Eva Ibbotson - The Star of Kazan

‘The twenty-three only runs every quarter of an hour. We’d do better to take a cab. If we choose—’

‘Those nags will never do it. The train to Kasselberg would be faster, and then a cab along the river.’

But even as they argued, pulling on their clothes in all sorts of strange ways, they knew they would never get to the quay in time.

‘The police?’ suggested Gertrude.

The police had the fastest horses, but persuading them to act instantly would be almost impossible.

It was then that they heard it: the strident pooping of Herr Egghart’s motor horn. Then came the cloud of dust, the roar of the engine as he drove into the square, and the squeal of brakes as the great yellow machine drew up in front of his house.

Herr Egghart got out and stretched. He was in his goggles and leather gauntlets, his cap and floor-length duster coat. His wife in her motoring veil followed, then Loremarie.

Up to this moment every single person in the square only had to hear the pooping of the Eggharts’ motor and they went back into their houses and shut the windows and the door. Nobody had ever been known to run towards him and his machine. Now, without looking at each other, the child did just that — and threw themselves on Herr Egghart just as he was following his wife and child into the house.

‘Please, please, you must help us,’ Pauline cried. ‘It’s desperately important.’

‘We have to rescue Annika; it’s a matter of life and death,’ said Zed. ‘You have to drive us to the Riverside Quay.’

Herr Egghart looked at them as though they were insane.

‘Drive you to the Riverside Quay — after the journey I’ve had? You must be out of your mind. Now please get out of my way.’

Professor Julius had caught up with the children. ‘It really is important, Herr Egghart. We have reason to believe that Annika is—’

‘I’m afraid I’m not interested,’ said Herr Egghart.

He was almost inside his house.

It was Stefan who found the magic words.

‘It’s about your great-aunt’s trunk, sir. We think we know who stole it and—’

Herr Egghart turned. ‘The trunk? Well, why didn’t you say so?’

‘Faster — oh, faster,’ begged Pauline. She was in the back with Stefan and Zed. Professor Julius sat beside the driver.

But Herr Egghart was already driving very fast. He roared down the Karntner Strasse, rounded the Praterstern, sent a donkey cart into the kerb. His horn blew incessantly, clouds of dust rose in the children’s faces.

There was a line of carts waiting to cross the bridge over the canal but Egghart’s horn sent them to the side and he drove on.

An old lady leaped to safety in the Schwartzer Strasse. A stallholder stared open-mouthed.

The dial shot up to thirty-two kilometres per hour, then to forty: a record even for a custom-built Piccard-Pictet.

They were driving beside the Danube now, but there were several kilometres still to go. Past warehouses, past a boatyard… past a municipal park — and then they were at the Riverside.

‘Oh no. No!’

They were too late; the gangway had been pulled up; steam poured from the Empress ’s funnel. On the boat and on the shore there was a flurry of waving handkerchiefs.

Herr Egghart stopped with a squeal of brakes. The children rushed out of the car. They could see Annika in her red kerchief standing by the rail, but she hadn’t seen them.

On the bandstand the conductor raised his baton to play the steamer out — and Zed ran to him like a streak of lightning and pulled at his arm.

The last of the ropes had been thrown on to the quay. The Empress was free.

Pauline rushed to the water’s edge and cupped her hands and shouted the words which would save Annika.

Annika saw her now — but she could not hear her.

Pauline shouted again — and then Stefan came. His voice was stronger and he too shouted the same words, but he too could not make his voice carry across the water.

Herr Egghart got out of the car and made his way to the edge of the quay. He pushed Pauline and Stefan aside and removed his gauntlets. Then he too cupped his hands and shouted the all-important words as they had done.

But this was Egghart, whose voice as he yelled at his wife and child could make the pigeons fly up from the rooftops. The man whose shout could make horses kneel.

And Annika heard them.

She heard the words. And as she did so, a great weight fell from her and she understood everything that had happened.

She shrugged off her cloak and let it fall on to the deck. Then, without a moment of hesitation, she climbed on to the rails, steadied herself — and jumped.

Annika woke in her attic and stretched and opened the shutters

In the square everything was as it should be. The pigeons flew up from General Brenner’s head, the cathedral bells rang for morning mass… Stefan came out of the Bodeks’ house with a pail to fetch the milk, and waved to her.

But after all everything was not quite the same as before, because they had decided that from now on they would have to be nice to Herr Egghart.

‘We might not even mind if he becomes a statue,’ Pauline said.

‘A s long as the statue was somewhere else,’ said Stefan.

For it was this unpleasant, conceited man, with his foghorn voice and his ridiculous motor car, who had brought Annika safely home. The words which Pauline and Stefan had not been able to make her hear had reached her easily when Herr Egghart yelled them.

‘ She is not your mother! ’

And as soon as she had heard them, Annika had known.

‘I must have known all along, in a way,’ she said. ‘I tried too hard.’

When she came home they had all watched Annika for signs of shock or grief or disbelief — but there were none. The waters of the Danube, as she swam to the shore, had woken her completely from her spell. Forgiving a mother who had robbed her would have been a hard task — but what of a woman so greedy for wealth that she pretended to have a daughter, took her away from those who loved her, fed her with lies…?

A woman like that could be banished from one’s mind completely and forever. It would take time, for Annika’s love had been real and it had been deep, but she knew that in the end she would succeed.

‘You’re not nobly born, then,’ Loremarie had taunted her the day after Annika returned. ‘You’re not a “von” after all.’

And she had stepped back at the happiness in Annika’s face.

‘No,’ said Annika. ‘I’m completely ordinary. I’m me! And I have the most marvellously ordinary mother in the world. I have Ellie!’

Annika washed and dressed and came downstairs. In the kitchen the water was boiling for coffee, the rolls were warming in the oven — but there was no sign of Ellie.

The door to the courtyard was open. On the bench sat Ellie, and across her lap, though there was plenty of room for him on either side, lay the three-legged dog.

‘You’ll have to make the coffee,’ said Ellie.

Annika turned away to hide her smile.

‘Couldn’t you just tell him to get off?’

Ellie looked at her reproachfully.

‘He’s tired,’ she said.

There had been a nasty row when Bertha had written that she was going into hospital for an operation and asked if they could take Hector.

‘Couldn’t we have him?’ Annika had begged. ‘I’ve always wanted a dog.’

‘Over my dead body does a dog come near my kitchen,’ had been Ellie’s reply.

‘He’s not a dog. If it wasn’t for Hector finding the photograph I’d still be at Spittal.’

‘All the same, he’s a dog,’ Ellie had said. ‘Germs and hairs on everything and dirt.’