The Princess still looked, but she squeezed with her arm. “Some people I know. Friends of a friend of mine.”
Pat didn’t understand, so she grew wary (that was one of her ways). She twitched her shoulder, but she wouldn’t be the next to speak—unless it were too long!
“What people, Dearie?” asked Prudence, when they had waited a minute and the Princess didn’t speak again.
“Most illustrious, highly exalted. A king and a queen, a royal dragon, and an indispensable little bear—wonderfolk,” ended the Princess, as if that explained it.
“You’re looking at the stars,” said Pat-who-would-n’t-be-imposed-upon.
“Star People, Pat. Can you guess now?”
“I think I can, Dearie. But you tell,” said Prudence.
The Princess took her arm away so she could point with it, and she put her head down beside a dreadfully scowling little girl’s, so they could look along and off the end of the same finger. It pointed where five stars made a zigzag in the sky. She pointed to one after another.
THEY WATCHED WITH HER