Aunty Jean was furious. I decided I would have to rely on the kindness of Uncle Paul to get me through this mess and waited in the driveway for his car to pull up from work. But Maudie came out to say her mum wanted to see me, and when I said I was waiting for her dad, she said there would be no point because he had gone to Keith for work and wouldn’t be home until Sunday morning.

What can she do to me that she hasn’t already done? I thought, as I walked in behind Maudie, feeling quite defiant. But once again I learned that grown-ups can surprise you and even nasty, bad-tempered women with no imaginations like Aunty Jean can make up new ways to make you sad. She grabbed me by the elbow and dragged me into the back garden. She threw open the door of the cat-wee-smelling old caravan, pushed me in and closed the door. Through the broken window I could just see her mean eyes and a sprinkling of the Pocks of Poo.

‘You can stay there until I see some homework out of you. Maudie will bring your school bag out. You won’t come in until I call you for dinner, and you’d better have some work to show me when I do.’

She trudged back inside, flattening any green shoot or little insect that foolishly tried to thrive in her pathway. I imagined being as small as a beetle, wondering why this giant had come to kill and crush her way through a tiny world. I hoped there were no Borrowers living anywhere near the Roystons, because contact with one of those enormous fleshy feet could mean the end of a whole family. I could imagine Mr Clock shaking his little fist at the enormous battleship of a human bean that was my Aunt Jean.

For the next few weeks, I was sent to the stinky, skanky, dirty, cobwebby prison that was the caravan. I hated it and was often a bit scared of it. I sat at the formica table and did as little as I could to suggest some progress. But when they called me for dinner, I put on an acting face for them. I would whistle as I walked to the back door, smile at Aunty Jean and hand over my work, which thankfully, after a night or two, she didn’t even look at, and say how much I loved the caravan and could I sleep out there and have my dinner there because it was so much fun.

This irritated Aunty Jean no end, but it didn’t fool Maudie, who kindly snuck out some cleaning rags and warm soapy water in jars for me to try to make at least a few spots clean enough to bear. Helen donated a poor African person’s crocheted rug for me to sit on, and wrote out the answers to some of my homework questions so I could copy them into my exercise book to maintain just enough peace for the last few weeks of school. I was managing it all pretty well, I thought, until one night after tea, when we were studying the Bible together, Aunty Jean made a point of reading 1 Timothy 2:9: ‘Likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire.’