There is an old adage that what you hear as a child will stay with you for the rest of your life. 'Careful the things you say,' as Stephen Sondheim so wisely wrote, 'children will listen'. Here is a story about something that a child heard which absolutely stayed with her for the rest of her life - which followed her around, which haunted her - and about a person who definitely wasn't careful about the things they said.

Mary is an ordinary six-year-old girl - not perfect, sometimes self-centred and a tiny bit spoilt - but there's nothing unusual in that, and certainly nothing to merit the ruining of her entire life. But words have consequences, don't they? And in the case of these words, some quite serious ones.

Ah well - you can't say that the warnings weren't available. But something tells me that Aunty Joyce probably wasn't much into Sondheim, and as for Mary's Mother... probably more of a Lin-Manuel Miranda person.

A story about growing up, about children's literature, and the importance of keeping your temper. Not to mention minding what you say.