Besides, I was still in the bad books for going down to the shop one night after school and buying ten cents’ worth of mixed lollies and putting them on the tick under Mum’s name. Mum was furious when she found out I’d charged them to her account and yelled at Mrs Abrahams in the shop as much as she yelled at me. I’d already eaten all the sweets though, so in a way it didn’t matter too much, except that Ruthy said she’d written a note about it in her book to tell Daniel, and that always made me feel sorry. I scratched the sores on my head more that night, and Mum had a cross day the next day when she saw bits of blood and scabs on my pillow in the morning.

I don’t know why I scratched my head. I did it a lot when I got into bed at night, and sometimes during the day. It often hurt, because I would take the top off scabs again and again just as they were healing up, but for some reason I just couldn’t stop it. Because of the blood and sores on the pillow, Mum returned to tying my hair in ringlet rags at night. I hated, hated, hated ringlet rags. She tied them so tight they hurt my head and made it difficult to go to sleep. The long, hard, hair-filled ropes kept getting in the way when I tried to get comfortable, and the knots she made to secure them stuck into my face. And as if that wasn’t bad enough, the kids at school teased me and called me Sausage Head, which made me mad as Hell, even though Mum says you shouldn’t say Hell like I do because I make it like a swear word. She said if I didn’t stop scratching the sores in my head, she would shave it like a collaborator during the war, and the whole family would be shamed. I didn’t actually mind that idea – hair was a bit of a nuisance really – but I knew to say so would make her madder than ever. She often said all she wanted when I was born was a pretty girly girl to dress and show off, and instead she got a tall, skinny tomboy with a scabby head and knock-knees.

Caleb was Mum’s first favourite (‘the light of my life’), Ruthy was the second favourite (‘my little writer’), Daniel was the third (‘my darling firstborn’), and I was the last (‘Miss Crabby’). We agreed we should still call me a favourite, because Mum loved me and I loved her, but we all knew I was at the end of the line.

To record our views about the order of Mum’s love, Caleb used six wooden beads he got from Mr Driver next door. Caleb nominated the best gold one as Mum and put her bead at the top of a piece of string that was thick enough to hold the beads exactly where he put them on the thread. The Dad bead, a silver one with little blue dots on it, was right next to the gold Mum bead, because they’d chosen each other and made vows in the sight of God at the Christadelphian Temple in Halifax Street.