[Intro]
[Instrumental: piano plays three descending notes; a single bell answers each phrase.]

They wrote a number by my bed,
Then cut the braids from off my head.
The floor was cold, the scissors bright;
My name went missing before night.

[Verse 1]
[Female mezzo: child voice, soft and clear]

A woman checked my mouth for words,
As though my tongue concealed a bird.
She said my home had made me wild;
The ledger called me civil child.
At dawn the bell divided sleep,
At dusk it ordered us to keep
Our hands in rows, our shoulders still,
Our memory hidden from their will.

[Pre-Chorus]
[Female mezzo]

I kept one word behind my teeth,
One river sound they could not reach.
Each time the iron crossed the hall,
I spoke it where no ear could call.

[Chorus]
[Both: adult baritone supports child mezzo]

Boarding school bells, count what you stole:
Hair from the head, name from the roll,
Tongue in the mouth, prayer under breath—
You called it teaching; it practiced death.
Still through the iron where memory dwells,
Our names outlive your boarding school bells.

[Verse 2]
[Baritone: adult survivor]

I carried silence into age,
A folded note, a locked-up page.
My children asked which words were mine;
I traced their shapes but lost the line.
Then one old aunt began the sound,
A patient word for sky and ground.
We spoke it wrong, then spoke once more;
The buried river crossed the floor.

[Chorus]

[Both]
Boarding school bells, count what you stole:
Years from the child, names from the roll,
Songs from the mouth, sleep from the breath—
You called it progress; it carried death.
Still through the iron where memory dwells,
Our voices answer boarding school bells.

[Interlude]
[Instrumental: piano and cello perform the motif without bells.]

[Bridge]
[Call and Response]

Child: Will I remember the road to the west?
Adult: Your feet remembered inside your chest.
Child: Will I remember the word for the rain?
Adult: We found its rhythm and spoke it again.
Child: Will that bell follow wherever I go?
Adult: It rings—but now we decide what it knows.

[Buildup]
[Ensemble]

One name returned.
Then two.
Then ten.
The children taught
The elders again.
The bell struck six.
We did not bow.
The sound belongs
To memory now.

[Final Chorus]
[Choir and both leads]

Boarding school bells, count what you stole:
Hair from the head, names from the roll,
Tongue in the mouth, years from the breath—
No lesson cleans the method of death.
Still through the iron where memory dwells,
Our names outlive your boarding school bells.

[Coda]
[Choir and both leads]

Ring if you must—we answer as well.

[Outro]
[Female mezzo]

You gave me a number.
I carried my name.
Your bell kept ringing.
I came home the same.
