Six point five million pounds. That's how much they're asking. Six and a half million.

I feel stunned and slightly angry. Are they serious? I haven't got anything like six point five million pounds. I've only got about… four million left. Or was it five? Whatever it is, it's not enough. I stare at the page, feeling cheated. Lottery winners are supposed to be able to buy anything they want – but already I'm feeling poor and inadequate.

Crossly, I slime the paper aside and reach for a freebie brochure full of gorgeous white duvet covers at ?100 each. That's more like it. When I've won the Lottery I'll only ever have crisp white duvet covers, I decide. And I'll have a white cast-iron bed and painted wooden shutters and a fluffy white dressing gown…

'So, how's the world of finance?' Mum's voice interrupts me and I look up. She's bustling into the kitchen, still holding her Past Times catalogue. 'Have you made the coffee? Chop chop, darling!'

'I was going to,' I say, and make a half-move from my chair. But, as I predicted, Mum's there before me. She reaches for a ceramic storage jar I've never seen before and spoons coffee into a new gold cafe ire.

Mum's terrible. She's always buying new stuff for the kitchen – and she just gives the old stuff to Oxfam. New kettles, new toasters… We've already had three new rubbish bins this year – dark green, then chrome, and now yellow translucent plastic. I mean, what waste of money.

'That's a nice skirt!' she says, looking at me as though for the first time. 'Where's that from?'

'DKNY,' I mumble back.

'Very pretty,' she says. 'Was it expensive?'

'Not really,' I say without pausing. 'About fifty quid.'

This is not strictly true. It was nearer a hundred and fifty. But there's no point telling Mum how much things really cost, because she'd have a coronary. Or, in fact, she'd tell my dad first – and then they'd both have coronaries, and I'd be an orphan.

So what I do is work in two systems simultaneously. Real Prices and Mum Prices. It's a bit like when everything in the shop is 20 per cent off, and you walk around mentally reducing everything, After a while, you get quite practised.

The only difference is, I operate a sliding-scale system, a bit like income tax. It starts off at 20 per cent (if it really cost ?20, I say it cost ?16) and rises up to… well, to 90 per cent if necessary. I once bought a pair of boots that cost ?200, and I told Mum they were ?20 in the sale. And she believed me.

'So, are you looking for a flat?' she says, glancing over my shoulder at the property pages.

'No,' I say sulkily, and flick over a page of my brochure. My parents are always on at me to buy a flat.

Do they know how much flats cost? And I don't mean flats in Croydon.

'Apparently, Thomas has bought a very nice little starter home in Reigate,' she says, nodding towards our next-door neighbours. 'He commutes.' She says this with an air of satisfaction, as though she's telling me he's won the Nobel Peace Prize.

'Well, I can't afford a flat,' I say. 'Or a starter home.'

Not yet, anyway, I think. Not until eight o'clock tonight. Hee hee hee.

'Money troubles?' says Dad, coming into the kitchen. 'You know, there are two solutions to money troubles?'

Oh God. Not this again. Dad's aphorisms.

'C.B.,' says Dad, his eyes twinkling, 'or M.M.M.'

He pauses for effect and I turn the page of my brochure, pretending I can't hear him.

'Cut Back,' says my dad, 'or Make More Money. One or the other. Which is it to be, Becky?'

'Oh, both, I expect,' I say airily, and turn another page of my brochure. To be honest, I almost feel sorry for Dad. It'll be quite a shock for him when his only daughter becomes a multimillionaire overnight.

After lunch, Mum and I go along to a craft fair in the local primary school. I'm really just going to keep Mum company, and I'm certainly not planning to buy anything – but when we get there, I find a stall full of amazing handmade cards, only ?1.50 each! So I buy ten. After all, you always need cards, don't you?

There's also a gorgeous blue ceramic plant holder with little elephants going round it – and I've been saying for ages we should have more plants in the flat. So I buy that, too. Only fifteen quid. Craft fairs are such a bargain, aren't they? You go along thinking they'll be complete rubbish – but you can always find something you want.

Mum's really happy, too, as she's found a pair of candlesticks for her collection." She's got collections of candlesticks, toast racks, pottery jugs, glass animals, embroidered samplers and thimbles. (Personally, I don't think the thimbles count as a proper collection, because she got the whole lot, including the cabinet, from an advert at the back of the Mail on Sunday magazine. But she never tells anybody that. In fact, I shouldn't have mentioned it.)

So anyway, we're both feeling rather pleased with ourselves, and decide to go for a cup of tea. Then, on the way out, we pass one of those really sad stalls which no-one is going near; the kind people glance at once, then quickly walk past. The poor guy behind it looks really sorry for himself, so I pause to have a look. And no wonder no-one's stopping. He's selling weird-shaped wooden bowls, and matching wooden cutlery. What on earth is the point of wooden cutlery?

'That's nice!' I say brightly, and pick one of the bowls up.

'Hand-crafted applewood,' he says. 'Took a week to make.'

Well, it was a waste of a week, if you ask me. It's shapeless, it's ugly, and the wood's a nasty shade of brown. But as I go to put it back down again, he looks so doleful I feel sorry for him and turn it over to look at the price, thinking if it's a river I'll buy it. But it's eighty quid! I show the price to Mum, and she pulls a little face.

'That particular piece featured in Elle Decoration last month,' says the man mournfully, and produces a cut-out page. And at his words, I freeze. Elle Decoration? Is he joking?

He's not joking. There on the page, in full colour, is a picture of a room, completely empty except for a suede bean bag, a low table, and a wooden bowl. I stare at it incredulously.

'Was it this exact one?' I ask, trying not to sound too excited. 'This exact bowl?' As he nods, my grasp tightens round the bowl. I can't believe it. I'm holding a piece of Elle Decoration. How cool is that? I suddenly feel incredibly stylish and trendy – and wish I was wearing white linen trousers and my hair slicked back like Yasmin Le Bon to match.

It just shows I've got good taste. Didn't I pick out this bowl – sorry, this piece – all by myself? Didn't I spot its

quality? Already I can see our sitting room redesigned entirely around it, all pale and minimalist. Eighty quid. That's nothing for a timeless piece of style like this.

'I'll have it,' I say determinedly, and reach inside my bag for my chequebook. The thing is, I remind myself, buying cheap is actually a false economy. It's much better to spend a little more and make a serious purchase that'll last a lifetime. And this bowl is quite clearly a classic. Suze is going to be so impressed.

When we get back home, Mum goes straight inside, but I stay in the driveway, carefully transferring my purchases from her car to mine.

'Becky! What a surprise!'

Oh God. It's Martin Webster from next door, leaning over the fence with a rake in his hand and a huge friendly smile on his face. Oh God. Martin has this way of always making me feel guilty, I don't know why.

Actually I do know why. It's because I know he was always hoping I would grow up and marry Tom, his son. And I haven't. The history of my relationship with Tom is: he asked me out once when we were both about sixteen and I said no, I was going out with Adam Moore. That was the end of it, and thank God for that.

To be perfectly honest, I would rather marry Martin himself than marry Tom. (That's not to say that I do really want to marry Martin. Or that I like older men or anything. It was just to make a point. Anyway, Martin's happily married.)