The prize, Miss Birnie went on, was to be a book. Mr Counter held up a box awkwardly, and oozed a bit more. A book! And Miss Birnie was smiling right at me! Liza, from behind, pinched the back of my arm and if I hadn’t been holding my breath I would have yelped, it hurt so much.

Mr Counter said my name and Miss Birnie said, Yes, you, Meggie, and Liza pinched me again and Elspet squealed, Ooh, Ginger Meggie, that’s you, that is!, and my classmates were so rough about pushing me forward to glory that I went flying onto my knees in front of old Counter’s shiny boots. But I didn’t care, I didn’t care at all, because I was to be given a book!

Miss Birnie beamed at me as she helped me up. She gently took the box from Mr Counter so he could shake my hand, and then she invited me to choose. My eyes must have been popping in disbelief because she nodded at me and gave the box a little shake. Yes, I could really choose!

I was tempted by a copy of the Bible, the real thing, a book for grown-ups. There was a hymn book, too, in the same dark blue covers, and a handsome volume of A Child’s Illustrated Treasury with a colour picture of Noah’s Ark on the front. And then I saw my book, grand and green, a wreath of blue flowers curling around the title. My hand shot out. I glanced at Pastor McNab and his thundery brow and I took it anyway.

My first ever book: The Girls Forget-Me-Not Annual of Prose and Verse.

Pah, said Granda from his chair by the fire when I showed it to Ma. She looked flustered and pleased and patted my arm a couple of times, and remarked they were very nice, the flowers on the front. She wanted to wrap it in calico and put it in her kist with Grunnie’s old Bible. Ye’ll be wise to keep it out of harm’s way, our Ginger Meggie.

But I begged her no. I didn’t want to hide it away safe, I wanted to read it, to fill my head with its words.

She looked at me, and she looked across to the fire, where Granda sat, hunched and grumbling over his tea, and she put the book on the dresser next to the cornflower milk jug of Grunnie Neish’s that was there for an ornament and not to be used. She patted my arm again and sighed and told me I was a Clever Girl, but she didn’t look as though this was a thing to be happy about.