Ice Lolly. Jean Ure

mixed bad?” I say.

      “It is if you’re in the minority. Some of these inner city schools…hardly hear a word of English one day to the next, all the babble going on.”

      Earnestly I assure her that it only sounds like babble just at first. “You get used to it. You start learning other people’s languages. Like I can say hello in French and Polish—” I check them off on my fingers, “and Greek and Turkish and Gujarati and Russian and—”

      “Yes, and you probably weren’t allowed to celebrate Christmas,” snaps Auntie Ellen.

      “We did! We celebrated everything. Christmas, and Diwali, and Hanukkah, and—”