Free Amelia Dee and the Peacock Lamp by Odo Hirsch

told Amelia that when he held one of his yoga poses he emptied his mind completely. Which was harder to do than it sounded, Amelia knew, because she had tried.
    ‘Mr Vishwanath,’ said Amelia, ‘you don’t understand.’ Her voice dropped to a whisper, even though her father was too far away to hear, and even if he hadn’t been, was too preoccupied with his machine to listen. ‘I wrote a story. I read it to her.’
    Amelia gazed at Mr Vishwanath, waiting to see how he would react. Just admitting it made her feel all the humiliation again. The Princess had called her story a fancy. A fancy ! And then she had called it a stupid story. Amelia felt all the hurt once more. The Princess had made her feel so small, so foolish, like someone who didn’t matter at all.
    ‘Mr Vishwanath? Did you hear me?’
    Mr Vishwanath nodded.
    ‘She could at least have been polite, Mr Vishwanath. Even if she didn’t like the story, she could have thanked me. She could have said she enjoyed it. But no. All she could say was it was a fancy.’ Amelia forced out the word between gritted teeth, she could hardly bear to say it. ‘All she cared about was the lamp! Did you hear her, Mr Vishwanath? All she wanted to know about was the lamp. And then she gets upset, and looks at me as if I don’t even have the right to have a lamp. Why shouldn’t I have a lamp? It’s my lamp. She should get her own lamp!’ Amelia folded her arms in outrage. ‘I’ll never write a story for anyone else again,’ she muttered. ‘Never. Do you hear me, Mr Vishwanath? Never!’
    Mr Vishwanath didn’t seem to have anything to say to that. Amelia turned angrily back to the garden, breathing heavily. Her father had managed to keep the machine upright with the latest sculpture and was wheeling it slowly towards the back. There were only a couple of the white sculptures left now. Amelia wasn’t going to miss them when they were gone.
    ‘Why is it important to you that the Princess cared about your story?’
    Amelia looked at Mr Vishwanath in disbelief. Wasn’t it obvious? He was still looking at the garden, and had spoken in that tone he sometimes had, that kind of murmur that made you wonder whether you really had heard anything at all or whether it was all in your own mind.
    ‘Is it because you want to feel important?’
    Mr Vishwanath’s lips had hardly moved.
    ‘It’s not because I want to feel important.’ Amelia’s voice dropped again. ‘Mr Vishwanath, you don’t understand. I’ve never written a story for anyone before. I’ve never shown one to anyone. I’ve never even told anyone.’ Amelia shook her head in frustration. ‘Do you understand, Mr Vishwanath? Not one of my own stories.’
    ‘How was the Princess to know this? Did you tell her?’
    ‘It doesn’t matter. She could have been polite, that’s all. At least she could have said she enjoyed it.’
    ‘What if she didn’t enjoy it?’
    ‘At least she could have thanked me for trying.’
    ‘What if she didn’t want you to try?’
    ‘Mr Vishwanath, please. Sometimes when you do this . . . It just doesn’t help.’
    ‘When I do what, Amelia?’
    ‘You know what I mean.’
    ‘But I don’t understand, Amelia. Would you prefer a person to lie just so you can feel important?’
    Of course she didn’t want someone to lie. But that wasn’t the point. This wasn’t about her feeling important. Somehow she couldn’t get across to Mr Vishwanath how hurt she felt, how much that story had meant to her.
    ‘When we need other people to tell us we are important,’ said Mr Vishwanath, ‘we have lost sight of who we are. We do not know ourselves. We only know ourselves by what other people tell us.’
    Why did Mr Vishwanath keep going on about that? It wasn’t about being important!
    Or was it? Amelia frowned. Suddenly she was starting to wonder. What was it about?
    Really, why did it matter so much to her whether the Princess liked or disliked her story? What difference did that make to