Eva Ibbotson - The Star of Kazan

‘Number 127 isn’t settling too well,’ said the matron to Annika’s form mistress. ‘She’s very thin and pale.’

‘Give her some cod liver oil and malt,’ said the form mistress. ‘Force it down her throat if she won’t take it — she’s probably anaemic.’

There was no need to force it down Annika’s throat — she didn’t want to end up like Minna, who still sometimes had last night’s supper served up to her at breakfast and then again at lunch. She obediently gulped the vile stuff down — but it made no difference. Each day she became more listless and quieter.

But it wasn’t till the school went for a walk one afternoon that she became really frightened.

She was walking with a girl called Flosshilde, who hardly ever spoke. Annika’s hands were folded, as were the hands of all the girls; she walked with a straight back.

At the front of the line was Fräulein Heller, who had flat feet; at the back was Fräulein Zeebrugge, who wheezed.

It was a misty day. Yesterday’s rain had passed but the air was moist.

They reached the end of the avenue and prepared to turn to the left. There was a tree by the gate and somebody was standing under it. Standing very still, just looking…

Annika stopped dead — and from behind her Fräulein Zeebrugge shouted, ‘What are you doing, girl? Keep moving, you’ve upset the line!’

So Annika moved on, and passed the woman who stood there — and it was then that she realized she was going mad.

Because she had seen Ellie. She was absolutely sure she had. And Ellie was 1,000 kilometres away in a city she herself would probably never see again.

Ellie was in Vienna.

‘She can’t stay there,’ said Ellie. ‘She can’t stay in that place a day longer.’

Professor Julius and Professor Emil looked at each other in dismay. They had packed their suitcases and asked the innkeeper for the bill. The summer term at the university began the following week.

And now Ellie wasn’t just being difficult. She was being impossible.

‘She’s ill,’ said Ellie. ‘She’s ill inside her head.’

‘Ellie, you only saw her for a few moments, muffled up in a cape on a foggy day. You said so yourself. How can you tell that she’s ill?’

‘I can tell,’ said Ellie. ‘If her mother won’t take her away then we’ll have to.’

‘I suppose we could inform her mother and—’

‘There’s no time for that,’ said Ellie, who had never before interrupted her employer. ‘And her mother thinks it’s a fine place; Gudrun said so.’

‘Look, we have to get back to Vienna,’ said Professor Julius. ‘We can return later—’

‘I’m not moving from here without Annika,’ said Ellie.

The professors stared at her, baffled. When your cook turns into a kind of tigress it is not easy to know what to do for the best.

‘I’ll rescue her myself if I have to,’ said Ellie. ‘I’ll get a ladder.’

The professors shook their heads and went into the parlour to discuss what to do.

‘It’s not going to be easy leaving her here,’ said Julius. The thought of Ellie on top of a ladder climbing through a window at Grossenfluss was not a calming one. ‘But I don’t see what else we can do.’

Emil nodded. ‘I imagine she’ll see sense soon. But I think we should definitely write to Frau von Tannenberg and ask her to find out if Annika is happy. This is an

entirely different matter to that of the jewels, which can be

left to the police.’

The maid with whom Ellie had made friends came in to

wipe down the tables and straighten the chairs.

‘Would you want any help with your luggage, sirs?’ she

asked the professors.

‘No, no; we’ve only our overnight things. Will you make

sure that the cab is ordered to take us to the station?’ ‘Yes, sir. Frau Ellie’s staying on, she says.’ ‘Yes. She’s worried about a child at the school.’ The maid pushed another chair straight. ‘Well, you

can’t be surprised after what happened last winter.’

Both professors looked up sharply. ‘What did happen?’ ‘Didn’t you know?’ The maid’s kind face was troubled.

‘One of the pupils killed herself. Number 126, they called

her. Climbed over the balustrade at the top of the staircase

and jumped. They tried to say it was an accident, but

everybody knew it wasn’t.’

Professor Julius put down his pipe.

‘Why? Did anyone find out why she’d done it?’

The maid shrugged. ‘She was just unhappy. Homesick,

they said. She was a nice little thing… such pretty hair,

she had.’

The professors and Ellie had been away for three days. The only telephone in the square was in the Eggharts’ house, and the Eggharts were still on holiday. Sigrid and Gertrude told each other that it was nothing to worry about, and became more and more worried. What could have happened at Spittal? What had kept them away so long?

Zed had his own anxieties, which he tried to keep to himself. He knew he could not stay in Vienna much longer however much he wanted to — yet he felt he could not leave till he knew what was happening to Annika.

Whatever troubles the humans had, Rocco did not share them. Life in Vienna suited him and he was making more and more friends. An old mare between the shafts of one of the cabs in the Keller Strasse seemed to think he was her long-lost son; the man who sold newspapers in the square behind the opera saved sugar lumps for him. Traffic did not trouble Rocco; he trotted serenely past honking motors and swaying trams. Children began to point him out.

‘Look, there’s Rocco,’ they told each other. ‘Rocco and Zed.’

Even the Lipizzaners, stepping proudly out of their princely stable, would often now return Rocco’s greetings, as though they knew that he was beginning to belong.

Then something happened which made Zed realize that he must leave the city and leave it fast. It was his own fault, he told himself. He had grown careless, taking Rocco out by daylight instead of waiting for the cover of night — but he’d been helping Pauline’s grandfather unpack books all morning and longed to be outside. So he shook off a handful of little Bodeks, saddled Rocco — and set off for the Prater.

This was not the funfair part of the Prater but the Royal Park, with its ancient trees and meadows, which had once belonged only to the emperor but which the people of the city were now allowed to use.

And on this fine spring afternoon, the people were certainly using it. Soldiers on leave walked with their girlfriends on their arms; old people whizzed along in bath chairs, propelled by their relatives; groups of pretty girls in their new Easter hats giggled together on the grass — and everywhere there were children. Children in prams, children pulling toys on wheels, children bowling hoops…

Two men in sober dark-brown uniforms stood out from the crowd. One was very tall and thin and wore his cap pulled down over his head; the other was small, with a ginger moustache.

There was a stretch where the cinder track for the horses ran beside the turf path on which the people walked. It was permitted to gallop in the Prater, but with so many people about, Zed kept Rocco to a canter.

On the path beside the track, a tired woman pushed her baby in a basketwork pram. With her free hand she pulled along a tiny, plump boy in a sailor suit.

‘Keep hold, Fritzi,’ she said. ‘Hang on to the pram.’

But Fritzi was bored. He let go of the handle and ran forward. Another child came towards him kicking a large red ball. They met head on.

‘My ball,’ said Fritzi, trying to grab it. ‘Mine.’