The Dragonfly Pool

“It’s no good—I looked but the hole’s too small. No one’s wearing a tie. No one. And there’s a girl without any shoes, and I want to go to a proper school where they have prefects and play cricket,” he wailed.

And a tear fell from one of his large blue eyes.

“We could throw your tie out of the window,” suggested Tally. “That would be simpler. Or I’ll keep it for you till you go home.”

The idea that he might one day go home again cheered Kit up enough to stop him crying, and he followed her out into the corridor.

“Wait a minute,” said Tally. “Just let your shirt hang out over your shorts. And take off your socks. I’m going to take mine off, too; they’re a bit clean and white.”

Back in the compartment they found the teacher with the clipboard. She seemed to have forgotten about Augusta Carrington and looked relaxed and cheerful. Her amazing russet hair tumbled down her back and her amber eyes were flecked with gold.

“Oh, there you are. Good,” she said, smiling at Tally and Kit. “Is everything all right? ”

Tally nodded, and Kit, who had been about to repeat that he wanted to go to a proper school where they played cricket, decided not to.

“Well, if you want anything I’m in the next carriage,” she said. “I’d better go and see how the other new people are getting on.”

“It’s not fair to make Clemmy take the school train,” said Barney when she had gone. “She hates all those lists and things, and somebody always does get lost. They could get someone boring and bossy like Prosser.”

“Who is she? ” asked Tally.

“She’s called Clemency Short. She teaches art and she helps out in the kitchens. She’s a marvelous cook.”

“I thought I’d seen her before, but I can’t have done.”

“Actually you can,” said Barney. “She’s in the London Gallery as the Goddess of the Foam, coming out of some waves, and on a plinth outside the post office in Frith Street standing on one toe—only that’s a sculpture.”

“And on the wall of the Regent Theater as a dancing muse,” said Julia. “She looks a bit cross there because the man who painted the mural was a brute and made the girls stand about in the freezing cold dressed in bits of muslin, and Clemmy got bronchitis. That’s what made her decide to stop being an artist’s model and become a teacher.”

It was a long journey. The children brought out their sandwiches; they grew drowsy. Julia had stopped turning the pages of her magazine. Tally thought she might be asleep, but when she glanced at her she saw that she was looking intently at one particular picture: a photograph of a woman with carefully arranged curls drooping on to her forehead, a long neck, and slightly parted lips. The caption said: “Gloria Grantley: One of the loveliest stars to grace the firmament of film.”

“Isn’t she beautiful? ” said Julia, and Tally agreed that she was, though she didn’t really care for her. Gloria looked hungry, as though she needed to eat an admiring gentleman each day for breakfast.

The train stopped briefly at Exeter and Clemmy came past again, checking that everybody was all right.

“By the way, you’re in Magda’s house,” she told Tally. “And Kit, too. Julia will show you; she’s with Magda, too.”

“Oh dear, that’s bad news,” said Julia when Clemency had gone.

“Isn’t she nice? Magda, I mean.”

“Yes, she’s nice enough. Kind and all that. But she feels bad about things, and her cocoa is absolutely diabolical.”

“Cocoa can be difficult,” said Tally. “The skin . . . but why does she feel bad? ”

“She teaches German and she used to spend a lot of time in Germany, and every time Hitler does something awful she feels she’s to blame. She’s really a philosophy student—she’s writing a book about someone called Schopenhauer—and her room gets all cluttered up with paper and she can’t sew or sort clothes or anything like that.”

“Perhaps we could help her to make proper cocoa,” said Tally. “She probably needs a whisk.”

But Kit had gone under again.

“I don’t like cocoa with skin on it,” he began. “I want to go to a proper school where they . . .”

But just then the train gave an unexpected jolt and a shower of water from Barney’s axolotl descended on his head.

When they had been traveling for more than three hours Tally looked out, and there was the sea. Tally had not expected it; the sun, the blue water, the wheeling birds were like getting a sudden present.

They went through a sandstone tunnel, and another one . . . and presently the train turned inland again. Now they were in a lush green valley with clumps of ancient trees. The air that came in through the open window was soft and gentle; a river sparkled beside the line.

The train slowed down.

“We’re here,” said Barney.

“Really? ” said Tally. “This is Delderton? ”

Her father had spoken of the peaceful Devon countryside, but she had not expected anything like this.

“My goodness,” she said wonderingly. “It’s very beautiful!”

CHAPTER FOUR

Delderton