My brother, Felipe, and I were staying with her, as our parents had gone away for the weekend to celebrate their wedding anniversary. If you can call what happened an overreaction, as I do, and did at the time, the stress of managing two unruly eleven-year-olds for my aunt, who was quite a bit older than her brother, my dad, perhaps explains it.

We had to share a room at her place, which we didn’t like at first. But as we sat up late talking, there was a lot of giggling and laughter. Twice, my aunt knocked on the door and told us to be quiet, which was fair enough as her room was next to ours. At last, she commanded silence on pain of punishment. We made it about five minutes before the door flew open again.

“The talking is bad enough. But the language I hear coming out of you two children is a disgrace!”

We blushed. We’d been swearing like sailors and not even realising it. We didn’t swear in front of our parents, but we’d let our filters down at our aunts place.

“Your father gave me full permission to punish you as I see fit. You’ll be returning to bed with sore bottoms tonight. Downstairs, both of you.”

In silence, we sloped down the stairs and followed our aunt into the living room.

“Wait there.” She disappeared into the kitchen. A moment later, she was back with a flat, wide wooden spoon. Felipe’s eyes widened, and my heart began to beat against my ribs.

“Who is first?” She asked.

My brother stepped forward, and I was impressed with the dignity with which he comported himself. There was no childish crying or begging. He stepped forward with his head held high and volunteered to go first.

“I won’t humiliate you by letting you see each other in a state of undress. Mireia, wait in the kitchen.”

I went to the kitchen but, of course, I kept the door open just a crack and peeked through. I watched as my brother was told to remove his pyjama bottoms and kneel on the sofa, which my aunt had aligned with another chair. The sofa arm and the chair arm were together and, draped over the arms, your bottom would be pushed up and exposed. I watched through the crack of the door as Felipe obeyed, again with impressive calm and dignity. I hoped I would keep my cool so well.

My aunt raised the spoon and began to smack Felipe’s bottom with it. She raised her arm high and brought it down hard and fast, again and again, and he trembled on each impact.