Eva Ibbotson - The Dragonfly Pool

The lump in her throat was growing bigger. She groped for a handkerchief.

And then she heard the sound of sobbing. The sobbing grew louder, was muffled, then grew louder again.

Tally had expected tears from Kit but he had gone to sleep at once, his thumb in his mouth, and anyway his room was at the other end of the corridor. She waited, but the crying went on. It was none of her business, really — but she had not been brought up to ignore distress. She got out of bed, opened her door, and listened.

The sobbing came from a door opposite. She knocked very quietly, then pushed it open.

She was in the housemother’s room. Magda was sitting at her table, which was piled high with manuscript paper. Clearly she had intended to work on her book about the philosopher with the difficult name, but she wasn’t. Her head had fallen forward and she was crying bitterly; strands of hair lay on the paper and there was ink on her face.

When she saw Tally she sat up suddenly and blew her nose. “Is anything the matter? ” she asked. “Are you homesick? ”

“No… well, not really. But are you all right? ”

Tally’s inquiring face, tilted in concern, brought on another attack of weeping.

“Yes… yes. Of course. I’m not starving or being shot at, so of course I’m all right.” Magda sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. “You must go back to bed — you’ll be so tired in the morning.”

But Tally knew what one had to do when people were in trouble; her father had told her often enough. One sat quietly beside them and waited. And indeed, almost at once, Magda began to speak.

“It’s just… when everything’s quiet, one can’t help remembering. You see, I studied in Germany, in Weimar. It’s such a beautiful city, the old squares, the gardens… so peaceful, so full of interesting people and everyone so well-behaved. Scholars, professors… the lectures were remarkable. There was a young professor there… Heribert. I was going to go back to Germany to live when I had finished my book, and I thought that we might get married. But not now. Not with the Nazis marching about in jackboots spoiling everything — and anyway, I have a Jewish grandmother. But for me,” said Magda, and her eyes filled with tears again, “Weimar will always be home.”

“Yes, I see.” Tally put out a hand and laid it on Magda’s arm. “I’m so sorry.”

She stayed for a while, and before she left Magda’s sobs had died down. She even offered to make Tally another cup of cocoa.

Back in her bed, Tally found she was too tired to go on with her own longings. She had expected anything except to go to a school where it was the teachers who were homesick — and almost at once she fell asleep.

Perhaps it was a pity that the first lesson on the timetable the next morning was drama. Tally had thought that drama was about doing plays and had been looking forward to it, but it wasn’t. It was taught by a woman with gray hair called Armelle, wearing a leotard, and took place in the hall.

“Now I want you to spread yourself out on the floor,” she said. “Give yourself plenty of space because we’re going to do an improvisation that covers the whole of our lives. We’re going to start by giving birth to ourselves. We’re going to imagine that we’re an embryo waiting to be born. Waiting… waiting… Don’t hurry it… that’s right… Then we’re going to learn to walk… slowly… very slowly… crawl first… then upright. Good… good…”

Tally was between Julia and Kit. She had hoped that Kit would decide to be born near some boys on the other side of the room, but he settled himself down as close to her as he could and now she heard his anguished whisper.

“I don’t want to give birth to myself, Tally. I don’t want to. I want to go to a proper school, where they have prefects and play cricket.”

When they had finished giving birth to themselves they had to stand up and become rigid and pronged like a fork, and then curved and bountiful like a teapot, and then soft and yielding like a pillow.

“If we don’t have to go to classes, why does everyone come to drama? ” asked Tally when they were out in the courtyard again.

“It’s because Armelle’s son was killed in Spain, fighting for the Republicans,” explained Julia. “She used to be quite fat and bossy, and now she’s all skin and bones.”

After drama came handicrafts. This was taught by a cheerful plump woman called Josie, who took them out into the fields behind the school to look for sheep’s wool.

“When we’ve got a sackful we’re going to wash it and card it and dye it — using natural dyes, of course. Lichen and moss and alder bark… It’ll keep us busy most of the term,” she said cheerfully.

Tally thought that this was likely: the fields around Delderton seemed to be inhabited by cows rather than sheep and wisps of discarded wool were scarce, but as they searched the hedgerows Josie pointed out all sorts of interesting plants which they would pick later and grind up and boil in vats.

“I’ve been experimenting with woad,” she said, and rolled up her sleeves to show them her forearms, which were mottled with blue, “but I haven’t got it quite right yet. It makes you realize how clever the ancient Britons were.”

After break they had a double period of English; it was taken by a quietly spoken man in spectacles called O’Hanrahan. They were studying Greek myths and he told them the story of Persephone, who was carried away by the King of the Underworld and kept prisoner there, guarded by a dreadful three-headed dog, while her sorrowing mother, the goddess Demeter, searched and lamented, and the trees and flowers withered and died. He didn’t read the story, he told it, and the class listened to him in total silence.

“It would make a good play,” said a boy with ginger hair.

“Perhaps next term,” said O’Hanrahan. He turned to Tally. “What do you think? ”

Tally nodded. “Yes, it would. The spirits trapped in the Underworld would be interesting to do. Writhing and shrieking and begging to be let out.”

“Oh, not a play,” said Julia nervously. “Not proper acting.”

O’Hanrahan looked at her quietly for a moment before he said, “No one has to act if they don’t want to, Julia. You know that.”

When they were back in Julia’s room getting ready for lunch Tally asked, “Don’t you like acting? ”

“No. I mean, I don’t do it. Not ever.”

She had on her worried look and Tally did not ask any more. She knew already that she and Julia would be friends, but there was something puzzling about her. It was as though she would do anything not to be noticed, as though she needed to be younger and less important than she was.

Later, as Tally walked over to the dining room with Barney, he said, “She’s silly. Julia, I mean. O’Hanrahan got her to do a bit in Much Ado About Nothing . It was just in the classroom, but Julia was amazing. Only when we told her how good she was, she clammed up completely and went off in a state and she’s never done anything since. Whereas Verity always wants to be the star. You’ll see — if we do Persephone , she’ll try to be the heroine.”

“I was wondering about her feet. Verity’s, I mean. I can see it’s fine to go barefoot in the grass, but in Paddington Station… Doesn’t she get splinters? ”

Barney shrugged. “Someone told her she had beautiful feet and that was that. She’s the vainest person I know — she’ll spend an hour tearing her skirt in exactly the right place or untidying her hair.”

In the afternoon they had games and Kit’s hopes of playing cricket were finally dashed. The only team game they played at Delderton was softball, and people who didn’t want to play that went for cross-country runs, used the apparatus in the gym, or worked on the school farm.