Some years ago, I went for the weekend to visit an old friend who was spending a year in Philadelphia, where her husband was on a work assignment. They had at the time three quite delightful small children, an eight-year-old, a six-year-old, and the most delicious little four-year-old bundle of dimples and giggles called Alice. The children were enjoying their time in America, which their parents agreed was an excellent experience for them: they were less than delighted to note that Alice was beginning to acquire an American accent at her pre-school, but were sure she’d lose it as soon as they returned to England, so all was, as my quintessentially English friends phrased it, tickety-boo.

Two days passed in an enchanting jumble of story times, board games, sticky kisses and a very great deal of laughter. Then on the last afternoon, we went on a car trip, at the end of which my friend went into a store on an errand, leaving me to entertain the children.

“We’re going to have a quiz,” I announced. “First question, who can see a tree?”

“Me!” shouted the six-year-old, pointing to the impressive chestnut tree on the side of the road where we were parked.

“Very good,” I said. “Now, who can see an animal in the branches of the tree?”

“I can!” supplied the eight-year-old. “It’s a squirrel!”

Alice laughed.

“It’s a silly squirrel!” she chuckled.

“Very good, Alice!” I said. “It’s a very silly squirrel, isn’t it? In fact, it’s the silliest squirrel I’ve ever seen. Hello, Mr. Silly Squirrel, how are things in Silly Squirrel Town? Silly as a succotash, you say? That’s very good to know.”

Alice beamed: she really was a little darling.

“Silly!” she repeated proudly.

“Very silly!” I agreed. “Now, here’s a harder question for you guys. Who can tell me what squirrels wear when they go to bed?”

This appeared to be a poser. Brows were furrowed, lips bitten in thought. Only Alice, fresh from the triumph of her psychological diagnosis, appeared to have some idea. She began to bounce in her car seat, her eyes bright with excitement, her head bobbing confidently. Good for her, I thought, it would be no bad thing for the youngest to show her elder siblings a trick or two.

“I think Alice might know,” I said. “At any rate, she’s nodding very …”

Without warning, Alice’s face crumpled. Her complexion turned from a happy roses and cream to an outraged shade of damson, her eyes squeezed shut, and fat tears shot horizontally from her empurpled cheeks.

“I’m not naughty!” she wailed.

“What do you mean?” I said, confused. Then remembered that she spent much of her days surrounded by American accents.

“Oh, Alice, of course you’re not naughty!” I said. “I didn’t say you were naugh-dy, I said you were nod-ding.”

Alice’s tears increased in volume.

“You said it again!” she sobbed. “I’m not naughty! I’m not!”

“Of course you’re not!” I said. “OK, let me explain what really happened, this is quite funny, you’ll laugh when I tell you, because you and I like to laugh, don’t we? You see, I saw you nodding your head up and down like this and said you were nodding. That’s nod-ding, do you hear that? But you thought I was saying you were naughty, which I’d only say if I were a very silly person indeed, because of course you’re not, and I’d have to be as silly as that squirrel to say so, wouldn’t I? But that’s how silly you thought I was, isn’t that funny, Alice?”

But Alice was not amused.

“I’m not naughty!” she shouted, her body now rigid with indignation.

Her brother and sister shifted uncomfortably in their booster seats. They were unsure of exactly what had just happened, but they knew that their sister was upset, and they knew with crystal clarity precisely who was the cause of it.

“Of course you’re not naughty, Alice!” I said. “You’re the best …”

Beside her, her sister bristled just a little.

“… one of the best girls I know,” I hastily amended.

“You said I’m naughty!” wept Alice. “I’m not naughty! I’m not!”

I decided to try another tack.

“Alice, can you hear that I talk like your Mummy and Daddy?” I said. “That’s because your Mummy and Daddy and I are English and we don’t quite talk the way the Americans at your school talk, can you hear that? And sometimes it means we say words a little differently from the way people say them at school. We say tom-ah-to instead of tom-ay-to and butt-ah instead of budd-er, and lots of different things. Now, if I’d really thought you weren’t a good girl, I’d have said you were naw-tee …”

“You keep saying it!” howled Alice. “I’m not naughty! I’m not naughty!”

After about five years – every one of them a leap year and each with a long, dark, and ever more grueling winter – my friend returned to the car.

“What’s going on?” she said.

Alice turned on her a four-year-old face wrung old and dry with heartache.

“She said I was naughty!” she said.

“I’m so sorry,” I said. “I feel just terrible. You see, Alice was nodding her head …”

“I’m not naughty!” sobbed Alice.

“No, of course you’re not, Alice, you’re a very good girl, but I commented that she was …”

Alice braced herself in her car seat.

“… that she was doing what she was doing, and poor little Alice here thought I was telling her she was naughty …”

“I’m not naughty!” wept Alice.

“Oh, darling, of course you’re not!” said her mother. “That wasn’t what she was saying at all. You were just bobbing your little head up and down like this, can you do it like I’m doing it? Yes, that’s right, you’re a very good head-bobber, aren’t you? Have you been practicing? And she saw you doing that and all she said was that you were nodding …”

At the sound of her mother’s voice, Alice had relaxed just a little: at the dread word, she now stiffened again in misery.

“I’m not naughty!” she howled.

There were to be no board games or bedtime stories that night, and certainly no kisses. Alice was led early and tearstained to rest, clinging to her mother’s hand, hiccupping very slightly, and doggedly protesting her besmirched virtue to the end. Her siblings followed soon after, casting sidelong glances of fascinated horror at the adult who had broken their little sister’s heart. And because I was to depart in the early hours of the very next morning to catch my plane back to LA, I was unable to start afresh with any of them.

The years have passed and Alice has grown into a charming, healthy, and well-adjusted young woman, a happy wife and the loving mother of two delicious little twin daughters of her own.

I, however, have not been quite the same since, and at this point probably never will be.

FAMILY FRIEND DEAREST

The Immigrant Chronicles