The Dragonfly Pool by Eva Ibbotson Page B

mattered—not her own wishes and hopes and needs.
    But it didn’t work. Tears welled up under her eyelids and she felt completely desolate.
    From the moment she had seen those images of Bergania, she had felt as though the country somehow spoke to her. And now though her friends would go, she would stay behind.
    â€œYou realize that all the parents have to pay thirty pounds for our fares,” Verity had said. “The school can’t afford them. Daley’s going to write a letter to everyone and explain.”
    Verity always knew things before other people.
    Thirty pounds. It was nothing to Verity’s parents, with their estate in Rutland, and most of the others came from well-to-do families. But Tally would never ask her father for so much money. His patients were poor; he had both the aunts to support. He mustn’t be asked in case he felt he had to make the sacrifice and, whatever Tally wanted from her father, it was not a sacrifice.
    â€œIt doesn’t matter,” she told herself.
    But it was no good. Perhaps it didn’t matter compared to people dying in famines and earthquakes and wars, but it mattered to her.
    After a while she got up and brushed the grass off her skirt and made her way back up the hill to school.
    She would see if Matteo was free.
    She found him in his room, looking down a microscope on the windowsill, but when he saw her tearstained face he pulled out a chair for her at the wooden table.
    â€œI see you have a problem,” he said. “A proper one, for yourself.”
    â€œYes, I do.” She felt better now that she was taking some action. “It’s . . . I want you to tell the headmaster not to write to my father about the fare to Bergania. Verity says it’s thirty pounds—that’s right, isn’t it?”
    â€œIt sounds about right. Why?”
    â€œWell, I know my father can’t afford it, and I don’t want Daley to ask him in case he . . . I don’t want him to be asked. I don’t have to go. I can show one of the others how to take my place.”
    â€œI see. But you want to go, don’t you?”
    Tally wiped her eyes with her sleeve. “Yes, I do. I wanted to go from the minute I saw the travelogue about Bergania. But—”
    â€œWhy?”
    Matteo had spoken sharply. Tally blinked at him. “I don’t know really. It’s very beautiful . . . the mountains and the river . . . And the procession. Usually processions are boring, but the king . . .”
    â€œYes?” Matteo prompted her. “What about the king?”
    â€œHe looked so strong and . . . brave—except I know you can’t really look brave just for a moment in a film. Only he did. But tired, too. And there was the prince . . . he was hidden by plumes . . . feathers all over his helmet. I was sorry for him.” She shook her head. “I don’t know . . . there was a big bird flying above the cathedral.”
    â€œA black kite, probably,” said Matteo. “They’re common in that part of the world.” But he seemed to be thinking about something else. Then: “I’ll speak to the headmaster.”
    â€œYou’ll tell him not to write to my father about the money?”
    â€œYes, I’ll tell him that.”
    As Matteo knocked on the door of Daley’s study, four children came out—Julia and Barney and Borro and Tod.
    â€œYou’ve had a deputation, I see,” said Matteo. “Not connected with the trip to Bergania?”
    â€œYes,” said the headmaster. “They want the school to pay for Tally’s fare to Bergania—they don’t think her father could afford it. I must say that girl has made some very good friends in the short time she has been with us.”
    â€œAnd will the school pay it?”
    Daley looked worried. “The trouble is if you do that kind of thing once you have to do it again, and we simply don’t have funds for