‘Yes, I know, but you’re poorly, just like your old mummy. She got ill and gave her illness to you. So now you can’t go outside into the light. Light will hurt you, Clarabelle.’

‘But what if I wear a hat and gloves?’

‘No. It won’t work. The light can travel through clothes and when it does, it will kill you, but first you will go through a huge, horrible amount of pain.’

‘What will the light do to me?’ Clarabelle said, sounding curious rather than upset.

‘It’s too horrible to say,’ Mother said. She locked the door. I heard the jangle of keys.

‘Tell me. I want to know.’

‘I’m not sure I should tell you. You might be too young …’

‘I’m not. I’m five!’

Mother chuckled. ‘Ummm …’

‘Please! Please, please, please, please!’

‘Tell you what. You drink your milk, then I’ll take you upstairs for your nap and I’ll think about it.’

‘Does that mean you’ll tell me when I wake up?’

‘Maybe.’

‘Please?’

Mother laughed. ‘Maybe. Now, drink up like a good little doll.’

Clarabelle swallowed her milk noisily. She yawned again. Footsteps headed my way. I darted across the hallway into the living room and hid behind the small bookcase. They walked upstairs slowly, Clarabelle trying to guess what the light would do to her – will it make my eyes sting? Give me a headache? And Mother saying Oh no, worse than that. Much, much worse …

Crouching down behind the bookcase like a frightened rabbit, I stared unseeingly at the curtains. First the name. Clarabelle. Three syllables. Ending in ‘belle’. Belle meant beautiful. I knew that from Beauty and the Beast. Dolls were supposed to be beautiful. I was Mother’s doll. Now Clarabelle.

Read the article. Read it properly.

No. Mother always tells the truth.

Does she?

I dashed over to Mother’s gargantuan bookcase. It loomed large and intimidating, full of millions of pages, billions of words. Imagination crammed between slivers of leather. Each row was dust-free, the lip of each shelf glossy and dark. Mother wiped and polished the bookcases every day. Even now the scent of wood polish tinted the air. Mother cared for her books almost as much as she cared for her dolls. Us. Clarabelle and me. In that order now, it seemed.

There it was again: Mother’s huge Medical Encyclopaedia. This would be the second time I’d looked in it recently to work out Mother’s words.

To work out if she’s telling the truth.

No.

Yes.

Maybe.

I looked over my shoulder. Mother was still upstairs with Clarabelle. I needed to know. I had to put this devilish uncertainty to bed. If Mother was telling the truth and I was allergic to light – and Clarabelle was allergic to light – it would be in here, in this mammoth book. Newspapers were biased, Mother had taught me all about them. But encyclopaedias were non-fiction. Pure fact.