The Dragonfly Pool

“We didn’t give him a name—we thought you should do it,” Barney said.

Karil did not have to look long at the strange creature, with its blown-out cheeks and moist pop eyes.

“Mortimer,” he said. “No doubt about it—he’s a Mortimer. That’s my grandfather’s name—he has those bulging eyes. But it’s odd that something as nice as a tree frog can look like somebody as nasty as my grandfather.”

As soon as he found out how Karil had come to Delderton, Daley had asked Matteo to come and see him.

“I’ll have to send the boy back,” he had said. “I can’t possibly be part of a deception like that. The duke must be informed and so must the headmaster of Foxingham.”

Matteo did not answer at once. He stood gazing out of the window with his back to his old friend. When he turned he looked as though the last minutes had aged him, and he spoke with more feeling in his voice than Daley could ever remember hearing before.

“I understand your position,” he said. “No one could fail to do so. But I would ask you to wait. To do nothing for a short time. I would ask this as a last favor.”

Matteo was due to leave at the end of the month. His mission would be dangerous; Daley knew this.

“I have a plan,” Matteo went on. “It may come to nothing, but if it worked it would clear you completely of responsibility. Give me three weeks—I won’t ask for more than that. I have seen Karil happy for the first time, and I know that the king . . .” Matteo’s voice broke, and Daley, knowing the guilt Matteo felt about Karil’s father, did not interrupt. “Probably it’s no good,” he went on, “and the duke will trace him very soon, but I won’t be able to forgive myself if I haven’t done my best. It’s hard to explain the horror of the setup at Rottingdene House.” His expression changed and he came to stand beside Daley. “I’m bigger than you,” he told the headmaster. “I can tell them that I threatened to knock you down or blackmail you if you didn’t do as I asked!”

Daley smiled. “Very well. You’re in the wrong, as you know, and you’re exposing me and the school to all sorts of risks. But . . . it isn’t often you see a child so much in his element as that boy. I’ll wait.”

Meanwhile, Persephone had reached the stage of casting and rehearsals.

Kit, as they waited in the classroom for O’Hanrahan, was ready to be helpful.

“She’s not called Percy Phone,” he explained to Karil. “It’s pronounced Per-Seff-On-Ee.”

Karil thanked him. No one snubbed Kit since the adventure in Zurich, but he knew the story well. He had read it with his professor of Greek in the ancient version handed down from Homer’s time, and he especially liked the part where Zeus, the King of the Gods, took pity on the goddess Demeter’s sorrow and sent a messenger to Hades to bring Persephone back.

But there was not an entirely happy ending. Like all the best stories, it had a twist at the end; for before she left the Underworld, Persephone’s husband had forced her to eat five pomegranate seeds—and for each seed she had to return every year and spend a month back in Hades. And during these five months winter fell again on the land, until Persephone was reunited with her mother and spring and summer blessed the earth.

“It breaks down really well into scenes,” said Tally. “There are all those maidens and things dancing with Persephone—Greek girls always have maidens—and then there’s thunder and lightning and the rocks split asunder and out comes the king of the Underworld and carries her away.”

“Then there’s Hades,” said Barney. “There are lots of stories about what went on there: Sisyphus pushing a rock up a slope forever and ever and it falling down just when he gets to the top, and Tantalus trying to get a drink of water from a spring that dries up just when he opens his mouth.”

Karil nodded. “And everything very cold and gray and icy.”

But at this stage the most important thing was the casting of the parts.

“We thought you might like to be the king of the Underworld,” said Borro, looking at Karil out of the corner of his eye—and grinning when Karil exploded in just the way they had expected.

“Anyway, I’m not going to act. I might not be here by the time you do the play; they’re going to catch up with me sooner or later. But anybody can come roaring out of rocks and carry people off. It’s who will play the heroine that’s important.”

There was silence while everyone looked at Julia; everyone except Verity, who looked at the floor.

“She can really act. I mean really,” said Barney.

“Yes, I know,” said Karil.

“How?” said Tally. “How do you know?”

“When you were up on the hill fetching me and I was hiding with Matteo . . . I looked out . . . I couldn’t hear what anyone was saying, but I saw Julia. She was standing there reciting and everyone was absolutely silent, looking at her. Even people who can’t have understood a word . . . Because of the way she was.”

“It’s called stage presence,” said O’Hanrahan, who had come in to join them.

Julia was bent over her desk, trying not to be there.