Eva Ibbotson - The Dragonfly Pool

A small girl in a white dress came forward to curtsy and give the king a big bouquet of lilies, and an even smaller girl was pushed forward and gave Karil a posy of sweet peas — and then the speeches began.

Karil had liked the old wooden station, with its single waiting room hung with posters of Italy and Austria and Spain, and a black iron stove. The new one was of brick, faced with yellow stucco, and had a fanciful blue roof, and the architect who had designed it was presented to the king and made a speech and so did the mayor and the director of railways.

Karil found it difficult to concentrate on the speeches; they always seemed to be the same, whether it was a railway station being opened or a football team being presented or a bishop being buried, but he managed to stand up very straight and not to blow the ostrich feathers out of his eyes even though a breeze had sprung up and they were tickling him badly. Then the king cut the pink ribbon stretched across the platform and declared the station open, and everyone got back in their cars for the drive home. As they made their way along the promenade beside the river Karil noticed some workmen putting up bell tents on the level ground at the edge of the park.

“What are those for?” he asked Baron Gambetti.

“Oh, some nonsense of your uncle Fritz,” sneered the baron, who made no secret of his contempt for the minister of culture.

“A folk-dance festival or some such thing — children coming from all over the place.”

“I hope they will behave,” said the baroness. “There are some from one of those free schools in England. They will carry on like savages, no doubt.”

Karil looked at the tents, imagining them full of busy children from all over the world. But it wouldn’t help him. Maybe one child would be scrubbed clean and presented to him for a few minutes, but he would never know what was really going on in their lives… or make a friend.

When he was younger and had read fairy stories, Karil had always been angry with all those goose girls and milkmaids who wanted to marry a prince.

“Don’t do it!” he had wanted to shout at them. “Don’t go and live in a palace. You’ll be bored and bullied, and everybody you meet — absolutely everybody — will be old!”

Back at the palace Karil changed out of the detested uniform, but the working day was still not over. A professor came from the College of Heraldry to give him a lecture on the different methods of saluting and showed him pictures of the exact angle of the hand in relation to the lobe of the ear. This was followed by the visit of a sculptor who wanted to measure Karil’s head for a bust which the Youth Center had ordered for their sports hall.

“Do I have to do this now? There’s time for a ride before dinner,” said Karil.

“Certainly you have to do it now,” said the Scold. “You really must stop making an unseemly fuss about this kind of thing.”

It was true that Karil hated being painted and photographed and modeled. It had begun when he was small and a photographer’s flashlight had exploded in his face — but even now he was frightened by the way his father had turned into a portrait and his mother had become a marble statue in the park.

The king was not at dinner. A special meeting of his cabinet had been called to deal with Germany’s new demands and it was still going on.

“Couldn’t I go and say good night to him?” asked Karil. “Just for a minute?” He had not spoken a single word to his father all day.

“Now, Karil,” said the Scold, “you know you mustn’t disturb him in a meeting.”

The meeting had already lasted for four hours. The king looked gray and tired. Baron Gambetti, the foreign minister, sat next to him, leaning forward. His goatee waggled on his chin; his yellow skull glistened with sweat as he stabbed his pencil against the paper.

“In my view it would be extremely unwise to refuse Herr Hitler his requests. He has made Germany into a great power and those who oppose him will be crushed.”

On the other side of the king, the elderly prime minister, Wolf-gang von Arkel, shook his head. A loyal and faithful servant of the king for many years, von Arkel supported his master in his stand against the German Führer.

“Giving in to bullying has never been a wise policy,” he said now, stroking his long white beard. He turned to the king. “I have to assure Your Majesty that your people are behind you.

No one wishes to see storm troopers marching through our country. As for forcing those people who have sought shelter with us back into Nazi hands, it is not to be thought of by decent men.”

Gambetti snorted. “A sensible compromise in which we grant a few of Herr Hitler’s demands in exchange for—”

“In exchange for what?” put in von Arkel. “Empty promises and then more demands.”

The king leaned back in his chair. He agreed with his prime minister, a good man whom he trusted absolutely. The head of the army was behind him, too. But there were others… He looked at his watch. There was time still to say good night to his son. He half rose to his feet and then sat wearily down again. He could not afford to let Gambetti bring the waverers around to his point of view.

The day ended as it had begun, only in reverse. A footman came to turn down Karil’s bed, a second one brought two rusks and a glass of fruit juice on a silver tray. The uniform of the Munzen Guards was put back in the cupboard and the uniform of the Berganian Rifles was taken away to be pressed for the following day. The countess came with Carlotta’s latest picture in a frame and put out the light.

Left alone, Karil got out of bed again and drew back the curtains. The mountains were dark against the sky; the rosy light of sunset was gone. He went over to the other window and looked down at the river and at the row of lamps on the promenade. He could make out the bell tents, and inside them a glimmer of moving lights as the workers finished the preparations for the Folk Dance Festival.

He turned, startled, as the door suddenly opened. Someone had come in with a firm stride and without knocking.

In a second Karil had run forward to embrace his father. He had come to say good night after all, and at once the world seemed to be a different place.

The king did not ask his son whether he had had a good day. He knew full well about Karil’s day; he had had so many days of his own like that when he was a boy. Days when he felt trapped and weary and wanted nothing except to escape into the hills and never return.

“When this crisis is over we’ll go out together, you and I, and hide,” he said, “and they can look for us as much as they want.”

Karil nodded. “Can we go to the dragonfly pool?” he asked. “It’s the right time of year.”

“Yes. That’s where we’ll go.”

For a moment the king stood looking down at his son. The dragonfly pool belonged to his own childhood, before he was weighed down by duties. To the days when he had had a friend to share adventures with. The friend had betrayed him in the end, but the memory of those days still warmed his heart.

After the king had left, Karil stood by the window, looking down at the tents in the park below. Perhaps he would not always be cut off from real people and real life. Perhaps he would get to know the children who were coming. Those few moments with his father had given him courage and hope.