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you shan’t be here to see it. You’re being replaced.”
    She swept out of the room, leaving the headmaster standing there in the dust motes.

Ten
    Wisps of Charlotte’s hair floated like spun gold through a shaft of sunlight and settled in feathery piles upon the planks in the dusty attic storeroom. Lee was cutting little Charlotte’s hair. He cut it in a rough boyish style, close to her head. Charlotte clutched her tattered doll. She was squirming all over, infuriating Lee, whose fierce concentration was something to behold. He sucked on his bottom lip as he snipped.
    Charlotte was dressed in boy’s short pants. She tugged at the crotch. “I don’t like these clothes,” she pouted.
    “Be still,” he said.
    From outside the open attic window came muffled sounds of hammering. Lee glanced toward the noise. He stepped back to regard Charlotte’s haircut, the heavy iron scissors hanging from his fingers.
    “Tell me again,” he said to her. “What’s your name?”
    She rolled her eyes, ignoring him, dancing her doll on her knees.
    He grabbed the doll away. She cried out, reaching for it.
    “What’s your name?” he demanded.
    “Char…lee,” she said, her eyes riveted on her doll.
    “Good. Lee, like me, remember? Char”—he pointed at her—“Lee”—he pointed at himself. “Charley.”
    “No, I’m not. I’m Charlotte. I don’t want to be Char-lee.”
    An angry look came into his eyes. He strode over to the attic window and tossed out her doll.
    Charlotte screamed, hurling herself towards the window. “That was my mommy’s doll.”
    “Your mommy left you in a basket on the doorstep.”
    “Well your mommy just left you on the ground.”
    Lee caught her by the shoulders, shaking her, his eyes burning into hers.
    “It’s not a game Charlotte. They are separating the girls and the boys. They want to take you away from me. You’ll sleep alone, forever, with no one to take care of you and protect you. You will be all alone. Is that what you want? You are mine. Don’t you understand that? You want them to take you away from me?”
    Charlotte’s eyes filled with tears, her lower lip trembling. She shook her head no.
    Outside, the doll had fallen unobserved amongst the workmen who were still putting finishing touches on the separate quarters. Not one saw a poppet whizzing through the air, nor noticed the collision of soft doll and hard ground.
    Miss Haden and the new headmaster, Franklin Meade, were otherwise occupied; they flanked the new entrance, welcoming a line of boys carrying small bundles of their possessions. The boys were moving forward one by one.
    Lee and Charlotte appeared from a side door of the girl’s dormitory and surreptitiously joined the line at the end. Charlotte wore her new short hair and boy’s clothes. She was feeling hostile. Each time Lee pushed her forward a bit, ahead of him, she planted her heels in the ground. He shoved forward. She resisted. Still, in a short time they’d arrived at the entrance.
    “Name?” said headmaster Meade, looking down at Charlotte with a warm smile.
    She just stood there.
    “What is your name young man,” he said. “We need to put your name on our list. Wouldn’t you like that?”
    “Char—,” She looked up, a faint glimmer of fear crossing her face. Then she glanced back at Lee, who met her eyes with a warning stare. “Char-lee Durkee,” she finished.
    The headmaster wrote her name down and looked past her to Lee. “And yourself, young man?”
    “Lee, sir. Lee Colton.”
    “Fine manners you have,” said Mr. Meade. He looked back down at the two children. “Go on, then. Next.”
    Lee took Charlotte’s hand and they moved past the headmaster, wending their way through and around the line of boys. They smiled at each other and exchanged a conspiratorial glance.
    In a moment they stood in the boys’ dormitory, amongst rows of beds with crisp new white sheets and wool blankets.
    “Here,” said Lee, putting his bundle on one