her home. She thought that she would die of homesickness; thought that the lump of pain would never stop choking her, but then one morning, she woke up. The pain was gone, but it was as if a stone had replaced her heart and she had simply stopped feeling.
It was the same when she came home for the holidays. They met her off the train, her mother and father, each with a twin in hand. She felt hatred and stiffened when they kissed her. How annoying, then, that the twins adored her. Ralph and Grace followed her round everywhere, and called her Edie! And because Jaspal called his elder sister, Didi, as is the custom, the twins also called Marvinder, Didi. They loved the two sounds being so close. ‘Edie and Didi!’ they chanted, until it drove Edith mad.
One day, Edith remembered the palace and she whispered to Marvinder, ‘Let’s run away and hide from the twins. Let’s go to the palace.’
Marvinder was a little troubled at leaving the twins. They had been put partially in her charge, while Jhoti helped Dora Chadwick prepare the house for a party that night, though Jhoti or Dora was always popping out to check that all was well.
‘Do you think we should?’ Marvinder asked. ‘We were supposed to keep an eye on the twins.’
‘We always have to look after the twins,’ wailed Edith. ‘I’m fed up. I want to play my own game. I want to go to the palace and play kings and queens. We can take dressing-up clothes. My mother has some lovely sarees and we can take cushions to sit on.’
‘How will we take it all there?’ asked Marvinder, getting swept away with the idea, despite herself.
‘We’ll take a bike. We’ll take Arjun’s bike. We’ll put the cushions and sarees in the front basket. I’ll cycle. I’ve ridden his bike before, and you can ride to the palace on the back seat.’
‘What palace?’ demanded Ralph, whose sharp ears caught the last part of Edith’s sentence.
‘Mind your own business,’ retorted Edith rudely.
‘Can we play whatever it is you’re playing?’ demanded Grace looking very interested.
‘Yes, you can play, if you can find your own dressing-up things,’ declared Edith, with a sudden cunning flash of inspiration.
‘Come on, Ralph, Edie says we can play too!” squealed Grace, tugging her twin into the bungalow.
‘Quick, Marvi!’ hissed Edith. ‘You get Arjun’s bike, and I’ll get the sarees and cushions. Let’s get away before the twins come back.’
Edith flew into the house.
By the time the twins emerged with armfuls of drapes and dressing-up clothes, Edith and Marvinder were a wobbly speck in the distance.
Their high-pitched voices called out in dismay. ‘Edie! Didi! Wait for us!’ But Edith pedalled away with fierce determination. Only Marvinder, sitting side-saddle on the back seat, turned her head uneasily, to watch Ralph and Grace rushing up to the gate, waving frantically. Then she saw their arms drop to their sides and their bundles of dressing-up clothes tumble to the ground as she and Edith dwindled from sight.
‘Hey! Ralph!’ Jaspal’s head appeared, peering over the wall as if he were a giant. When the twins saw him, they shrieked with amusement and went rushing over.
‘How did you make yourself so tall?’ asked Grace.
Jaspal grinned mysteriously. ‘I ate magic beans and grew in the night.’
Ralph and Grace were already climbing the small tree which grew up against the wall, and soon they were high enough to look over the other side.
‘Jaspal’s standing on his buffalo!’ chortled Ralph, who saw him first.
‘Let me see, let me see!’ urged Grace, pushing herself up the branch.
Jaspal laughed. He was in charge of this buffalo and he loved her. He named her ‘Rani’. He always took her to the fields each morning where she spent the day pulling up water from the well to irrigate the fields; then after school, he would bring her back to let her cool off in the pond near the village.
‘Where’s Didi?’ he asked the twins.
‘They’ve gone without us,’ scowled Ralph. ‘They’ve gone somewhere to dress up.’
‘To a palace, Edith said they were going to a palace!’ insisted Grace.
‘That’s what she said, but she probably made it up. Edith makes up things all the time,’ muttered Ralph. There isn’t a real palace here.’
‘Oh yes there is,’ said Jaspal. ‘I know where there’s a big palace. It is Ranjit Singh’s old palace. He was a famous king of the Punjab, my grandfather told me. No one lives there now – except ghosts, they say!’
‘Where, Jaspal, where?’ they exclaimed with delighted terror. ‘Take us to it.’
‘If you ride on top of the buffalo, I’ll lead you across the fields. It’s quicker that way, and there’s the palace lake there where I can let Rani cool off. It’s full of fish. We could go fishing!’
‘Come on, let’s go!’ yelled Ralph enthusiastically.
‘Can we really ride Rani?’ begged Grace.
Jaspal nodded with delight. ‘Of course! Her back is broad enough for ten children!’ He reached up a hand. ‘Come, you can jump down from there. It’s easy.’
Jaspal helped the twins on to the wall, then bringing his buffalo close, till its great bulging sides leaned into the wall, he helped each twin to slide on to the beast’s back.
‘Eh, Jaspal!’ Jhoti called her son from the verandah. She had just glimpsed the buffalo carrying the two English children on its back. They looked like little golden gods, with their blond sun-bleached hair streaming in the wind, and their honey-coloured arms and legs contrasting starkly against the animal’s thick, dusty black skin.
‘Where are you going?’ she called.
Dora came out to look too. She knew she should order them back, but when she called out their names, and they looked round at her with such joy in their faces, all she could yell was, ‘Be careful, my darlings! And Jaspal, don’t be away too long, will you!’
Jaspal walked to the side, so upright and proud to be in charge, his hair tied up in a topknot, his legs, which emerged from beneath a pair of grubby white shorts, as thin and knobbly as the stick he was carrying to guide the buffalo. He waved and shouted, ‘Back soon!’
Jhoti and Dora stood for a long while gazing after the buffalo with the children plodding across the fields, before finally going back inside to continue laying the dining-table.
The palace looked even wilder than ever. Edith gave a shudder and almost wished they had after all brought the twins with them. It seemed so lonely and so quiet. She would have suggested going to get them, or changing their plan and doing something else, but Marvinder had already pulled out a saree and draped it round herself.
‘Now, I’m a queen!’ she cried strutting up the verandah steps.
She swept the glittering material round her. It was turquoise and gold and when she let it billow out as she ran up and down, she looked like a wonderful peacock. Suddenly, she paused briefly in a great dark doorway. ‘Let’s go inside!’ she said, and without waiting for an answer disappeared into the black chasm.
‘Marvinder!’ Edith rushed up the steps in a panic. ‘Don’t go away.’ She hesitated for a second in the doorway. She could see nothing inside but an impenetrable darkness.
‘Marvinder?’ Her voice had dropped to a whisper. There was no reply. She stepped a half step forward. ‘Marvi! Answer me!’ she demanded, hoarsely. She heard a stiffled giggle. Edith moved forward more boldly. She couldn’t see anything at first, and then slowly, her eyes began to adjust and she saw that trickles of green light revealed a huge empty room.
‘Marvinder!’