With the hallway light, which had been shining into my room through the crack at the bottom of the door, now off, my room was in near total darkness. I didn’t know how long I waited after mother had gone to bed. I didn’t have a clock in my room. But I counted to one-thousand, and, in hearing no noise coming from her bedroom across the hallway, determined that it was safe to make my move. I retrieved the bobby pin from inside the mattress. The discovery of what I could do with it the other night had been a moment of pure genius.