KEY POINTS:
At Wiremu Childcare, the children keep asking what happened to little Qian Xun Xue, and when she will be coming back to play.
They wonder why the little girl they knew as Claire no longer turns up with her mummy - and staff have been forced to trot out a standard answer that seems to satisfy curious little minds.
"[We say] she has gone away on a holiday," said centre supervisor Stephanie Brown yesterday.
Qian Xun attended Wiremu for about three weeks from August20.
Her last day - and the last day her mother, An An Liu, was seen alive - was Tuesday, September 11.
"She settled in pretty quickly, made friends with a couple of other girls pretty readily."
About 35 children attend the kindergarten, on Wiremu Rd, a side street running off Dominion Rd in the heart of racially diverse Balmoral.
More than 11 nationalities are represented at the centre and about half the children are Chinese.
Qian Xun attended five days a week, staying from 8.30am to 4.30pm, Ms Brown said.
"She was not afraid to get her hands dirty. She just wanted to be involved."
There was no hint her home life was abusive, she was bright, outgoing and "very affectionate".
Ms Brown remembers, too, Qian Xun's mother, An An, and admits she has not slept much in the week since the 3-year-old was found wandering bewildered and alone in Melbourne's Southern Cross railway station.
She was a friendly woman, always dressed "beautifully" even if she was often wearing "a little too much makeup for my liking".
An An was the only person to drop Qian Xun at daycare, and the only one to pick her up again. Ms Brown assumed she was a solo mum.
"As far as I was aware, there was no father."
That assumption has changed in the past week or so, however, as word of An An's killing has spread.
"There's been lots of talk he was an odd man, not very nice."
Ms Brown noticed nothing different when An An came for the last time to pick up her daughter, on September 11.
"They were just as happy to see each other as they always havebeen."
Any clue that Wiremu Childcare may be able to provide is now in the hands of the police.
Ms Brown said staff offered investigators "absolutely anything we thought might be relevant, or not even relevant".
