Blimey, you wouldn’t believe this! So there’s this bloke, Alexander Bennett, right? Proper awful day for him, sitting in a London boardroom feeling like he’d run a marathon in his Savile Row suit, sweating buckets even with the AC blasting. Across from him, three stone-faced German execs from Europe’s biggest tech firm didn’t crack a smile. Every feeble icebreaker? Got a stiff little nod. Proper awkward. His translator was fifteen minutes late – vanished! Alexander knew: if this tanked, his last decade’s work went down the pan. He tried a clumsy bow he’d googled. Nada. Total disaster brewing.
Then… the door swings open. In walks this little mite, Harriet Cooper, maybe ten? Hair messy, a faded Chester City FC shirt, scuffed trainers. Big eyes wide, scanning all these stressed suits. “Sir?” she pipes up timidly. “Which floor is my mum cleaning?” Alexander nearly choked. “Out! Now!” he hissed, desperate. Harriet froze, scared… Then she did something proper amazing. Turned to the Germans, gave a polite little nod, and said clear as a bell: “Guten Morgen. Entschuldigung, I’m looking for my mum…”
You could hear a pin drop. The big boss – Herr Schmidt, grey-haired and stern – actually broke into a hint of a smile and replied in German. Back and forth they chatted like she grew up in Munich! Alexander was gobsmacked. His assistant whispered, “Lor’ love us, no one learns German just from telly!” Harriet turned to Alexander, not bragging, just sweet: “Herr Schmidt says it’s lovely to meet someone young who cares about German ways. And… well, he suspected. They’ve been sending letters in German for three months to see if you valued them properly. Nobody got it right.”
Alexander went chalk white. Three months of vital letters… binned! Because not one soul in his company spoke German. And who spotted it? The cleaner’s daughter. “How d’you learn?” he croaked. Harriet shrugged with a shy grin. “Mum does nights. I wait in the break room. Only telly picks up German channels. No subtitles. First
So little Emma never expected her Japanese cartoons to actually save her dad’s company, but seeing the stunned pride in Mr. Chambers’ eyes and the grateful handshake from Mr. Tanaka felt almost as good as finally spotting her mum pushing the cleaning cart down the corridor; they all walked out together that evening, happily reunited over fish and chips thanks to a girl who just wanted to find her mother.