“A taste for the miniature was one aspect of an orderly spirit. Another was a passion for secrets: in a prized varnished cabinet, a secret drawer was opened by pushing against the grain of the cleverly turned dovetail joint, and here she kept her diary locked by a clasp, a notebook written in a code of her own invention. In a toy safe opened by six secret numbers she stored letters and postcards. An old tin petty cash box was hidden under a removable floorboard beneath her bed. In the box were treasures that dated back four years, to her ninth birthday when she began collecting: a mutant double acorn, fool’s gold, a rainmaking spell bought at a funfair, a squirrel’s skull as light as a leaf.”
- from Atonement by Ian McEwan
