When Mercy came to her new school near Accra, she knew exactly the sort of friends she wanted to make: certainly no-one who reminded her of the small town she had left behind – poor, ugly and dull. She did not realise that true friendship comes from the heart, and that the least likely of the twelve girls in her dormitory would come to mean the most to them all.

Anyone who has been to a boarding school will identify with the characters in the story until its poignant end.