Eva Ibbotson - The Dragonfly Pool

Karil turned away from the window. “How? How is it shocking?”

The countess drew her ferocious brows together. “I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. But I can only say that you can stop showing an interest in what appear to be ruffians with no discipline and no manners.”

The Scold did not normally spend time with the Baroness Gambetti. Whether the wife of the foreign minister did or did not sleep with a picture of Hitler under her pillow, she was certainly a woman who disagreed with the king, and whatever the countess’s faults she was utterly loyal to Johannes. But they had met in the salon of the dressmaker who made clothes for the court, and the baroness had been full of gossip and indignation.

“The British rabble have no uniform — they came with a ragbag of clothes and not one of them can curtsy. And they call their teachers by their Christian names. But that’s not all — they wear nothing in the shower rooms.” She lowered her voice. “Nothing at all.”

Countess Frederica had tried to be fair. “Of course, it would not be sensible to shower in one’s clothes,” she pointed out.

“No, of course not,” snapped the baroness. “But it is customary to slip off one’s bathrobe at the very last second, whereas these children just wander about in the washroom till it is their turn. They have no modesty and no shame. And the man who is in charge of them looks like a bandit. My husband says his face is familiar — he’s probably wanted by the police.”

There had been no time to hear more about the British children but the countess had learned enough.

“Put the telescope away, and put Carlotta back in her rightful place, please.”

But at lunchtime Uncle Fritz seemed to be very pleased with the way things were going down in the park.

“Everyone has settled in very well,” he said. “It’s so good to have young people.” He sighed.

“They’re going to have a tour of the town today,” he went on. “They’ll come to the palace — only the staterooms, of course, and the ramparts — but if you look out of the window you’ll be able to see them. Fortunately they seem to be getting on very well, the different teams. That’s because it’s not a competition, just people coming together to make music and dance,” said Uncle Fritz happily.

But the best news was still to come. After the meal was over, an equerry sent for Uncle Fritz and asked him to come to the council chamber because His Majesty wanted to speak to him. When he came back he was beaming.

“Your father will come himself to the opening ceremony,” he told Karil. “It is quite unexpected — no one thought the king would have time to open what is after all only a children’s festival. You will accompany your father, of course. The master of ceremonies is arranging the details now.”

But if Uncle Fritz was delighted and the prince, too, the chief of police and the head of the army were appalled.

“It’s madness — trying to arrange proper security at such short notice. Two days! My reservists will be away at camp,” said Colonel Metz.

“We’ll have to use the trainees,” said the chief of police. “And he’s going on horseback — both he and the prince will ride. He thinks the children will prefer it. What’s got into the king — and just now when everything is so tense?”

The king himself could not have told them what had got into him. He only knew that after yet another week of endless meetings, threatening telegrams from the German chancellor, heckling and nagging from Gambetti and his followers, he was reaching the end of his tether. He had forgotten what it was like to be a human being, to have a son whom he loved, to live in a world where children came together to make music and to dance.

That night he left a meeting of his defense committee early and made his way to Karil’s room.

“Is it true?” was the first thing his son said. “We’re going to open the Folk Dance Festival together?”

“Yes, Karil. We’ll give them something to remember! I’m calling out the Mounted Guard. And I shall see that the children are presented to you.”

The prince was silent for a moment. Then: “Couldn’t I actually meet them? Not just have them presented — meet them properly?”

It was the king now who was silent. “Karil, it never works, trying to make friends with people from outside our world. Believe me — I know what I’m talking about.” His face was somber as he looked out at the mountains. “You will only get hurt.” He put his hand on his son’s shoulder. “Perhaps we shouldn’t put it off any longer, going to the dragonfly pool. I can’t promise, but there are no meetings tomorrow. I’ll see what I can do.”

The Berganians had done their best to make the campsite comfortable for the visiting teams, but camping is camping — there is nothing to be done about that.

Kit found a toad on the slatted floor of the shower and came back to tell Tally that he did not like it. He did not like it at all. Then there was breakfast. Matteo had gone off early, no one knew where, and Julia and Tally tried to light the Primus while Magda was still in the shower, but it was an ancient, temperamental contraption with a will of its own and, however much they pumped, it wouldn’t get going.

“I can perhaps help?” said a boy from the German tent. He had a mass of brown curls and a friendly smile, and with him came his sister, whose hair was even curlier and whose smile was as broad.

And he did help, without any fuss, so that in a few minutes the stove was roaring like a furnace.

At this point Magda appeared and decided that she would make the porridge, and she began well, stirring the pot with a big ladle — only then she had an important thought about Schopenhauer — you could tell when this happened because her eyes glazed over — and the ladle moved more and more slowly, and though Barney rushed to take it from her, it was too late.

“It’s funny — you can eat burned toast and it isn’t too bad at all,” said Borro, “but burned porridge!”

After breakfast they started on their chores. Augusta Carrington must have swallowed something which disagreed with her — perhaps a piece of meat that had got stuck to her plate of rice — and had come out in lumps on her back, and Verity needless to say did nothing to help but wandered past the tents of the other children, showing them how beautiful she was, but the rest of them worked with a will.

The Deldertonians were in their ordinary clothes, but most of the children wore their national costumes and the campsite was a blaze of color — the orange and yellow of the Spaniards and the Italians, the cool blue and white of the Scandinavians… the fierce black-and-red embroidered shirts of the Hungarians…

The buses that were to take them on a tour of the town were not due till eleven, and while they waited some of the teams took turns rehearsing on the wooden platform. The Germans had gone through their dance early. It was beautiful and didn’t involve anybody hitting themselves on their own behinds, though there was a certain amount of yodeling.

“But yodeling is a good thing really because it’s how people call each other in the mountains,” said Barney.

After the Germans came the Yugoslavs, whose dance was very ferocious with a lot of stamping, and music from a very strange instrument which was covered in fur and had a horn sticking out of each end.

“Do you think we should be stamping more? ” asked Julia anxiously but Tally said no, she didn’t think the British did much in the way of stamping.

“It’s no good worrying about the poor Flurry Dance — it may be odd but it got us here,” said Tally. “And the people are pleased to see us; they really are.”