Chapter ten opens in 1903. Five years earlier Hawaii had been annexed by the United States, and Haleola notices the American flag as she walks to the beach to meet Rachel.
Rachel is now seventeen, strong and fit with few outward signs of leprosy. Of her childhood friends at Bishop Home, only Emily and Francine remain. Rachel has become a skilled surfer. At the beach, Haleola talks with Rachel and Catherine. Rachel's father has told her that her sister Sarah is getting married. None of Rachel's family except her father has made any effort to remain in contact with her.
While Rachel and Catherine go back to Bishop Home, Haleola begins to walk back home and falls. No one sees her fall, and she quickly stands and resumes walking.
The settlement has a new Canadian doctor, Dr. Goodhue. Rachel sees him frequently to try every treatment that might cure her leprosy.
At night at Bishop Home, Emily and Rachel talk to three other teenage girls, Louisa, Cecilia, and Hina. Hina is from a part of Moloka'i away from the settlement, and she says she knows some friends who are having a party. She also says she knows a way they can climb the pali and go to the party. The girls discuss it for a while, and then decide to sneak away and go to the party.
It takes two hours to climb the pali. When the girls arrive at the location of the party, Rachel is fascinated by a gramophone. At the party the girls drink alcoholic beverages, and a young man named Tom asks Rachel to dance. Tom kisses Rachel, and Rachel likes it, but she remembers her leprosy and pulls away.
On the way back to Kalaupapa, Emily asks, "Why the hell are we going back?" The girls think about not returning to the settlement, and Rachel says that while she does want to leave one day, she does not want to do so as a criminal. The girls make it back to Bishop Home. Mother Marianne sees them, but does not scold them. Instead she looks at them in a confused way, and asks Rachel why they returned. Rachel does not answer.
