Read an Excerpt

Frame Two: Losing Friends
The Trouble-Maker

Preeta waved. “Greetings!” She waded out of the water and squatted down on the shore at a respectful distance.
“So! You’re a friend of princes!” cried Kanu sarcastically. “You behave as if they were your brothers, always hanging around. Huh!”
Preeta bowed her head uncertainly. “Only if they request my company,” she replied modestly.
“I think I should warn you that you’re playing with fire. Indeed, Prince Vasu is already beginning to wonder about you; he thinks you’re only his friend for what you can get out of him, and that you and his brothers are ganging up against him.”
“WHAT?” Preeta was aghast, “He can’t possibly think that. He knows I would give my life for him.”
“Princes can be very touchy about these things. Next time you see him you’ll probably notice he’s not so friendly.” And tossing a pebble into the water, Kanu strolled away.
Preeta watched the ripples spreading outwards, thinking how it only takes one stone cast in still water to make ripples.
The day before the party, Kanu and Vasu went into the forest to practise archery and came upon Preeta and the younger princes clustered together beneath a tree.
“See what I mean?” hissed Kanu. “They’re at it again. Plotting something against you. And that Preeta’s in on it. Hey you! Girl!” yelled Kanu. “Think you’re a princess in the making, I have no doubt,” he sneered. “But no amount of consorting with prices will stop you being only a cow girl.”
Preeta leapt to her feet, blushing with misery. “Sire!” she protested, bowing before Prince Vasu. “I would never forget my place.”
“Oh, go away!” shouted Vasu angrily, “and don’t comeback.”
With tears streaming down her face, Preeta ran away.
“Why were you so rude to her? Protested Ananta. “What’s she done?”
“Why are you being so mean?” demanded Ugra.
But Vasu looked stonily ahead and said nothing.