After the cold and gloom of the underground room, it was dizzying to walk out on to the hot and noisy London street. Immediately, a big red bus drew up in front of us: a double-decker bus, just like I had seen in pictures!

Mrs Dean led me on to the bus and we sat right at the front, on the top deck. It was wonderful to look down on the London streets, with their grand grey buildings and the people walking briskly along the pavements. She asked me about the journey and I couldn’t remember how to say “long”, so I just said, “It was good, thank you.” Then I said, “Do you live in London?”

Mrs Dean threw back her head and laughed.

“Oh, bless you, no!” She said something I couldn’t understand, and she must have noticed my blank expression, because she slowed her voice down and said, “We live in the countryside. Do you understand?”

I nodded. I was a bit disappointed that I wasn’t going to stay in London, but Mama always said the English countryside was very beautiful.

“We have to get another train,” Mrs Dean said. “We live in Kent. In a village called Ashcombe.”

I wondered whom she meant by “we”. Would it be rude to ask whether she had children?

My curiosity got the better of me.

“Do you have children?” I asked.

She smiled at me. “You speak English very well. Yes, we have two children. Frank is seven and Molly’s twelve. That’s why we chose you. We thought it would be nice for Molly to have a friend the same age.”

I was really pleased that I could understand that. At least, I hoped I’d understood it. I tried to picture Molly and Frank. I imagined them as smaller versions of Mrs Dean, with dark wavy hair and smiling, rosy faces.

We got off the bus at another busy station, and within a few minutes we were on a train again.

“We thought it would be nice,” said Mrs Dean, as she unwrapped a paper parcel of sandwiches, “if you called me Aunty Rose. And my husband you can call Uncle Bert.”

I nodded and smiled. “Thank you,” I said, taking one of the sandwiches she offered. I didn’t like to tell her we’d been given sandwiches at the station. Besides, I didn’t know how long it would be until my next meal.

The upholstered seats were so comfortable that I could easily have gone to sleep, but I wanted to see the English countryside this time.

First, the train crossed a wide grey river. I pointed at it.

“River Thames?”

Mrs Dean – Aunty Rose – gave a big smile. “Well done!”

On the other side of the river, we passed a lot of dull grey buildings and rows of little houses. Then the houses stopped and the train was steaming through the countryside. And it was so beautiful.

Bright-green fields were sprinkled with masses of wild flowers, pink and yellow and white. White blossoms foamed in the dense green hedgerows. We passed lovely stone churches, and little houses where the roofs seemed to be made of straw. Were they really made of straw? I wanted to ask Aunty Rose, but I didn’t know the words. I rifled through my dictionary, but by the time I had found the word for “straw”, we had passed the houses.

By the time we finally got out at a tiny station, the light was starting to fade and there was nobody else around.

“We have to get another bus now,” said Mrs Dean, carrying my case to a painted bus stop sign with a wooden bench beside it. So the journey still wasn’t over! She said something that was probably an explanation of where we were going, but I couldn’t understand a word.

Opposite the station, the hands on the church clock stood at ten to nine. The quiet evening air was so fresh and sweet after the grimy coal-dust smell of the trains. The only sounds were the buzzing of insects and an endless choir of birds, twittering and chattering, cawing and cooing, chirruping and singing, in the hedges and trees and sky. One pair of birds soared higher and higher above me, singing all the way.

Aunty Rose saw me looking at them and smiled. “Larks,” she said, pointing upwards. Then came a rumbling sound along the road. “Oh, good,” she said. “The bus.”

In the fading light, the bus trundled past more lovely fields and woods, along narrow lanes lined with wild flowers, where the high canopies of the trees on either side joined together in places to form an arch.

It was almost dark when we got off the bus. Mrs Dean took a torch out of her bag and switched it on.

A silver crescent moon hung high in the sky. The same moon, I thought. The same moon that’s shining above my parents.

I sent a silent message to the moon. Please keep my parents safe.

I could hear occasional sounds of sheep and cows in the fields around us. As we walked along the lane, the smell of manure grew stronger and stronger. I wrinkled my nose, and then hoped Mrs Dean hadn’t seen me do it.

To the right of the lane I saw shadowy outlines of what must be farm buildings. There was a big wooden barn and some other low-roofed buildings that might be stables.

Aunty Rose opened a wide wooden gate that led off the lane into a farmyard.

“Here we are,” she said. “Welcome to Ashcombe, Anna.”

I stared at her in surprise. She hadn’t said they lived on a farm. Or maybe she had, but I hadn’t understood.

We walked through the farmyard. The smell of manure was even stronger here. Grunting noises came from somewhere nearby. Pigs? I wasn’t sure I wanted to live so close to pigs. I’d always found them a bit scary.

“Frank should be in bed, of course,” said Aunty Rose, “but I expect he’s stayed up to see you. And Molly will be dying to meet you.”

Her torch beam lit up a little white gate in a hedge at the far side of the yard. She opened the gate and we walked up a short path and then around the edge of a house to a low door at the back. It opened into a narrow room with a long wooden work surface and a big sink under the window. In the light of the torch beam, I saw bowls and jugs, and shelves stacked with jars.

Mrs Dean opened another door into a cosy kitchen, lit only by an oil lamp in the middle of the table. Around the table sat a man and two children, playing cards.

“Hello, everybody,” said Mrs Dean. “This is Anna.”

The man put down his cards and came forward. He was short like his wife, but slim and wiry, with a kind, warm smile.

“Welcome, Anna,” he said, taking both my hands in his. “We’re so pleased to see you.”

“And this is Frank,” said Aunty Rose, bending down and giving the boy a kiss. He had messy brown hair and a round freckled face. He gave me a shy smile.

“Well, say hello to Anna,” said Uncle Bert. “You’ve been pestering me all day, asking when she’d be here.”

Frank squirmed. “Hello, Anna,” he said.

I smiled at him to show I was friendly. “Hello, Frank.”

Frank beamed. “She speaks English! You said she wouldn’t, but she does!”

“A little,” I said, and Frank beamed again.

“Anna speaks English very well,” said Aunty Rose. “Just remember to speak clearly and slowly, so she can understand you.”

“And this is Molly,” said Uncle Bert.

I had wanted to look properly at Molly before, but for politeness’ sake I had focused on greeting Uncle Bert and Frank. Now I saw she had a friendly, freckled face like Frank. She smiled and stood up. She was wearing trousers! I looked at them enviously. I wondered how it felt to wear trousers.

“Hello, Anna,” said Molly, and she walked around the table and gave me a hug. Her parents smiled proudly.

Uncle Bert said something to Aunty Rose that I couldn’t understand. She replied and then turned to me. “Would you like some food, Anna, or would you like to go to bed?”

I suddenly realised how exhausted I was.

“I would like to go to bed, please.”

“I’ll show you our room,” said Molly.

From the cupboard by the stove she took a candle in a tin saucer. She lit it and beckoned me to follow her.

A candle?

I looked around. There were no lights on the walls or ceiling.

Did English houses not have electricity? Nobody had told me that.

We walked up a narrow staircase and into a little bedroom with two beds and a pine chest of drawers between them. There was a rug on the floorboards and a shelf with a few books.

“That’s your bed,” said Molly, pointing to the one on the left. Then she opened the middle drawer of the chest, which was empty. “And that’s for your things.”

“Thank you,” I said.

“Is there anything else you need?”

“Where is the bathroom, please?” I asked.

She gave me a funny look. “We don’t have a bathroom. There’s a lav in the garden.”

I looked at her, puzzled. Had I asked the question wrong?

“I’ll show you,” she said.

She led me downstairs again and said...