Although she was 6, a preschooler, sometimes she was left at home alone. Playing became boring pretty soon, and the most interesting occupation was opening all the drawers and cabinets, taking things out, examining, putting back. In the kitchen, there was a big cupboard with lots of small cabinets and drawers. That day she realized she had never explored the upper part of the cupboard.
She moved a chair to the cupboard, climbed up, opened a cabinet door and the inside was full of various small items. She opened one of them and found there all of her mother’s beautiful decorations – rings, earrings, chains, and whatnot. She grabbed the treasures, went to the mirror, and started putting them on: separately, all together, in various combinations, looking at herself and imagining herself an adult.
The next day in the kindergarten when they were told to go to bed for a nap, she sat on her bed, took off her dress, and heard something clinging as it fell to the ground. In surprise she found all the treasures on the bed. She could not recall putting them in her pocket, she did not notice that they had been in her pocket all the time, but anyway, they were here, so she collected them and put them under her pillow and then fell asleep.
When she was told that her mother came to pick her up, she was surprised that a nurse accompanied her and led her past her locker in the hall to the room she had never been before. Inside the room there was a woman sitting at a big table and her mother, both very embarrassed, especially her mother who asked “Why did you do it?”
“What?” - the girl asked, feeling bewildered.
Her mother stretched her hand full of decorations. She was startled: after she had put them under the pillow, she completely forgot about them!
“Why did you bring all this here?”
“I don’t know,” she replied sincerely. She realized that she had done something wrong. She expected to be scolded for that, but that did not happen. She only overheard her parents retelling this story to relatives. Only many years later she understood that the decorations were really treasures, they were expensive and that is why they were kept for safety in such an unexpected place.