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The next day the floor was again covered with a multitude of objects and since at that time my brothers were away and Gigia continued to plead innocent, the fact remained a mystery. Until my mother asked me if I had noticed anything strange in my room.

Quite strange, I said. Someone enjoyed sprinkling the floor with the most diverse objects every day. I couldn't really imagine who that mischievous person could be. 

"It was me." my mother said.

"You mom... Oh no, I don't believe it." I smiled 

"It was me. And I'll keep doing it until I find hairpins and nail files on your desk, books and pencils on your bed. It's time for you to learn to keep some order."

But mine was only an apparent non-order, I protested. It was more than logical that I kept the pins on my desk: I needed them to hold my hair when I bent down to draw in India ink. Nail files were needed to clean typewriter letters. As for the books, naturally they were on the bed, I could concentrate only lying down, and the pencils and notebooks I needed to take notes and since the pencils often disappeared so as not to interrupt the reading I had to keep some in reserve on the bed...

The compact on the dresser? Obviously, it was there ready to be put in the handbag when needed, not using face powder made it easy for me to forget it if I didn't see it.

The concept of apparent disorder did not seem to leave my mother completely convinced and to avoid finding the floor strewn with objects like Piazza San Marco with pigeons, I had tried to put everything in its place and ultimately I seemed to use all my time sorting things out.

Today my mother had found only glue,...