When the Ground Is Hard by Malla Nunn

Author:Malla Nunn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Penguin Young Readers Group
Published: 2019-06-03T16:00:00+00:00

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.

“In the bush near the sports field,” Mrs. Thomas says. “Everyone pair up. We’ll collect branches on the way.”

I inch closer to Lottie. I make her mine, because fire doesn’t care if your father owns the hypermarket on Louw Street or if he lives with his other family in Johannesburg. It eats what it can and spits out rich and poor children just the same. Lottie is used to fighting, so I’ll stick with her. She leans closer and whispers in my ear, “Ask her for machetes to cut the branches.”

I hesitate, and Lottie pokes me in the side. “Please, Mrs. Thomas,” I yelp. “Can we have machetes to cut the branches?”

“Good thinking, Adele.” Mrs. Thomas unhooks a key from the chain she wears around her waist and gives it to me. “Hurry now. Meet us at the sports field.”

I run outside with Lottie and unlock the equipment shed. Again, she let me do the talking. If she’d asked, Mrs. Thomas would have turned her down, because who knows what a poor girl with a machete might do. We grab two pangas, what the natives call the long cutting knives with stout wooden handles, and I make sure to lock the door behind us. I push the key into my sock for safekeeping, and we hurry to the sports field at the far end of the school grounds.

A funnel of black smoke reaches into the sky at the bottom of the dirt road that leads past the classrooms, the staff houses, and the boys’ dormitory. Lightning forks through the low clouds, and the air crackles with the sound of burning brush and the shrieks of panicked birds.

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