Three teenaged girls walked by, talking and laughing. They were tall and elegant with long hair that swept around their shoulders like mist. Miki looked at the time: nine o’clock. The girls would be late for school, but they didn’t seem to care. They had their elbows hooked and their heads close together. Miki wished she could have friends and go to school too. She was nearly eighteen. Kurt ought to trust her.

When they had gone, the street was quiet. Autumn leaves shuffled in the gutter, and a few used wrappers tumbled by on the breeze. Miki fetched Jane Eyre from her bedroom and read the scene where Jane’s cruel aunt locked her in the red room and wouldn’t let her out, not even when she was stricken with fear. Poor Jane suffered so much persecution. At school the principal, Mr Brocklehurst, labelled her deceitful, but Jane bore the insult with admirable resilience. If Jane could overcome oppression and unfairness to find a path in life, Miki could too. But right now she felt captive, like Jane in the red room.

She thought of the key she’d taken from the ute yesterday. Maybe now was the time to try it. Last night, she’d crept from bed and retrieved it from her overalls. Then she’d taken a sharp knife from the kitchen, made a small slit under her mattress and concealed the key in the padding where Kurt wouldn’t find it. She fetched the key now and clutched it in her hand. The metal warmed quickly in the hot flesh of her palm. Jittery, she inserted the key into the front door, and her hand was shaking as she twisted it. What if it didn’t work? But the lock released smoothly, and there she was with the door slightly ajar.

She stood still, breathing in the fresh air. She didn’t know what to do next, hadn’t thought that far ahead. She could walk up the street, but nobody had seen her out by herself before, and what if someone talked to her? They might say something to Kurt later: Saw your sister out yesterday. Then what would she do?

She wondered what Jane Eyre would do, but this time it didn’t help. She would have to decide by herself.

Trembling, she collected the window-cleaning gear from the laundry. Then, tremulously, she opened the front door and set everything on the footpath. Her heart was a jackhammer in her chest, and her hands were so fluttery she could barely squeeze out the sponge. She drew breath and tried to concentrate on the windows; surely if she got on with the job, nobody would notice her.