In the Palace of the Khans by Peter Dickinson Page B

They’d already ridden as far as he felt like when he noticed the bodyguards muttering to each other, and looking to his left he saw why. The thunder was already faintly audible
    â€œHey, isn’t it time we turned back?” he said. “We don’t want to get soaked.”
    Taeela stared contemptuously at the coming cloud-mass.
    â€œNo problem, mister,” she said in her Bart Simpson voice, wheeled her pony round and set it to a rapid canter. Nigel’s mother and the female guard kept up but Nigel followed more cautiously, and the male guard stayed with him. He’d expected Taeela to go careering down through the wood, but she reined in and waited for them to catch up then rode down at a sensible pace. The first rain-veil swept up from the lake as they reached the stables.
    Nigel dismounted, groaning.
    â€œMe too,” said his mother. “I shall have to have another bath or I’ll be stiff as a bench.”
    â€œAnd sore,” said Nigel. “I didn’t notice a lot of kingfishers, Taeela.”
    â€œAll down by the lake. They take a lesson from your father, how to fish. I’ll send my father’s … what is the word? She rubs you, makes you better.”
    â€œMasseuse?”
    â€œGood, I’ll send her to you, uh, Lucy. After that she can punch Nigel.”
    â€œIsn’t she amazingly sane?” Nigel’s mother whispered as they went upstairs. “Considering the crazy life she leads.”
    He came down in an almost trance-like state of relaxation after his massage. The masseuse had turned out to be one of the maids who’d waited on them at lunch. Her name was Marizhka. She’d been bossy and unsmiling, and spoke no English, but whatever she’d done had really worked. His aches were almost gone, and he was hungry all over again after his ride.
    He found Taeela and his mother sitting down to a full English afternoon tea laid out at one end of the sitting-room. A log fire crackled in the hearth, thunder rumbled overhead, lightning blinked and blinked again, the tree-tops thrashed to and fro, rain-laden gusts slammed like gravel against the windows.
    Nigel watched the storm in dreamy contentment while the other two hunted for the birds they had seen in two of the local bird-guides his mother had found waiting for her in her room, one in English and one Russian. This worked perfectly, his mother consulting her notes and finding a candidate in the English guide, and Taeela looking it up under its Latin name in the Russian one and translating the entry. They were both obviously having a wonderful time.
    Taeela specially. She can’t have had anything like this before. How could she have any real friends, friends who could talk to her as if she wasn’t the daughter of the President Khan? Let alone any grown-up? She and his mother had known each other … how long? About nine hours. And yet they were already acting like friends. For Taeela it must have been totally amazing.
    Perhaps that was why he got on with her so well. He too didn’t have any real friends. Most of the kids at school were friendly enough, but there was no one he regularly hung out with. Of course he’d only been at that school a few months, but even in Santiago, where they’d lived almost four years, there hadn’t been anyone he really missed when they’d left. He wondered if he simply didn’t do that kind of friendship.
    Except for Taeela now. Really he hadn’t known her that much longer than his mother had, but he was certainly going to miss her when he flew home in a few weeks, and next time he came out to Dirzhan he was going to look forward to seeing her almost as much as he did his parents.
    How come she could do that to him? Because she was a girl? To be honest he was thankful for the strict Dirzhani rules against his getting too near her. It made being friends a lot simpler. Suppose she’d been a boy …
    He day-dreamed