise overseas, she’s on track to pass her final exams. That must be why Mrs. Thomas chose her to share a two-cot room.

  This is the worst day of my life.

  Lottie sighs like she’s the one with the problem . . . like she’s the one whose whole life has been turned upside down in one day.

  “Are you going to help me clean the room, or are you going to sit there and sulk?” she asks.

  “I’m not sulking,” I snap. “My shoulder is sore. That’s all.”

  “All right. You do the dusting, and I’ll scrub the floors. We’ll choke in our sleep otherwise.”

  “Fine.” I shove my suitcase and my impago box deep under my cot, where she can’t get them. I’ll have to eat the food later, when she’s not around. Lottie steps outside, and I follow her into the hallway. From behind closed doors, I hear excited chatter and the sound of drawers opening and closing. The girls in the other rooms are catching up on what happened during the Christmas holidays just passed. Their rooms were cleaned by an army of black women this morning. I bet the black women refused to come anywhere near our room. They know about the evil spirits the missionaries tell us are rubbish.

  We walk across the dirt yard to the lavender hedge and the house where Mrs. Thomas lives. I knock. Or rather, Lottie steps back so I’m forced to knock. A yellow cat with white paws, called Socks, weaves between our legs and purrs while we wait.

  “Yes?” Mrs. Thomas’s brown eyes flick from Lottie to me and then back again. She expects that we’ve already had a fight, that we can’t possibly share a room for a whole term, and she’s too deep in her own sad mood to solve the problem. “How can I help you girls?”

  We all know that Mrs. Thomas has mood swings. One day she’s sad and soft, and the next day she’s mean as a mamba snake. Delia says that’s because she went from being a blushing bride to a farm widow in twelve weeks. Twelve weeks! No wonder her mind is cracked.

  “We need a mop and a bucket and a dustcloth from the cleaning shed, Mrs. Thomas. Can we get them, please?” We can’t just take what we want from the shed, the kitchen gardens, or the orchards. We must ask permission. We must say please and thank you.

  “Of course.” Mrs. Thomas is relieved. “How many buckets?”

  “Just the one.” Lottie promised to do the floors, and I am holding her to it. “And one dustcloth.”

  “You’ll need a broom to sweep the room first.” Mrs. Thomas unhooks the key to the main storage shed from a thin metal chain that she wears around her waist and gives it to me. “Take what you like, but be sure to put it back when you’re finished.”

  “We will. Thank you.” I take the key and walk to the iron shed under a grapefruit tree. Only the most desperate students will steal the yellow fruit to eat when they are hungry. It happens when they have no pocket money to buy food from the school shop. A situation I’ve never had to worry about.

  I unlock the shed, and a strange feeling flips my stomach and I stop. I know why Lottie made me ask for the supplies.

  If Lottie had done it, Mrs. Thomas would have made her sign the items out and then sign them back in, the way Mother makes the maid tick off the tins she takes from the pantry. The Bible says, “Ye shall know them by their fruits,” which, Mr. Vincent once explained, means, “Judge a person by their deeds not by their words.” Lottie is found guilty of sins that she hasn’t even committed. She lives under a cloud of suspicion, and, for some reason, knowing this makes me uncomfortable.

  * * *

  • • •

  Long after lights-out and a slow wind-down to sleep, I wake up disoriented. In semidarkness. Moonlight spills in through the high window and onto a freshly washed floor, and the smell of lavender comes from somewhere outside. I remember where I am. I am in the green room where Lorraine Anderson died, in the room that holds her ghost and magnifies the mysterious illness that killed her.

  My heart sinks.

  I sit up and clutch my blankets to my chest. My ears strain for the sound of her footsteps on the cement floor, the whisper of her voice in the air. Lorraine is quiet, though. I peer across the room to where Lottie’s cot is pushed against the opposite wall.

  The cot is empty, and, smack on top of it, right where I can see it, is my impago box. The lid is open. Lottie’s thievery stuns me. She’s probably so used to stealing food that she’s forgotten that it’s wrong.

  I jump out of bed and pad across the floor to the crime scene. There’s a single boiled egg in the box; everything else that Mother packed for me is gone. Lottie ate it all or swapped the contents for cigarettes or whatever else girls like her do for fun when the lights go out.

  I hate her. I hate being stuck in the same room with her. It’s embarrassing to be brought so low on my first day back at school. Lottie cleaned the floors well, but so what? Delia is right. Poor girls can’t be trusted. They’ll take your soap, your underwear, your brand-new dress—not to use, but out of pure spite. They want us to suffer the way they suffer.

  Lord Jesus above. The cans . . .

  I drop onto all fours and scramble under my cot to grab my suitcase. If Lottie’s taken the cans, I’ll have nothing to trade: nothing to help me bribe my way back into Delia’s group. My hands shake as I flip the locks and drag the case into the moonlight. I count four bars of lavender soap, five cans of condensed milk—a premium item—three cans of peaches in syrup, four tins of Spam, one bag of toffee chews, and two packets of shortbread biscuits and one of strawberry creams, another premium item. It’s all here. Including Jane Eyre and three other books that Father brought me from Joburg.

  I close the lid and shove my suitcase far, far under the cot. That won’t stop Lottie, but it makes me feel better to think she’ll have to work for what she steals. With the cans secure, I sit on the edge of my bed with my hands in fists, and I don’t have to wait long before I hear footsteps picking their way through the Christ-thorns.

  Lottie slides through the lower window and lands in a crouch. She’s agile as a spider monkey and just as naughty. I bet she’s snuck out a thousand times and never been caught. She sees me sitting on my cot, hot with anger.

  “Oh, you’re up,” she whispers. “Good. I have something for you.”

  “Thief,” I whisper back.

  She shoves a bowl made from a dried gourd in my face. It smells, and I shrink away. Whatever it is, I don’t want it.

  “You stole my impago. You ate it all.”

  “Just the apple and the buttered bread.” She has no shame. “I traded the rest for medicine.”

  “You think I’m stupid?” It’s hard to express anger in a whisper, but I have to whisper, because our room is closest to Mrs. Thomas’s house, and while Mrs. Thomas might not have the Elephant’s sensitive hearing, she’s still a matron, and when her sad mood evaporates, she hits harder than the Elephant and says meaner things. “Medicine comes in bottles, not in gourds. What you have is rubbish, and it stinks.”

  Lottie purses her lips, annoyed, as if I am the problem. As if I am the thief who jumps in and out of windows after dark. “It’s crushed nettle and aloe,” she says. “I got it from Mama Khumalo, who lives across the river. It will help your shoulder heal.”

  It’s too ridiculous. I snort.

  “You swapped good food for a native medicine that some woman in a mud hut gave you . . . I was wrong. You’re the stupid one.”

  Lottie scoops goo from the gourd and steps closer. She has a slender body, lean and muscled from hard work, and her hair is cropped too short. She looks like a boyish fairy. “Show me where it hurts. You’ll thank me tomorrow morning.”

  “Never. Now get away from me.”

  Lottie blinks, and I don’t see her coming till she’s on me. She throws me back onto my cot with astonishing speed and pins me down with her clean hand. I try to sit up, but she’s strong. Her slimy hand invades my n
ightgown and tugs the neckline aside to rub the stinky lotion onto my right shoulder and along the right side of my neck.

  “There. It’s done,” she says when she’s finished. “And don’t try to wipe it off either. The medicine needs time to work.”

  She gets up and goes to her cot while I lie on mine with a lump stuck in my throat. Fights are common at Keziah. You have to fight to survive, to mark your territory, to warn others that walking over you has consequences. The rules say that I have to get up and swing at Lottie, bite her, scratch her face, and pull her hair, even if I know that she’s stronger and faster than I am.

  Instead, I lie limp and confused in the moonlight. The nettle mixture burns, and all the terrible things that happened to me today keep me from moving. This term will be hell, and losing a fight on my first night back will make me a weakling. If Lottie doesn’t boast about flinging me down on my cot like an empty sack, then my reputation as a fighter is safe.

  I crawl under my blankets and turn my back on her. The slime really stings now, but the pain has eased.

  “Are you going to eat this boiled egg?” she asks of the last item in the impago box that she ransacked.

  “Have it,” I mumble, and hear the crack of the shell and the happy sounds she makes while she eats. The river is two miles away, and the hut where she got what she calls “medicine” is farther out still. She must be starved. I stop my soft thoughts and count all the reasons I have to hate her. Lottie breaks the rules, she fights, she steals, she has one school uniform and one change of clothing for the weekend, two pairs of underwear, a comb, a nightdress, and a tiny spinning top with strange symbols painted on the sides. She’s poor. Being with her will bring me down to her level.

  She slides into bed to the creak of metal springs. I stay facing away from her. I’ve run out of bad thoughts, and I watch the shadows flicker across the wall instead. A lightning strike. Moving clouds and then, clear as sunshine, a skeleton hand reaches out to grab me and pull me into the land of the dead. Lorraine. I gasp out loud.