‘What is it, Mr Vishwanath?’ asked Amelia.
Mr Vishwanath thought for a moment longer. ‘Would you like to meet her?’ he said at last. ‘The old lady, as you call her?’
‘Not particularly,’ said Amelia.
‘Are you scared to?’
‘No. Who is she?’
‘The Princess Parvin Kha-Douri.’
The thought of meeting the old lady really was a bit scary, even though Amelia had told Mr Vishwanath that it wasn’t. But the thought of meeting a princess was exciting. And no one could have been more excited than Eugenie, even though she wasn’t even going to meet her.
‘A princess!’ she said, for about the fiftieth time.
‘I know,’ said Amelia, for the forty-ninth.
‘A real princess!’
‘Eugenie, I think we’re all aware of that now,’ said Kevin.
They were walking home after a hockey game, carrying their sticks.
‘You’ll have to curtsy, Amelia,’ said Eugenie suddenly. ‘Properly. I’ll show you how.’
Eugenie dropped right there on the footpath, flinging out her arms and almost hitting Kevin with her stick. It was a low, extravagant curtsy, head bent, nose only a couple of centimetres from the pavement.
Eugenie glanced up at Amelia. ‘Now you do it.’
‘Eugenie, I know how to curtsy.’
‘Show me.’
‘Eugenie, I
know
.’
Eugenie looked at her doubtfully. Then she straightened up. ‘Well, you’ve seen now, anyway,’ she said rather pompously. ‘You can practise at home.’
They started walking again.
‘She’s too old to be a princess,’ said Kevin.
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’ demanded Eugenie.
‘Princesses are meant to be young.’
‘And then they get old.’
‘Then they’re meant to be queens.’
‘Only if they marry a prince, or if they’re heir to the throne. But they’re always a princess. No one can take that away from them.’ Eugenie sighed. ‘A princess . . . Princess Parvin Kha-Douri.’ She murmured the name softly, as it was almost too precious to say out loud.
‘Well, it seems ridiculous to me,’ muttered Kevin, ‘still being a princess when you’re that old.’
Eugenie didn’t reply to that. She stuck her nose in the air.
They stopped at the Sticky Sunday ice-cream shop. Kevin got a double scoop of Caramel and Hazelnut. Amelia got Raspberry Ripple and Walnuts ’n’ Cream. Eugenie spent a long time examining all the possibilities and got a small serve of frozen yoghurt. They sat down on the stools along the wall.
‘If you don’t want to see her, Amelia,’ said Eugenie, ‘I’ll go instead.’
‘Mr Vishwanath didn’t invite you,’ said Kevin.
‘I’m sure he wouldn’t mind.’
‘He invited Amelia.’
‘And she doesn’t know whether she wants to go.’
‘Of course I want to go,’ said Amelia. ‘It’s just . . .’ Eugenie and Kevin watched her expectantly.
‘What?’
Amelia didn’t say. She had told Eugenie and Kevin that Mr Vishwanath had invited her to meet the Princess – not what she had done half an hour before he made the suggestion.
Eugenie watched her for a moment longer. Then she leaned forward earnestly. ‘You must go, Amelia. A princess! It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. You’ll never forgive yourself if you don’t.’
Kevin shook his head. ‘Don’t go if you don’t want to.’
‘Kevin!’ Eugenie almost shrieked.
‘What difference does it make if she’s a princess? I bet she thinks she’s terribly important, but just being a princess doesn’t make her more important than anyone else.’
‘Of course it makes her more important than anyone else!’
‘Why? Just because she’s the daughter of a king? Just because she was born into a particular family?’
Eugenie shook her head impatiently. Then she glanced at Amelia, and shook it again, as if to ask what you could do with a person who said things like that.
Amelia frowned. Perhaps Kevin was right. The fact that a person was born into a particular family shouldn’t make her important. On the other hand, perhaps Eugenie was right. You could meet plenty of people who thought they were important any day, but you couldn’t just go out and meet a princess, who really might be.
Besides, it wasn’t because the Princess was important – or considered herself to be important – that Amelia thought it would be interesting to meet her, but to hear about her life. That would have to be interesting. Although she was so stern, and so forbidding, and Amelia hadn’t exactly got off to the best start with her.
Amelia licked her ice-cream thoughtfully. She watched the lady serving behind the counter. Her name was Mrs Egmont and she always went about her work very seriously. Her husband, Mr Egmont, was a much more cheerful character, and always gave you more ice-cream than you paid for.
Mrs Egmont was serving up a triple-scooper, and a little boy, who looked barely big enough to manage a double-scooper, was waiting greedily for it. He had his money ready in his grubby little hands, and was jumping from foot to foot in excitement.
Suddenly Amelia was aware of silence around her. She looked back at Kevin and Eugenie.
‘Well?’ said Kevin. ‘Are you going to meet her, or aren’t you?’
Amelia shrugged. ‘Mr Vishwanath said he’ll introduce me next Saturday, if I want.’
‘Oh, Amelia . . .’ said Eugenie. She sighed. ‘Next Saturday! You’re so lucky. You must, you really must. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. To meet a princess. A real princess. How glamorous!’
Eugenie’s eyes were sparkling with excitement. But Eugenie hadn’t seen the Princess as Amelia had seen her, wearing a green leotard and standing on one foot with the other foot hooked around her neck. Even Eugenie might have found it hard to think about the Princess as someone glamorous if she had seen her like that.
‘Do you have to wear anything special?’ asked Eugenie.
‘No,’ said Amelia.
‘I could lend you my pink top,’ said Eugenie. ‘The one with the lace.’
‘I don’t need it.’
‘Princesses like lace.’
‘How do you know?’ asked Kevin.
‘Because I do. They like sewing, as well.’
‘Sewing?’ demanded Kevin incredulously.
‘Yes. All princesses are taught to sew.’
‘Why would they need to? They can buy whatever they want.’
‘They don’t
need
to. That’s exactly the point. It’s
because
they don’t need to. A princess can learn to do anything. They can play the piano and do watercolours and speak all kinds of languages.’
‘Did you hear that, Amelia?’ said Kevin. ‘A princess can learn to do anything, and the less she needs to do, the more she wants to do it. Alright, Eugenie. What else can you tell us about princesses?’
A lot of things, apparently. The list was almost endless. As they left the Sticky Sunday, Eugenie was still telling them. The fact that Eugenie had the same name as a long-dead French empress seemed to give her some special kind of closeness to royalty, at least in her own mind. She was so excited about the prospect of Amelia meeting the Princess that it almost made Amelia decide not to go, just to see what Eugenie would do. But it really was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, as Eugenie had said. Or at least a once-until-now-in-her-lifetime opportunity, because Amelia couldn’t tell what other opportunities would come along in her lifetime, possibly including the chance to meet another princess. But possibly not. So possibly it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. And Amelia wasn’t the kind of person to give up a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, or even an opportunity that might only possibly be one.
Although the Princess was definitely scary. But she couldn’t be as horrible as she seemed, thought Amelia. No one could. She must really be a very nice old lady. That was what Mr Vishwanath had said, wasn’t it? She was probably very pleasant once you started talking to her. Even to someone who had crept in and spied on her in her leotard. Of course she would be. It would be very interesting to meet her, and definitely not an opportunity to be missed, and the Princess would be very nice, Amelia told herself. And she would almost have believed it, if not for the feeling of anxiety that kept gnawing at her stomach.
‘Of course, you’ll have to bring her a gift,’ said Eugenie.
Kevin stared at her. He stopped right there on the pavement, hockey stick over his shoulder, staring, as if this was the most preposterous thing he had heard from Eugenie yet. ‘What are you talking about? Why does she need a gift? She’s a princess. She has everything already.’
‘Doesn’t matter,’ said Eugenie. She turned to Amelia. ‘Amelia, you
must
take a gift. Everyone must when they meet a princess. It shows respect. Nothing could be ruder than to turn up without one.’
Kevin glanced doubtfully at Amelia.
‘How do you know?’ asked Amelia.
Eugenie put her nose in the air. ‘Go without a gift if you don’t believe me. Just see what happens. Go on. Just go without one.’
Amelia frowned. There was no reason to suppose that Eugenie knew anything at all about princesses, including whether you had to have a gift when you met one. But there was something about the idea that appealed to Amelia. If she could think of a special gift, that was. Something memorable. Something that would show the Princess that even if she really was as important as she thought she was, and even if there were all kinds of things she had learned to do, Amelia herself wasn’t without talent, either.
‘I bet I know what Martin Martinez would take!’ said Kevin, and he grinned.
Eugenie laughed at that, forgetting that her nose was meant to be in the air.
‘Something featuring a certain boy . . .’ said Kevin.
‘From Argentina!’ added Eugenie, and they both laughed so much they almost dropped their hockey sticks.
Amelia forced herself to smile. But only for a moment. Kevin and Eugenie continued to make fun of Martin Martinez and the latest story he had put in the school magazine. It was about a boy who had written a story and won an international prize and was asked by the President of Argentina to write a national story, which was something like a national anthem, only in the form of a story. It wasn’t hard to guess who the main character was based on.
It was a terrible story, and everyone thought so. It got into the school magazine only because no one else had submitted anything. Amelia could have submitted any number of stories that were better. She had two drawers full, and then there were the stories about the peacock lamp. They weren’t written down, but were all in her head, as if they were the most special, the most precious, and only for a particularly important occasion would she actually put one of them in writing. But even the ones in the drawers, any one of them, would have been better than Martin’s rubbish story about the boy who won the international prize from the President of Argentina.
But at least Martin had submitted it, thought Amelia. At least he didn’t just leave it in a drawer somewhere after he had written it, even if everyone would have been better off if that was exactly where it had stayed.
At least, when the occasion presented itself, he was prepared to show what he could do.
Amelia watched the cream-coloured car come slowly down the street. It pulled up below her, as it always did, in front of Mr Vishwanath’s studio. Out stepped the driver in his blue suit. He put on his hat and went around the car. Out came the old lady, dressed in her fur coat, and swept past him, and he hurried to get to the door before her.
Then he went back to the car, took off his hat, and got in again.
Mr Vishwanath had told Amelia that she had to wait for an hour after she saw the Princess arrive. Only then, after the Princess had done her yoga, would they be ready for her.
Another hour! Amelia didn’t know if the time was too long or too short.
She tried to read. She had finished the killer hamster story and was halfway through a new book, a crime story. But Amelia had worked out who the murderer was after about two chapters, and she hadn’t been able to resist checking the end of the book to see whether she was right – which she was – so there wasn’t much point continuing, even if she had been able to concentrate. Which she couldn’t, not this morning, anyway. She read the same page about five times and kept having to go back to the start.
Amelia looked down. The car stood by the kerb. She glanced at the carved, eyeless lady that Solomon Wieszacker had put at the top of the house. A pigeon was perched on her head. The pigeon gazed at Amelia, and then cocked its head, as pigeons do, still gazing at her. There were some crumbs on Amelia’s desk from a biscuit she had eaten. She picked up the crumbs and put them out on the window ledge and took a step back. The pigeon looked at the crumbs, then at Amelia, then at the crumbs, and suddenly flapped across. It gobbled them quickly and flew off.
Banging came from the sculpture room. Amelia’s mother had hardly come out for days now, which was a sure sign that a new phase was starting, and she was extremely short-tempered when she did come out, which was an even surer one. But it could take weeks, sometimes months, of trial and error when a new phase was starting, before Amelia’s mother actually worked out what the sculptures of the phase were going to be. And in that time there was inevitably an awful lot of banging, and shouting, and even smashing inside the sculpture room.
Amelia listened to the banging. Suddenly she felt as if she couldn’t spend even another minute waiting up here. She’d burst!
In the kitchen, Mrs Ellis was stirring a pot. She looked up and saw Amelia standing in the doorway.
‘What are you up to now?’ said Mrs Ellis.
‘Nothing,’ replied Amelia.
Mrs Ellis looked as if she didn’t quite believe her. ‘What are those pages you’re holding?’
Amelia put her hand behind her back. ‘Nothing,’ she said.
Mrs Ellis raised an eyebrow. She dipped a little finger in the pot and tasted it quickly. Then she added more salt. ‘Nothing means something,’ she muttered to herself. ‘That’s what I always say, young lady.’ She looked up to see what Amelia would reply to that, but the doorway was empty.
Outside, Amelia sat on the chair near the back door of Mr Vishwanath’s studio. She looked at the thin white sculptures in the grass. They would have to be moved soon if her mother was starting a new phase. Her father would stack them down the back of the garden with the globular sculptures and the angular sculptures and the twisted sculptures and the other sculptures from all of her mother’s previous phases. He had invented a statue-moving-and-stacking machine especially for the purpose, which looked like a small trolley on wheels with a little winch to lift each statue on and off. He was very proud of this invention, which was one of the few that did what it was supposed to do. At least most of the time.