The Star of Kazan

For it was this unpleasant, conceited man, with his foghorn voice and his ridiculous motor car, who had brought Annika safely home. The words which Pauline and Stefan had not been able to make her hear had reached her easily when Herr Egghart yelled them.

‘She is not your mother!’

And as soon as she had heard them, Annika had known.

‘I must have known all along, in a way,’ she said. ‘I tried too hard.’

When she came home they had all watched Annika for signs of shock or grief or disbelief – but there were none. The waters of the Danube, as she swam to the shore, had woken her completely from her spell. Forgiving a mother who had robbed her would have been a hard task – but what of a woman so greedy for wealth that she pretended to have a daughter, took her away from those who loved her, fed her with lies . . . ?

A woman like that could be banished from one’s mind completely and forever. It would take time, for Annika’s love had been real and it had been deep, but she knew that in the end she would succeed.

‘You’re not nobly born, then,’ Loremarie had taunted her the day after Annika returned. ‘You’re not a “von” after all.’

And she had stepped back at the happiness in Annika’s face.

‘No,’ said Annika. ‘I’m completely ordinary. I’m me! And I have the most marvellously ordinary mother in the world. I have Ellie!’

Annika washed and dressed and came downstairs. In the kitchen the water was boiling for coffee, the rolls were warming in the oven – but there was no sign of Ellie.

The door to the courtyard was open. On the bench sat Ellie, and across her lap, though there was plenty of room for him on either side, lay the three-legged dog.

‘You’ll have to make the coffee,’ said Ellie.

Annika turned away to hide her smile.

‘Couldn’t you just tell him to get off?’

Ellie looked at her reproachfully.

‘He’s tired,’ she said.

There had been a nasty row when Bertha had written that she was going into hospital for an operation and asked if they could take Hector.

‘Couldn’t we have him?’ Annika had begged. ‘I’ve always wanted a dog.’

‘Over my dead body does a dog come near my kitchen,’ had been Ellie’s reply.

‘He’s not a dog. If it wasn’t for Hector finding the photograph I’d still be at Spittal.’

‘All the same, he’s a dog,’ Ellie had said. ‘Germs and hairs on everything and dirt.’

But Hector by this time had been on his way.

Zed came in just as they were clearing breakfast. He was still sleeping in the bookshop and working by day in the professors’ house, but in September, when the Lipizzaners returned from the mountains, he and Rocco would join the riding school. Apprentice riders lived in the school; they learned to do everything not only for their horses but for all the horses. But once a fortnight they were allowed home for a whole Sunday – and home for Zed was now the professors’ house.

‘Are you ready?’

Annika nodded. ‘I finished it last night. Professor Julius let me use his typewriter, but I kept spelling “agoraphobia” wrong.’

She took down a large sheet of paper and Zed looked at it.

‘That’s fine,’ he said. ‘They’re meeting us at the hut.’

Pauline and Stefan were there before them. They had tidied up and put a bunch of daisies on the table and laid out the mugs and a bottle of lemonade. There were even paper napkins because this was not an ordinary meeting, it was a presentation.

‘We’ve got something for you,’ Stefan told Pauline. ‘A cutting for your scrapbook. Take care how you paste it in; it’s a good one.’

Zed took the folded paper in its heavy envelope and handed it to Pauline.

Amazing Courage of Bookshop Worker, she read. A young girl who suffers from the rare and serious disease of agoraphobia undertook a terrifying journey from the Inner City to the mountain fortress of Pettelsdorf in the High Alps. Not only did she brave the long walk across open streets and the journey alone by train, but she confronted a hostile old woman who could neither hear nor speak. There is no doubt that her conduct saved the life of her friend, who was in considerable danger. In particular, the speed with which she acted on her discovery . . .

There was a lot more; it was a long article, and as Pauline read it she flushed to the roots of her hair.

‘I can’t put that in,’ she said.

‘Oh yes, you can,’ said Annika. ‘You were quite as brave as the man with the bee stings, and the lady who chased the hot-air balloon.’

‘And the boy who hung on to the cow under the ice – if he existed,’ said Stefan.