The Dragonfly Pool

“Indeed, sir, indeed,” said Karil, and stood waiting with his head humbly bowed. Was it going to work or had this whole charade been in vain?

The duke cleared his throat. He harrumphed and considered.

Then he said, “Well, well, we all make mistakes. I think it’s time I called off the watchdogs. I’ll get the whistles back and tell the servants you no longer need to be followed.”

“And my room at night, sir? The locked door? Of course I know I deserved it, but it is a little humiliating.”

The duke hesitated, and Karil felt his heart hammering in his chest. Everything depended on this one thing.

Then: “Very well,” said the duke. “I’ll tell the servants it’s no longer necessary.”

Left alone, Karil flopped down on his bed and punched the pillows in triumph. Stage one was completed! Once he was no longer watched and could get out of his room at night he could plan the next part of his escape. For from the moment he had read the letters Carlotta had stolen, he had had only one idea—to escape from this house of snobbery and deceit and arrogance and join his friends.

His troubles were far from over, but he would let nothing dismay him. Among the many unreadable books in the duke’s library were some that were not unreadable at all: the stories of Oliver Twist and David Copperfield and Nicholas Nickleby by Charles Dickens. All these boys had run away from cruel employers with almost nothing in their pockets, and all of them had reached safety. One of the obstacles was simply getting out of the house. The back door was bolted and barred at night and the keys kept by whichever footman was on duty. To ask a servant to help him would be to risk getting him into trouble, but luck was on Karil’s side. The housemaid George loved so hopelessly left to work in a munitions factory, and soon afterward George announced that he, too, was leaving, going to join the Ambulance Corps.

If he was going anyway, thought Karil, perhaps he could be persuaded to leave the back door unlocked the night before he left.

Everything Karil did now had only one aim: to help him get away. He had taught himself the route to Delderton; it was nearly three hundred miles, but anything was possible when one was desperate. It was no good arriving when the school was empty, but as soon as the Christmas holidays were over he would make a break for it, and he began to assemble things he would need to disguise himself. He found some of Princess Natalia’s hair dye in a bathroom, and a pair of wire spectacles that could be made to stay on his nose—and when Countess Frederica came with his fruit juice and rusks he thanked her nicely but he did not eat the rusks; he hid them in a shoebox in his cupboard. They had infuriated him ever since he stopped teething but now they had their uses. Rusks do not go moldy and he could chew them on the journey.

This was the stage he had reached in his preparations when the duke sent for him again.

If he expected that his grandfather had seen through his deception, Karil’s fears were laid to rest as soon as he entered the room. The old tyrant looked as affable as he was able, and sitting near him were the three uncles. They, too, looked friendly and relaxed, and even before the duke began to speak Karil was ready to receive good news.

And it was good news! It was incredible, wonderful, and amazing news!

“I have to say, Karil, that up till now I have been utterly opposed to the idea of sending you away to be educated,” the duke began. “Your behavior was such that I didn’t think you could be allowed to leave this house. But in the last weeks you have changed so completely that I think you may be trusted to conduct yourself properly even when you are not under my roof, so I have decided to send you to boarding school.”

He stopped to clear his throat and the uncles nodded and beamed. If Karil went away they would no longer have to give him lessons, or lift their behinds from their chairs when he came into the dining room. Only the monkey, who did not know what was going on, continued to look sad.

“As you know,” the duke went on, “many of the world’s rulers were educated at one or other of Britain’s famous schools—but one of the obstacles has been money. These schools are exceedingly expensive and the cost of supporting all the people in my household is crippling. Not to mention the burden of income tax. The amount of tax I am forced to pay by those scoundrels in Whitehall is outrageous.” The duke’s face became crimson as it always did when he spoke about income tax, but he pulled himself together. “However, Karil,” he went on, “I have just received the most gratifying news. One of the best schools in the country has offered you a scholarship. The headmaster has just written to me.”

Karil stood stock-still. He had heard the word “headmaster” and the word “scholarship” and immediately he remembered Tally’s words on the train.

I’ve got a scholarship, she had said, so why not you?