“As you wish, Mr. Nicoll,” said Lizzie, though neither she nor Da seemed able to look each other in the eye.

Alone upstairs and sitting against Lizzie’s bed, I reached into the sleeve of my dress and pulled out the other word, counted. Whoever wrote it had beautiful handwriting. A lady, I was sure, and not just because the quotation was from Byron. The words were all curves and long limbs.

I reached under Lizzie’s bed and pulled out the trunk. I always expected it to feel heavier, but it slid across the floorboards without effort. Inside, slips covered the bottom like a carpet of autumn leaves, and Ditte’s letters rested among them.

It wasn’t fair that I was in trouble when Mr. Crane had been so careless. The words were duplicates, I was sure—common words that many volunteers would have sent in. I put both hands in the trunk and felt the slips shift through my fingers. I’d saved them all, just as Da thought he was saving the others by putting them in the Dictionary. My words came from nooks and crannies and from the discard basket in the centre of the sorting table.

My trunk is like the Dictionary, I thought. Except it’s full of words that have been lost or neglected. I had an idea. I wanted to ask Lizzie for a pencil but knew she wouldn’t disobey Da. I looked around her room, wondering where she would keep them.

Without her in it, Lizzie’s room felt unfamiliar—as if it might not belong to her. I got off the floor and went to the wardrobe. It was a relief to see her old winter coat with the top button that didn’t quite match the others. She had three pinnies and two dresses; her Sunday best, once shamrock-green, was now paled like summer grass. I brushed it with my hand and saw strips of shamrock where Lizzie had let out the seams. When I opened her drawers, all I could see were underthings, an extra set of bed linen, two shawls and a small wooden box. I knew what was in the box. Just the other day, Mrs. Ballard had decided it was time I knew about monthlies, and so Lizzie had shown me the rags and the belt that she kept in there. I hoped never to see them again, so I left the box closed and shut the wardrobe door.

There was no chest with games. There were no shelves with books. The little table beside her bed held a swatch of embroidery and the photograph of her mother in its simple wooden frame. I peered at it: a plain young woman in an ordinary hat and ordinary clothes, holding a simple bouquet of flowers. Lizzie looked just like her. Behind the frame was the hat pin I’d found in the trunk.