Mother stood back and assessed my appearance. A frown scrunched her forehead into crumpled paper and her small eyes shrank to brown peas. For a fleeting moment she was the spitting image of her grandfather and I drew back and looked down at myself, wondering what I had done to earn such a disgusted grimace.

‘Take it off,’ she snapped. ‘It’s too small. You’re … developing. It’s disgusting. You’re still a child, for God’s sake!’

I wriggled out of the dress with difficulty, ripping several hairs out of my head. Fortunately, Mother was too enraged to notice. Muttering under her breath, she stomped upstairs and returned seconds later with an emerald-green dress embroidered with pink flowers. She threw it at me and I pulled it on over my head, hoping desperately that it wasn’t too tight. I hadn’t worn this one for about a month. I exhaled, emptying my body of air to shrink my lungs. Mother eyed me suspiciously and tilted her head to the side.

‘Yes, that’s much better,’ she sighed. I could almost see the relief pouring out of her. She smiled and I inhaled a huge gulp of air. The room was silent for a second and then it was shattered by a ripping sound as a side seam tore open. Mother’s nostrils flared and she grabbed the collar of the dress and ripped it off me, leaving me standing there trembling in my knickers.

‘Run upstairs and put on the dress you were wearing yesterday,’ she said in a hysterical voice.

I dashed out of the room and took the stairs two at a time. Tears dribbled down my cheeks and I swiped them away, determined to hold them in. I’d be in even worse trouble if I went back downstairs with tear-stained cheeks.

My dress was in the bathroom in the laundry basket. Deadly was standing on the windowsill watching me. I turned my back on him and pulled out the dress, grimacing at the smell. It was still covered with my sick. I grabbed the bar of soap and ran the hot tap, desperate to clean the dress, but Mother was shrieking at me to hurry up so I abandoned my cleaning efforts and pulled on the damp, stinking dress and ran back downstairs. I lost my footing halfway down and nearly fell, my heart a hammer in my tight chest. The grandfather clock struck eight o’clock, booming the eight shours in a slow, mocking manner that made me want to punch its ugly face.

‘I’m so sorry, Mother,’ I panted, sitting down at the dining room table.