The Dragonfly Pool

The Italians now had too many children whereas the Dutch had too few, and still the children swirled about and merged and parted while the harassed customs officials counted and recounted.

The Deldertonians, by Gate 2, at least had the right number—four boys, four girls.

“All right, you can go through,” said the man in charge of the gate. He lifted the barrier and they rushed out and climbed into the nearest of the waiting charabancs.

One by one the children in the other groups gathered themselves together and passed through into Switzerland.

The customs officials wiped their brows and closed the gates. It was the end of their shift and they were going for a beer.

And at that moment a boy with long hair and desperately untidy clothes came running into the shed from the Berganian side.

“Wait!” he called. “Wait for me! Don’t close the gates. I had to go back to the bus—I left my camera.”

He held out a Brownie box camera, and the customs men glared at him.

“Who do you belong to?” they asked.

Barney, disheveled and distraught, said, “I’m British. I come from England. Look, I belong to those people over there—they’re waiting for me. Please let me through. His face puckered up; he looked as though he was going to cry.

The men muttered together. “I counted the British,” said one.

“You can’t have done.”

The men conferred. Should they call everybody back and count them again?

From the buses waiting to depart came the tooting of a horn, and now a man leaned out of the nearest one and yelled angrily.

“What do you think you’re up to, Barney?” Matteo sounded like a public schoolmaster of the sternest sort. “Get over here at once. I told you you couldn’t go back to the buses. You’re holding everybody up.”

The customs men gave up. They opened the gate.

“Yes, sir, I’m coming, sir,” called Barney and scrambled on to the bus. It was the first time he had called anybody sir and he thought it sounded rather good.

“We did it,” said Tally exultantly when they had been driving for some time, and they patted Barney on the back, because it had been his idea to get left behind and confuse the guards still further.

“Everybody did it,” said Barney.

“Yes.”

Karil was silent. He had expected to feel devastated as he left his country behind, perhaps forever, but what he felt was gratitude and wonder that all these strange children had conspired to help him.

They drove on steadily toward the clean and shining city lying beneath them in the valley. Their thoughts were with the future; no one looked back, not even Matteo, who was busy planning the next stage of their journey.

So no one noticed the black Mercedes, with smoked windows, snaking behind them down the hill.

CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

The Cheese-Makers’ Guild

What a good job I learned about having feasts in the dorm,” said Tally, “because this seems to be what we are having. The important thing is not to step on the sardines.”

But actually there weren’t any sardines.

There were rollmops and there were slices of Gruyère cheese and there were crunchy rolls and boxes of dates and apples—all of them bought in the market which was being held in the square down below.

They had been driven straight to the Hotel Kaiserhof, where they were to spend the night. Their travel arrangements had been disrupted by their sudden departure from Bergania, and the through train which was to take them to catch the boat at Calais did not leave till the following afternoon. Matteo had been at the British embassy arranging for their tickets and visas.

Meanwhile they had been given vouchers for a large room with two rows of beds on the top floor, and a small sitting room. Looking out, they could see the beautiful city of Zurich and the Limmat River which flows through its heart.

They had wanted to go out and eat in a restaurant but money was tight—and though Matteo was reasonably certain there was no one following the prince, he wanted to keep Karil safely indoors and out of sight.

So Tally and Julia had stayed in the hotel with Karil while the others went shopping and came back with bags of delectable food.

“It’s a pity it isn’t midnight,” said Tally when everything was spread out, “but you can’t have everything. Let’s hope Matron doesn’t come in in the middle and spoil everything.”

Kit knew about feasts in the dorm, too. His friend in the school where they played cricket had told him about them. “You have pillow fights.”

“So you do.” Tally looked at Karil. “But not when your father has just died.”

Karil had been sitting quietly on his bed. Now he lifted his head and said, “No, that’s wrong. It’s when your father has died that you have pillow fights. It’s when your father’s died that you do everything he used to do.”

And he picked up the big, spotless pillow from the nearest bed and hurled it across the room at Borro.