Resting on my knees, I placed the tin on the floor and bit my lip. What I was about to do was very bad. If Mother found out I’d been sneaking around and hunting through her things, she’d be angry, but if she knew I was about to look inside this tin – something that she’d clearly kept hidden from my sight – she’d be worse than angry. If that was possible.

I stared at the front door and listened and listened and listened. No sound came.

With a shuddery breath, I wiped my palms on my lap then clawed open the tin.

Smack bang in the centre was a wad of money tied together with an elastic band. It looked like nothing else was in there. I frowned and picked up the money; underneath, lay a key. One key. I grabbed it, replaced the money and put the tin back on the shelf at the back of the cupboard.

I looked at the key – it could open any door in the house – the front door, the back door, my bedroom door, Clarabelle’s bedroom door … Or Mother’s door. The chance was slim but not impossible.

I ran up the stairs and approached Mother’s bedroom with a racing heart. Knowing I was running low on time, I slotted the key into the hole and twisted. To my utter shock, the little chamber clicked. I smiled, amazed by this piece of luck.

Trembling, I withdrew the key, turned the doorknob and pushed open the door.

Immediately, the scent of orange-blossom filled my nostrils. I stared at what I could see with the door only partially open: a huge old wardrobe stood on the right-hand side of the room. There was a neatly made double bed whose sheets were pure white. To its left was a small wooden table and to its right a small bookcase. The room was colourless, the opposite of my room. The opposite of the living room with its circles of brown and orange paint all over the mustard walls.

As far as I could see, there were no pictures in Mother’s bedroom either. No pop art. No psychedelic prints. It was strange. Unexpected. Almost like there was another side to Mother I’d never seen before. A side she’d hidden away in this room.

I looked back at the bed with its pure white cover. It was bathed in a glorious pool of yellow light.

I stepped into the room, squinting against the brightness: on the far side of the bedroom was an open window, a window that was not blacked out or boarded up. An open window that allowed beautiful, bright, sparkling, wondrous light to pour unfiltered into the room.