The little nieces behaviour has woven itself into the odd tapestry of the familys worries, becoming something of a curious spectacle. Her parents, unknown to discipline but skilled in doting, have fashioned an odd illusion in her mind: she is a princess, and the rest of the household are her ever-faithful servants. This dream takes stranger turns with each passing day, looming ever larger as shes set to begin school, though she still clings to counting with her fingersas if they held some secret royal talisman.
It all started the day she arrived and the entire family seemed compelled, with dreamlike compulsion, to assist in her upbringing. Her grandmother, impossibly, squeezed herself into a London terraced house already brimming with relatives, all of whom became silent extras in the theatrical life of the baby. Instead of guiding her gently into the world, grown-ups granted her every wish, until the very walls bent to her wails and shrieks, and sunlight itself seemed to obey her moods.
By the time she had reached a mere six months, she had perfected the art of twining adults around her chubby fingers. The home became a constant carnival of confusion, where priorities drifted like mist, and care for anyone but her faded into the background of yesterdays rain. Driven half-mad by this merry-go-round, her father departed in a haze of frustration, but he still doted on his daughter from afar, showering her in pounds spent on frilly dresses, sparkly shoes, and the kind of make-up one finds in fairy tales.
Any attempt by relatives, or even a well-meaning nursery teacher, to anchor her to reality was met with stormy resistance, as if the castle gates were slammed shut and dragons unleashed. Arguments echoed through the narrow stairwells, leaving only echoes and stony silences behind.
Her childhood seemed sculpted entirely around her imagined status, and learning itself became a far-off hill shrouded in fog: other children were mounting it, but she could not see the need. With her first year at primary school approaching, she still counted on her little fingers, those enchanted scepters, without grasping the simple tricks other children managed with ease. Her parents favoured a manner of upbringing more akin to a whimsical garden: let her wander its winding paths as she pleased, unpruned by rules or boundaries.
Yet to her future teacher, this is the stuff of unease. Shouldnt a child be grounded, at least a little, able to greet adults with a mannerly word or two?
Those who care for her, worn thin by her fantastical imperiousness and disregard for custom, have begun to drift away, seeking peace for themselves in the quiet parts of the house or their own gardens. They whisper, in tea-stained twilight, that it is for her own parents to take up the mantle of guidance, that this dreamy young sovereign must one day be taught to mind the gentle rules of the real English world, and led, gently, out of her kingdom of clouds.
