Eva Ibbotson - The Dragonfly Pool

“Thank you. I really like my school and I really like Magda — she’s our housemother and very clever — but she can’t manage handkerchiefs.”

“Keep it,” he said. “I’ve got another one.”

“Two?” said Tally, momentarily diverted. “Lucky you!”

“No,” he said vehemently. “I’m not lucky. I’m not lucky at all.” He looked away, then turned back to Tally. “You’re from the camp, aren’t you? One of the folk dancers?” He thought now that he had seen her through the telescope, helping a little boy. “It looked so nice down there. What happened?”

“They came and marched all the German children away. They said the king had insulted Hitler again, but I don’t see how you can insult Hitler enough. There was a horrible Nazi… There’s been a crisis.”

“There’s always a crisis,” said Karil bitterly.

“They were so sad to go, the German children. There was a very little one with plaits wound around her head who couldn’t stop crying. I went for the Nazi, and Matteo — he’s in charge of us — pulled me away and I was so angry I just ran off. There’ll be a row — we’re not supposed to leave the camp alone.”

“No, children are never supposed to do anything sensible alone.” He hesitated, then made up his mind. “I’ll take you to a place where no one will find you. You’d better come out of the sun. Then you can tell me… if you want to. But you needn’t.”

She followed him willingly. He was surprised at himself: the dragonfly pool was his secret and his father’s — yet he was going to show it to an unknown girl. But then, what was the point of sharing anything with his father? What did his father care?

They plunged into the cool of the forest. He led her down a mossy path, along a stream in which a heron stood on one leg, fishing. The path was dappled with pigeon feathers, and small fir cones lay on the ground; there was the faintest of breezes. The relief of the shade and moisture after the heat of the meadow was overwhelming.

Karil turned along beside a smaller stream; Tally heard the sound of rushing water and they came to a waterfall, tumbling down between rocks. Running up its side was a narrow track almost hidden by creepers and overhanging bushes. Still following the boy, she scrambled up to the top — and stood there, silent and amazed.

They had come to a pool so still and dark and deep that it hardly seemed to belong to the real world. The branches of great trees spread their arms over the surface of the water; a bright green frog plopped suddenly from a leaf into its depths. A kingfisher flew off with a flash of blue and emerald.

And over the surface of the water there danced and swooped and circled a host of dragonflies. Shafts of sunlight turned them every color of the rainbow and in the silence she could make out, very faintly, the dry clatter of their wings.

She said nothing, just shook her head in wonder — and Karil knew that it was all right to have brought her here. He could not have borne it if she had gushed and exclaimed.

“There’s a place there behind those boulders where no one can see us.”

He led her along the side of the pool and they scrambled over the flat stones into a kind of hollow soft with fallen leaves and moss.

“Are there otters?” she asked.

Karil nodded. “You have to come at night to see them.”

“I think this must be the most beautiful place I’ve ever seen,” said Tally as they sat down side by side, resting their backs on the cool stone. “But then, this is a marvelous country. I knew it would be. I wanted to come from the moment I saw it on the newsreel.”

“You’re with the British team, aren’t you?”

Remembering the rumors he had heard about the British “savages” he smiled, and Tally stared at him. He looked quite different when he was no longer serious and stern.

“Yes. We’re very bad — in fact we’re terrible — everyone’s going to laugh at us. We invented this thing called the Delderton Flurry Dance and it’s really weird, but it was the only way we could get here.”

“Why did you want to come here so much?”

Tally had been watching a tiny spider crossing the stone.

“It was because of the king.”

“What king?” said Karil, startled.

“The king of Bergania, of course. I saw him on the newsreel and he looked so strong and brave — but tired, too. And when they wrote and said they wanted people to come to a festival, I sort of bullied everyone into coming.”

“But what could you know about the king?”

“I knew he had stood out against Hitler…” She saw the spider safely into her hole and went on. “We have a king, too, in England and he’s really nice — absolutely decent. George VI he’s called…”

Karil nodded. Carlotta had played with his daughters in Buckingham Palace.

“He has a stammer, and when he makes his speech on the wireless at Christmas my aunts get terribly worried in case he’s going to break down and not be able to finish. They sit there clutching their sherry glasses, just willing him to go on. But he’s not like the king of Bergania. He’s not a ruler.”

“I can’t see how you could tell what he’s like just from watching a film.”

Tally shrugged. “I don’t know… but I felt it. I was sure. Perhaps it’s because of my father. He’s not a king, of course, he’s a doctor, but he’s like that. He knows what’s right and he does it whatever it costs. I get annoyed when he’s back late and I wanted to be with him, but I wouldn’t want him to be someone who had nothing to do except look after me. Anyway, when I saw Bergania and the king I wanted to come here. I felt I had to. And I thought Matteo was behind me — he persuaded the others that folk dancing wasn’t sissy — but he’s been so odd since we came. He never seems to be there when you want him; it’s as though he’s hiding all the time. And just now he was furious with me for attacking the Nazi.”

“Well, of course. You could have got into serious trouble.”

“He can’t want me to just let things happen without fighting.”

Karil had been pulling the seeds out of a fallen pinecone. Now he threw it into the water. “Tell me again about the Bergania film. Tell me exactly.”

“I was with my friend Julia. She wanted me to come to the cinema and we saw an awful film — but before that there was this travelogue. And it was as though the country sort of spoke to me — it was so beautiful. It was silly, because I’d only been at school half a term and I was still settling in — progressive schools are hard work — but I knew I had to come.”

“Because the country was beautiful?” he asked.

She shook her head. “No, I’ve told you. It was because of the king. Because he was brave and true to what he believed in and wouldn’t let himself be bullied. Because he knew that if you have power you must use it well and not be afraid.”

Karil said nothing. Something inside him was changing… a knot was dissolving.

She turned to him. “You live here,” she said. “You must know. Is he like that?”

Karil took a deep breath. “Yes,” he said joyfully. “He is like that,” he said. “That is exactly what he is like.”

They were silent for a while, watching the ripples made by a fish as it jumped for a fly. Then he turned to this unknown girl who had given him back his father and said, “Thank you. Thank you very much.”

“For what?” she said, surprised.

“Oh… just… never mind.”

She had taken out the handkerchief and was flattening it on the stone. She had not guessed, yet when she saw the initials and the crown embroidered in the corner, she was not surprised.

“Of course,” she said. “I’ve been an idiot. I know who you are.”