Summary

Chapter One was set in Africa, where the narrator had travelled to meet Aimee and assess the economic situation of the village that she hoped to assist. The narrator and her guide, Lamin, attempted to board a plane but were stopped by an initiation ritual in which the boys of the village are led by a ceremonial dancer called a kankurang to the bush, where they are circumcised and symbolically turned into adults.

In Chapter Two, the narrator described how Tracey’s body began developing early in adolescence, and she wore skimpy clothes and spent most of her time with boys. The narrator and the other girls in the grade shunned Tracey and had ‘boyfriends’ who were determined by their friends.

Chapter Three returned to the scene in Chapter One; the narrator and Lamin missed the plane but were carried to a...