“Mummy, what’s an expat?”

Like most kids, I had a lot of questions as a child.

So, I looked up at her, her narrow eyes focused on the red ink she scribbled in the margins of papers. I held my book out towards her, open to a specific page, my finger pressed to the word.

“I told you not to call me that.” She pushed a strand of bleached, blond hair away from her face and continued marking, trapped behind a desk in the corner of a cluttered classroom.

The walls were lined with the letters of the alphabet and an associating word foreach: Aa for Arbre, Bb for Bicyclette, Cc for Chien; all clearly made when adults thought kids would spend most of their time outside, rather than glued to a screen. Nowadays, I imagine Aa would be for App, Bb for Bitcoin, and Cc for ChatGPT.

Mum straightened her back and glared at me. She put her pen down. “Livvie, go back to your desk and keep reading.”

“But I don’t know what an expat is,” I persisted.

“It’s people like us, people who move to another country.”

I turned the book back around, fumbling its weight with tiny fingers, and stared at the word.

“So, what’s an immigrant?”

“It’s basically the same thing,” she replied with a sigh. She then cleared her throat, ready to propel her voice. “Right, I want everyone seated and reading. We don’t have time for chitchat.”

I looked around. Twenty-odd children, heads bent over their books. I was the only one not at my desk.

I remember noticing the shift in dynamic between us. A clear-cut chasm between the mother I knew at home, who might be more receptive to my questions and emotions, and the teacher before me, stern and cold. Unfortunately, both were overbearing and short-tempered.

“That includes you, Livvie,” she said, her tone icy-sharp.

The other kids turned their heads towards me, and I lowered mine, cheeks flushing. Walking past my friend, whose eyes were glued to a novel, I slumped back into my chair.

Tears threatened to burst. The attention, and embarrassment of it. The not-knowing. I learned two things that day: don’t call Mummy “Mummy” while she’s teaching you, and don’t ask questions you should already know the answer to.