Amelia Dee and the Peacock Lamp by Odo Hirsch Page A

her nose in the air as well, to show Eugenie that two could play at that game.
    They turned the corner into Marburg Street.
    ‘Ummm . . . you might,’ said Kevin.
    ‘What?’ demanded Eugenie.
    ‘Get the chance to meet her.’
    Amelia and Eugenie dropped their noses and looked.
    The cream-coloured car was parked outside the green house of Solomon Weiszacker. It was in exactly the place where it always parked when the Princess came for her yoga sessions, and the driver was in the front seat, just as he always was. Yet there was something unusual about the scene. The Princess, who normally got out and went straight into Mr Vishwanath’s studio, was in the car as well. Sitting in the back seat. As if she was waiting for somebody.

CHAPTER 12
    The driver got out of the car. He put on his hat and carefully adjusted it on his head and then he stood up straight – or as straight as he could, because he was quite bent with age – in front of Amelia and her two friends.
    ‘Her Serenity the Princess Parvin Kha-Douri,’ he announced solemnly, ‘has the honour to beg a favour of the Mademoiselle Amelia Dee.’ He spoke in an accent similar to that of the Princess, although stronger. When he said Amelia’s name, he pronounced it ‘Ehmeeelieh’, just as she had.
    Amelia glanced at Eugenie, who was obviously as jealous as anything of the fact that Amelia had just been called a mademoiselle by a princess. Or at least by a princess’s driver.
    ‘Will you grant the Princess this favour?’ said the driver.
    ‘You’d better ask what it is first,’ whispered Kevin.
    ‘Her Serenity the Princess Parvin Kha-Douri requests of the Mademoiselle Amelia Dee the favour of seeing the lamp.’
    ‘The lamp?’ said Amelia.
    The man nodded. ‘The peacock lamp.’
    ‘The lamp that I . . .’ Amelia paused, conscious that Eugenie and Kevin were hanging on every word. ‘The lamp that that I mentioned to her?’
    The man frowned. ‘Please wait a minute.’ He turned around and opened the back door of the car and there was a hurried conversation between himself and the Princess.
    ‘Amelia,’ whispered Eugenie suspiciously. ‘What lamp is this? You didn’t tell us you mentioned any lamp.’
    The man closed the door and turned around again. He drew himself up to his full, bent height. He was such a small man to begin with, and so hunched with age, that he stood hardly taller than Amelia herself.
    ‘Her Serenity the Princess Parvin Kha-Douri requests of the Mademoiselle Amelia Dee the favour of seeing the lamp that she mentioned, if, indeed, it is hanging in her house.’
    ‘It is hanging in her house,’ said Amelia.
    ‘Then Her Serenity requests the favour to see it.’
    ‘Now?’ said Amelia.
    ‘If this would be convenient,’ said the man.
    Amelia really didn’t know why she should let the Princess see the lamp, after the Princess had been so horrible to her. She looked at the car and saw the Princess watching her from the back seat. Their eyes met. At first, all Amelia saw in the Princess’s gaze was insistence, an expectation of obedience, the look of someone who thought she had a right to be granted what she was asking. Exactly what you would expect from someone like the Princess. Then Amelia sensed that maybe there was something else there as well, something less certain in the Princess’s gaze, almost tentative, imploring. Maybe. Maybe it was only because it was so unexpected to see that in the Princess’s eyes that Amelia wasn’t sure whether it was there at all.
    Amelia turned back to the man. ‘Alright,’ she said.
    The man nodded. He turned around and opened the car door and said something. Then he stood back.
    ‘Her Serenity the Princess Parvin Kha-Douri,’ he announced solemnly.
    Out of the car came the Princess. She was wearing her fur coat, as usual. Amelia wondered what was underneath it this time. Not the green yoga leotard. Or maybe it was the green leotard. Maybe that was all the Princess ever wore, a fur