The Dragonfly Pool

Inside, the hut was full of cages from which came the squeals and snuffles of various rabbits and mice and guinea pigs. In one corner, however, there was an unexpected pet: a large striped snake, which opened one gummy eye as it felt the vibration made by their footsteps. It looked unhealthy and dry.

“That’s Verity’s,” said Julia. “She’s an awful show-off. You wouldn’t catch Verity with anything as ordinary as a guinea pig.”

Verity, it turned out, was the girl who had been barefoot in Paddington Station.

They decanted the axolotl into a bigger tank and gave him some bloodworm pellets and he settled down at once and began to eat—but Barney was still worried because he hadn’t got a name for him.

“It’s so rude having pets that aren’t called anything,” he said.

But it was difficult. The axolotl’s head, with its piercing black eyes and feathery gills, could have been called something Mexican and royal-sounding, like Protaxeles, but his legs were not royal at all. They were short and bandy—and if you had been naming his legs he would have been called Cyril or Alf.

“It’ll come to you suddenly,” said Tally. “Probably in the middle of the night.”

After that they took Tally on a tour of the school buildings. As the school had grown, classrooms and workshops and studios had sprung up outside the courtyard in places that had been part of the gardens of the old hall. There were only a few gardeners and groundsmen left now, so that creepers grew up the side of the gym and there were patches of moss and wildflowers between the paving stones. In the early-evening light everything looked dreamy, like an illustration in a book of watercolors.

They went down a sloping field to look at the school farm: a huddle of sheds with three goats, a cow, a handful of sheep, and some chickens which an African boy called Borro was shutting up for the night. As they made their way back they passed the open door of the art room and saw Clemmy bent over some dishes, mixing powder paints. She looked serene and happy—and Tally saw what Barney meant when he said that she should not be in charge of trains. Last term’s paintings were still on the wall: monkeys swung through jungles, underwater creatures wreathed and coiled . . . and in one corner was a bloodred painting of excited workers carrying sickles and hammers toward a palace gate.

“That’s Tod’s picture,” said Julia. “He’s sure the revolution will come soon, and that will be the end of tyrants and kings.”

Julia had not been exaggerating when she said that Magda was not good at making cocoa. When they had washed and put on their pajamas, all the children in the Blue House met for cocoa and biscuits in Magda’s room. Magda had a little kitchenette adjoining her room and she disappeared into it, emerging with a huge jug and a tray of cups.

The cocoa she poured out was quite extraordinary—blackish and grainy with a thick layer of skin—but she seemed so relieved when she had made it and poured it into the cups that even the rowdiest children said nothing. Then she played a Mozart sonata on her gramophone and everybody went to bed.

“You see what I mean about the cocoa,” said Julia.

“Yes, I do. Perhaps something could be done,” said Tally.

Julia looked surprised. “How could it? She always makes it like that.”

“Maybe we could make it? ” suggested Tally.

But now, as the lights went out, the homesickness that had been lying in wait for Tally gathered itself together and pounced.

She thought of the aunts, waiting for her as she came home from school, eager for every detail of her day. She thought of her friends in the street—Maybelle and Kenny, and Primrose in her stable.

But above all she thought of her father. Coming in from the surgery asking, “Where’s Tally?” as soon as he entered the house . . . teasing her about something foolish she had said . . . walking with her along the river on a Sunday, while they talked about anything and everything on earth.

It would be months before she saw him again and they had scarcely been separated for a day.

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.