At first they all felt as if they were in fancy dress, but they soon got used to it. “I shan’t like going back to ordinary clothes,” said Nora, looking at herself in the long mirror. “I do so love the way this skirt swings out round me. Look, Mike — there are yards of material in it.”
Mike was fastening his belt round him. He stuck his scout knife into it. He looked at himself in the mirror, too. “I look a bit like a pirate or something,” he said. “Golly, I wish the boys at school could see me now! Wouldn’t they be green with envy!”
“They’d laugh at you,” said Nora. “You wouldn’t dare to wear those clothes in England. I hope the Queen will let me take mine back with me. I could wear them at a fancy-dress party. I bet I’d win the prize!”
That first week was glorious. The children were allowed to do anything they wanted to, providing that Ranni or Pilescu was with them. They rode little mountain ponies through the hills. They bathed at least five times a day in the warm waters of the lake. They sailed every evening. They went by car to the nearest big town, and rode in the buses there. They were quaint buses, fat and squat, painted blue and silver. Everything was different, every thing was strange.
“England must have seemed very queer to you at first, Paul,” said Mike to the little prince, realizing for the first time how difficult the boy must have found living in a strange country.
Paul nodded. He was very happy to show his friends everything. Now, when he was back at school again in England, and wanted to talk about his home and his country, Jack and Mike would understand all he said, and would listen gladly.
Towards the end of the first week Pilescu made a suggestion. “Why do you not take your friends in the aeroplane, and show them how big your country is?” he asked Paul. “I will take you all.”
“Oh yes, Pilescu — let’s do that!” cried Mike. “Let’s fly over the mountains and the forests, and see everything!”
“I will show you the Secret Forest,” said Prince Paul, unexpectedly.
The others stared at him. “What’s the Secret Forest?” asked Jack. “What’s secret about it?”