A peculiar thought jabbed at me: was it normal for Mother to paint my face every day? I had never read a book where someone’s mother painted them. I had never really considered the fact that it might not be … right.

No. It’s OK. It’s Mother’s way of showing you she loves you. No one is identical. Look at Sara. She makes friends with a monkey. That’s not normal.

I thought about this. Normal people didn’t have monkeys for pets, but the Indian man in A Little Princess was good and normalish. Being a bit abnormal didn’t have to mean being bad. Dogs were a more normal choice and I had always wanted to ask Mother if we could get a dog, but I had never screwed up enough courage to ask.

I frowned and chewed the inside of my mouth. Sara Crewe was the cleverest, gutsiest girl character I knew and she never felt guilty for her actions. But I wasn’t clever or gutsy. I was boring and well-behaved, just how Mother wants me to be. Except …

A smile tugged at my lips and a spark of victory danced across my guilt: the attic. I had gone into the attic. That was really naughty. Pretty gutsy too. And brave.

Stop. Stop being bad. Mother is hurting. Think about what he did to her when she was little.

But I didn’t want to think about it. Thinking about it brought images into my head that made me have sick, bitter feelings I’d not experienced before. I was glad he was dead, but puzzled. Why would Mother say he was a good man when he had done those awful things?

Shaking my head, my long hair swishing like a mermaid’s, I tiptoed down the stairs and crept along the hallway. The kitchen door stood slightly ajar. Mother stopped reading and explained what had happened in the story so far. Her voice was sweet. Loving and tender. Lilting and expressive. In that moment, I yearned to be her perfect little doll again, to be treated like the only thing that mattered. Special. Her special, perfect little doll.

My heart hurt and my knees buckled. I nearly collapsed. I leaned against the cupboard under the stairs and listened as Mother turned her voice into Sara Crewe’s serious, seven-year-old one and said: ‘“… you see, if I went out and bought a new doll every few days I should have more than I could be fond of. Dolls ought to be intimate friends. Emily is going to be my intimate friend.”’

Her voice turned now into her narrator voice, a voice I knew as intimately as the position of the tiny mole beside my right eye.

‘Captain Crewe looked at Miss Minchin and Miss Minchin looked at Captain Crewe.’

Now Sara. ‘“Who is Emily?” she inquired.’

Now her low, gentle man’s voice. ‘“Tell her, Sara,” Captain Crewe said, smiling.