Virgin With Butterflies by Tom Powers

Author:Tom Powers
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Mills & Boon Series
Published: 2009-03-03T16:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER ELEVEN

IN THE PLANE I DIDN’T think I had better ask any questions till we got settled down some.

Aunt Mary sat by me, thinking, but still with that little smile around her mouth.

“Hi, water lily,” she says.

“Hi, wise old fish,” I says right back.

“Well,” she says, “you ought to feel pretty flattered.”

“How?” I says.

“He was trying to buy you,” she says, “for a wife.”

“What was in those bags?” I says.

“Gold,” she says. “It was like an auction. You see when the prince said no, the king’s son offered more and more till he thought he had offered enough.”

“Then what happened?”

“The prince still said no.”

“What happened then?” I says.

“Then the king’s son said what in Soodanese meant ‘Okay, prince, I’ll take her anyhow. Try and stop me.’”

“Was that when you butted in?” I says.

“I thought I had better,” she says and she patted my hand. “I didn’t feel like I wanted to lose you, you being the nicest niece I ever had.”

“Thanks,” I says, and I got her to tell me just what she had said to the prince and what he had said to the old king and how we had got away.

Well, what she had told the prince was to ask the king: if this son did take me by force or bought me, wasn’t it one of their customs for the king to give his new daughter-in-law whatever she asked for as a wedding present? So the prince asked him and the king said yes.

Well, after Aunt Mary had tricked the king into saying it like that, she told the prince to tell the boys that there was just one thing I would ask for, and that was the last thing in the world that old boy would part with.

For she knew that before he would have given up that Singer sewing machine, he would have seen that son and all his other sons turned into camel boys, and he’d have seen all his wives and dancing girls go to someone else.

“So, what could he do,” said Aunt Mary, chuckling, “but lead you to the plane and say goodbye quick. But oh, my dear,” says Aunt Mary, “wouldn’t you trade everything you own, including sixteen strings of pearls and your emerald anklet and even your B.V.D.’s for that picture of that old king riding up in all those ruffles like a circus clown on a mule.”

I had some problems to think out and thinking things out is something you’ve got to get quiet to do, so I did. Up to now, I didn’t think much about us being at war, except Jeff was getting in it to be a soldier.

I don’t know much about wars, not having been there at the last one, or the Spanish American one—which Pop was in—or the Civil War that my Swede grandfather came over from the other side to be at.

So now here was another one, and me about to go to where some of it was to be at. For it

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