Kid joined my year in January 2002, when I was in primary school. I would have been almost 9 years old. He had a very thick, very authentic sounding American accent. Told everyone that his parents had both died in 9/11 and he'd moved to the UK to live with his grandmother. And we ALL believed him. We had been at school the day of the 9/11 attacks, all children had been taken into the assembly hall so that all the teachers could watch the news together on the roll-in tv. So every child in my junior school (aged 8-11) watched the second plane hit the towers. Teachers were crying, most of us kids didn't understand. So when this American boy shows up, brand new to school, and he's talking about how his parents had been on the plane that the passengers had crashed (Flight 93, iirc), we didn't once think that he was lying because who tf would lie about that?! He had this whole story about the life he'd had in New Jersey and now he'd tragically lost his parents and his gran had had to fly to the US to bring him back to our town, and now he was just living in an ordinary house.

The whole way through school he kept up this American accent. The details never once altered. He was a quiet, introverted kid and only had a small circle of friends. He told everyone his gran was old, very religious and really strict and wouldn't let him "play out" because he was the only thing she had left of her son (this kid's dad who had died in 9/11) so she was super over protective of him, meaning nobody ever knocked on for him and only the teachers met his mysterious gran. And then when we were all like 15/16 he got into a fight with another boy and the school called home to have his gran come in for a meeting. Imagine the horror and surprise when HIS VERY MUCH ALIVE, ENGLISH PARENTS turned up to school.