The girl in the picture said that her name was Kailee, but I was sure she was lying. So, for a while, I called her Dilly, after the nursery rhyme, Lavender blue dilly dilly, Lavender green. She didn’t like that. 

Whenever she was grating my nerves, I would just say, “Yes, Dilly Dilly,” and she would stop grating my nerves. She would stamp her feet, stick out her tongue, and then frown like an old man thinking. 

She insisted that her hair was red, but it wasn’t. It was bright like the sun, sparkled like the stars, and smelled of the ocean.

Mum bought her for me at a car boot sale. Paid fifty pence for her. She could have paid twenty-five pence, but the smallest thing she had was a fifty pence piece, and she said that she felt guilty asking for change.