I
A little wooden horse was smashed against the wall of the room where they were playing. The head bounced three times on the carpet. The body hit the chest of a two-year-old blond-haired boy, who feigned a cry after the blow. The kid responsible for the wreckage, a red-haired boy of imposing stature with whom he shared the same age, approached him to rub the bruise and encourage him to stop crying. A blonde-haired girl with features similar to those of the ill-fated blonde boy picked up both pieces with her tiny hands. She tried to fit them together without success. Then she approached the blonde boy and silently held out both pieces. The blond boy, who stopped crying, picked them up and fumbled with them without any definite purpose. The red-haired boy took off his head to bite it. The blonde girl joined the blonde boy in his apparent inspection of the leftover piece. After carefully pawing and nibbling at the dismembered horse, the blonde girl whispered in English:
"Glue."
"Glue," repeated the blonde boy with clumsy diction.
The red-haired boy proudly handed the blonde girl the equine head. She tried a second time to fit the two parts together.
"Glue," she repeated with as much precision as her childish vocal cords would allow.
The blonde boy and the red-haired boy watched with rapt attention as the blonde girl fitted the pieces together from their cracks until a whole horse was obtained.
"Cured!" laughed the blond boy.
The red-haired boy dropped to the floor to grab a new toy, a wooden soldier, and repeat the process of impact and healing. The problem was that only five potential wounded were available, so they soon collapsed to the ground after a short and exhausting day of reconstruction.
II
A scream. Elizabeth jumped up from her chair, alerted by the scream. Thinking it might be coming from the playroom, she made her way there, dodging the paint cans and toolboxes the workmen were using to refurbish Ashford Hall. A short distance away, he entered the room through its corresponding door. Lissa held her left forearm tearfully; Alexia, seated on the floor near her, watched her silently; Alfred and Auguste, indifferent, played with a pair of teddy bears.
"Alexia bit me!" cried Lissa in Dutch with an anger unbecoming of a childminder.
"Bitten?" replied Elizabeth reflexively. "Alexia bit you?"
"Yes!"
Lissa turned away from Alexia, who had not moved from her position, nor had she changed her position. She approached Elizabeth, clearly aggrieved.
"She wanted to break one of the toys, and I stopped her, but she kept insisting. I grabbed her arms to make her stop, and then she bit my arm." She turned to Alexia with an angry gesture that Elizabeth didn't like. "She's very aggressive!" said the twenty-year-old without manners.
"Call Harman and tell him to come watch the children. I'm going to talk to Alexia."
Elizabeth gave way to the nanny, who crossed the frame with her head down. A third resignation, she thought. Until that day, two nannies had left Ashford Hall because of Alexia's disruptive behaviour. The first for proving unable to control the little girl and the second for an anxiety attack. Physical discipline was strictly forbidden, so orders and punishments had been constant in order to correct her behaviour. Nothing had worked. Alexia continued to be "wild" in the opinion of the caregivers. She hid inside the furniture, escaped to the gardens with her brother as soon as she could, or fiddled with any electronic device she felt like. He would sneak out at night with Alfred to go and play, or they would end up jumping on the sofas in the living rooms. And no matter how many security measures they put in place, no matter how creative they were, Alexia always found a way to get away with it. They had no idea how she did it and Harman had run out of ideas. All they needed was to lock her in a cage, and even then she would probably manage to escape.
Elizabeth and Alexander had considered seeing a professional. First, because of Alexia's obvious precociousness. If Alfred barely mumbled word-like sounds in English and Dutch, Alexia was fluent in both languages. Her diction and the number of terms she had internalised were on a par with those of a four- to six-year-old, and she had just turned two months old. She read relatively complex narratives and wrote as best he could. If the adults were paying close enough attention, Alexia seemed to understand most of what they were talking about. And second, to find out the reason for her disruptive behaviour. Elizabeth tried to figure out on her own how to raise Alexia, but her previous experience with Alexander hadn't helped. Her first-born had been like Alfred, a quiet, untroubled child; generally conventional. Alexia represented the opposite, so raising her, both for Alexander and Elizabeth and for the Campbells, had become a challenge.
"Alexia." She called her attention with gentle firmness.
The little girl raised her head to fix her cerulean eyes on Elizabeth's. Her fine blonde hair looked disheveled and her cream sweater wrinkled, like the shorts she wore to play with Alfred. Her fine blonde hair was disheveled and her cream-colored jumper was rumpled, like the shorts she wore to play with Alfred. He noticed a slight swelling at the corner of her lips.
"What happened?" she asked in Dutch.
Alexia retreated into her silence. Accustomed to this reaction, Elizabeth quickly came up with an idea. She positioned herself next to Alfred and repeated the question:
"Alfred, what happened?" she asked in friendly English and winked at Auguste, who had begun to smile.
The blond boy bit his lip and sought the red-haired boy's complicity, but his desire not to expose his twin sister's criminal activity gave way to his grandmother's incriminating pressure and his cousin's perverse amusement.
"Alesia broke the car because..." he began.
"Snitch," Alexia suddenly interrupted.
"Ha ha ha!" Auguste guffawed.
Alfred's face swelled with an embarrassed pinkish flush. To endure the humiliation, he curled into a ball on the spot, while Auguste threw the stuffed animals that besieged them at him and Alexia stared angrily at him.
"Snitch," Alexia repeated as she sat up.
She walked towards Alfred under the expectant supervision of Elizabeth, who merely acted as a spectator to this bizarre scene. At Auguste's level, Alexia grabbed the first stuffed animal that came her way, an imitation zebra, and began to swat at her cousin, brandishing the stuffed animal by the tail.
"Ah!" whined Auguste as he rolled onto his back to defend himself from the painless onslaught.
Auguste stopped laughing. Satisfied, Alexia pulled off the stuffed toy and walked back to her brother, on top of whom she threw herself flat on her back. On the floor beside him, she whispered:
"Snitch."
Taking advantage of the twins' helplessness, Auguste was up in a flash and leapt on top of them, cushioning the impact of their fall with their bodies. The ineffable shrieks they emitted from their youthful lungs as they romped across the carpet like newborn foals deafened a stunned Elizabeth.
III
"Why did you want to break the toy?" said a woman with aged features in English.
She pawed at her father's soft beard to reduce the anxiety of being trapped in front of two adult strangers who kept pestering her with questions she didn't want to answer and writing down her answers on a piece of paper.
"Alexia?" said her father in a reassuring tone.
He removed his hand from his beard to indicate that she should listen to the two people in front of her and speak, but Alexia found a gap to hide her face between the lapel of the jacket that covered his heart and the waistcoat of his suit. She didn't want to answer. She heard a long sigh as her father's chest swelled and deflated. Her father, who held her in his arms, lifted her up slightly to change position, crossing his left leg over her right and sitting her on his left. He struggled to dislodge his daughter from his chest with a gentle push, but only succeeded in getting Alexia to increase the strength of her grip.
"Why did you want to break the toy?" her father repeated softly. When he asked, she didn't feel so anxious.
"Uhm," she mumbled hesitantly.
"These people just want to get to know you a little better, Alexia."
"Uhm," she repeated unconvincingly.
"It'll just be a couple more questions and you can go back to playing with your brother, okay? I know you can do it."
"I want them to go," Alexia said, pressing against his torso.
"I know, but they're here for a good reason. Answer their last questions and they'll leave."
Alexia uncovered her face slightly, but without looking directly at the pair of strangers. She felt under a lot of pressure and wanted to go back to playing with her brother to forget about that encounter.
"Promise?" she demanded.
"I promise," her father assured her.
After a brief silence, Alexia settled sideways onto her father's lap and without loosening her grip.
"Why did you want to break the toy?" her father asked again.
"Because... Uhm... Because I wanted to know how it works," she mumbled. The two strangers in front of her wrote on their papers.
"And why did you want to know how it works?" continued her father.
"Because I want to... I want to make one myself."
"And did you find out how it works?"
"Lissa wouldn't let me."
"And that's why you bit her?"
Alexia buried her face in her jacket.
"She didn't mean to..." she defended herself.
The pair of strangers concentrated on writing down what had been said.
"Why did you bite her? Why the reaction?"
"To get her to leave me. She grabbed me. I got angry."
"You got angry because she wouldn't let you take the toy apart?"
"Yes."
The pair of strangers talked to each other. Her father watched them. She didn't understand the meaning of some of the terms they uttered.
"We would classify Alexia as a genius or a prodigy. We should check our measurements first," said the man.
"Her giftedness is evident," said the woman.
Her father stroked her head in a gratifying, comforting motion. But Alexia didn't understand the point of it all. She just wanted to get out of there and play with Alfred.
IV
A tower of LEGO blocks had been erected in the middle of the playroom. Its architect and builder, Alexia, was scurrying from one boot to another, collecting pieces to complete her work.
Elizabeth admired her granddaughter's fortitude. After meeting with educationalists and trying some techniques, a substantial change in her behaviour was achieved through constant cognitive stimulation. As advised, they replaced stuffed animals and wooden toys with puzzles, chalkboards and construction sets. The few dolls that survived the purge were eventually removed because of Alexia's indifference to them. The benefits were immediate: decreased aggression and increased responsiveness and cooperation. She smiled frequently and socialised, although she preferred to play alone. In addition to play, a first reading and writing routine was included. Alexander and Elizabeth acted as temporary tutors. Alexander did the homework in English and she in Dutch.
Alexander was involved in the activity, never missing a single day. However, spying on them unnoticed, he detected the strangeness with which the latter interacted with his daughter. Edward was an engaged and affectionate father. By contrast, Alexander seemed expressionless and distant; involved, but simply correct. As if, deep down, he was reluctant to form an emotional bond with his daughter. Elizabeth decided to hold back for the moment. She lacked tangible evidence to support her suspicions, and it was certain that Alexander was never like her father.
Alexia placed a rectangular block at the top of the tower, culminating her edification with a snap.