“I’m afraid there isn’t time,” he said. “Tonight I have to go to a dinner of some sort, and tomorrow we fly back to Varania. The capital city of Varania is Denzo, and I live there in a palace built on the ruins of an old castle. It has about three hundred rooms, and it is drafty and not too comfortable. That’s one of the penalties you have to pay for being a prince.

“No, I can’t stay, though I would like to. I have to go back and get ready to rule my country. But I’ll never forget you and some day we’ll meet again, I’m sure of it.”

With that he got into the big limousine and drove away, followed by the smaller car oozing bodyguards at every window. The three boys watched him go.

“For a prince, he seemed like a nice guy,” Pete remarked. “Jupe — Jupe, what are you thinking about? You’ve got that look on your face!”

Jupiter blinked.

“I was wondering,” he said. “Thinking back to this morning when we almost ran into Djaro’s car, didn’t anything strike you as strange about the incident?”

“Strange?” Bob sounded puzzled. “No, just lucky — lucky we didn’t crash, that is.”

“What are you getting at?” Pete asked.

“Markos, the driver of Djaro’s car,” Jupiter said. “He came out of that Stop street right in front of us. He must have seen us. But instead of speeding up to get out of our way, he put on the brakes. If Worthington wasn’t a superb driver, we’d have crashed into the car exactly where Djaro was sitting. He’d probably have been killed.”

“Markos just got rattled and did the wrong thing,” Pete suggested.

“I wonder,” Jupiter murmured. “Oh, well, I guess it isn’t important. It was fun meeting Djaro. I don’t suppose we’ll ever see him again.”

But Jupiter was wrong.

2

A Surprising Invitation