The Ogre Downstairs (11 page)

“Don’t bring those near Caspar!” said the Ogre.

Sally laughed. “Isn’t it a pity Malcolm’s unwell?” she said, and Caspar could see she knew Malcolm was perfectly all right. “But it’s an ill wind. I rather like the idea of a representative from both sides. Don’t you, Jack?”

The Ogre looked at her balefully. “All right,” he said, to Caspar’s dismay. “You win. But don’t blame me if he wrecks everything.”

“Does your suit still fit you, Caspar?” said Sally.

Three hours later, the lower part of the house had been feverishly cleared until it looked like somewhere completely different. Gwinny was hanging about outside the bathroom watching her mother put on make-up. Sally was wearing a silvery dress and Gwinny could not take her eyes off it.

“Doesn’t Mummy look beautiful?” she said to the Ogre. She was rather surprised to find he agreed.

Upstairs, Malcolm was turning from puce to mustard-colour, and Johnny was anxiously watching the mound of things heaving above the toffee bars. Downstairs in the kitchen, Caspar and Douglas, both feeling tight in the sleeve and constricted in the neck, were moodily standing by the trays and plates of food spread ready on the kitchen table. Caspar was feeling that Fate had played him a dirty trick. Douglas was worrying about Malcolm.

“Sally’s bound to find out tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Have you tried washing his eye?” asked Caspar.

“I thought of that. It doesn’t work. He is a stupid, careless idiot!” said Douglas.

“You sounded just like the Ogre when you said that,” said Caspar.

“Are you trying to be funny?” growled Douglas.

“No,” said Caspar, who was in no mood to be bullied. “Sometimes I’m surprised Malcolm even survives, the way you sit on him.”

Douglas glared at him, which made him look like the Ogre too. “If you—”

But the doorbell rang. Douglas had to hurry to let in a troop of cheerful guests. After them came more, and more. People filled the dining room, the sitting room and then packed into the hall, where they stood shouting happily at one another. The Ogre pushed his way among them with bottles of wine, and both Douglas and Caspar were far too busy pushing their way after him with trays of food to think of being annoyed with one another for some time. Then they met again in the hall, where the noise seemed to be solid and Caspar could see nothing but people’s backs. Caspar’s head was aching, and he was hating being a waiter even more than he had thought he would. Nobody seemed to want food anyway.

The Ogre was pouring a drink for a lady standing at the foot of the stairs, and Douglas was just beside him. “Oh, are these your two sons?” the lady cried shrilly to the Ogre. The Ogre, who was too busy pouring wine to listen, nodded. “How nice!” exclaimed the lady. “I could see they were brothers. They look so much alike.”

Douglas and Caspar looked at one another unlovingly over their trays. “This was
all
I needed!” Douglas said into Caspar’s ear. “Fancy being taken for one of your family!”

“Same here,” said Caspar. And it was annoying to see from the hall mirror that he and Douglas were, in fact, not unlike one another. Caspar turned away crossly from their reflections and saw a toffee bar making its way downstairs.

Douglas had seen it too. Caspar could tell from the
expression on his face in the mirror when he turned back to balance his tray on the hall stand. But Douglas said nothing. He simply held his tray of food persuasively out to the lady.

“Oh, those do look nice!” she said. “I oughtn’t, you know. I’m supposed to be slimming.”

While her attention was occupied, Caspar slipped round her and went flying up the stairs. He caught the toffee bar on the fifth stair and lugged it on upwards, raging.

Johnny was near the head of the next flight, looking absolutely desperate, wrestling with an octopus-like bundle of threshing toffee bars. Malcolm, at that moment a startling shade of orange, was out on the landing holding another. He looked very nervous of it. It kept curling round his arm and he kept shaking it off.

“What on earth do you mean, letting them out like this!” Caspar roared, with a ferocity which would have done credit to the Ogre.

“I can’t
help
it!” panted Johnny. “They keep getting out whatever I do.”

“Then get rid of them. Now. This moment,” ordered Caspar. “This one was right down near the hall.”

“How can I?” demanded Johnny. “I can’t take them down through that beastly party, can I?”

Malcolm, flushing deep blue, suggested, “Why not throw them out of the window?”

“I’m not going to hurt them!” Johnny said hysterically.

“All right,” thundered Caspar, “if you’re that soft, you can take them to the bathroom, put them in the bath
and run hot water on them until they melt. And do it
now
! You help him,” he said to Malcolm, since Malcolm plainly knew all about it anyway.

“But—” said Malcolm.

“No, I—” began Johnny.

“
Do as you’re told!
” Caspar howled at them. He slung the strayed toffee bar at Malcolm and went rushing away downstairs to retrieve his tray before someone knocked it off the hall stand. As he galloped downstairs, the noise and smell from the party rose about him in warm waves. As he rounded the last bend, he had a glimpse of Sally, looking very busy and pink and happy, pushing among the shouting people, and he realised the party was going very well. But suppose the toffee bars got loose in it! It did not bear thinking of.

Douglas had rescued Caspar’s tray. He was waiting at the bottom of the stairs as Caspar came hurtling down. “Here you are,” he said. “That was one of the
Animal Spirits
things, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” said Caspar, too distraught to wonder how he knew. “And that stupid little fool Johnny insisted on keeping them, and now they’re all over the place!”

“What’s he doing about them?”

“I told him to put them in the bath and melt them,” Caspar said, rather pleased with his idea.

“Go back and tell him not to risk it,” Douglas said urgently. “They’ll swim like fish, if ours are anything to go by, and think how near the bathroom is! Go on. Go back and stop him. Hurry!”

He glanced nervously over his shoulder. Caspar looked too and found that the Ogre was pushing his way
across the hall, obviously coming to ask what he and Douglas thought they were doing. But Douglas pushed Caspar towards the stairs and Caspar fled up them again, feeling the force of the Ogre’s glare like a hot blast on his back.

When he arrived in the bathroom, it was full of steam. The plug was in the bath, the hot tap – which never ran properly – was trickling hot water, and Johnny and Malcolm were obediently lowering struggling toffee bars into it.

“Take them out again,” Caspar said breathlessly. “Douglas says they’ll swim and not to risk it.”

“Oh, blast Douglas!” said Johnny. “Malcolm’s already told me that and I’m
going
to risk it.”

Caspar looked at Malcolm properly and found he was his right colour again. “Thank goodness!” he said. “That’s one thing gone right, at least. How do you know they’ll swim?”

“Because all ours did,” said Malcolm. “Douglas tried to drown the dustballs in Gwinny’s room and the ones in ours, and he couldn’t. Would you like to see them?”

“
No!
” bellowed Caspar. “Get those toffee bars out. Throw them out of the window. And I’m sending Douglas up in five minutes to make sure you’ve done it!” Feeling extremely hectic, he pelted down into the roaring party again.

As soon as he had gone, Johnny said to Malcolm, “What do you mean – dustballs?”

“Just lumps of dust,” said Malcolm. “At least, we think they were, but they grew. They look more like mice now. Shall I show you?”

“If you like,” Johnny said, with alacrity. He took a look at the toffee bars in the bath. They were evidently enjoying the warm water. Each bar was nestling down into it, and two were struggling for the place under the trickling tap. The water was already brownish with melted toffee. “Caspar can give orders all he likes,” he said. “But you can see that’s the kindest end for them. Come on.”

He shut the bathroom door reverently and followed Malcolm up to his room. There, Malcolm opened the glass cupboard and showed him a shoebox on the bottom shelf. Huddled in it were six or seven greyish, fluffy lumps. Johnny was charmed. To his mind, they were even better than the toffee bars. He admired them wholeheartedly.

Malcolm was obviously pleased by Johnny’s admiration. “They’re not bad,” he admitted. “But they keep getting out. There used to be loads more.” Then, as if he were letting Johnny into an even better secret, he said, “And these are my pencils.”

Johnny, extremely flattered and quite lost in admiration, stared open-mouthed at the six pencils standing upright in a row on top of the cupboard. “What do they eat?”

“Wood-shavings,” said Malcolm. “I have to keep sharpening ordinary pencils for them, or they eat the furniture. They only eat at night too. They hop about and keep Douglas awake, and he throws things at them. That’s how he knocked the
Animal Spirits
over and made the dustballs.”

“But how did they get up to Gwinny’s room?” said Johnny. “You said—”

“No. I made those.” Malcolm said, looking a little self-conscious. “I spilt
Animal Spirits
in her room when I – when I was—Well, come and see, if you like.”

So once again Johnny followed Malcolm upstairs. The noise of the party faded away behind them, and everything faded out of Johnny’s mind except amazement at Malcolm’s secret cleverness and acute curiosity about what he would see in Gwinny’s room.

Gwinny was kneeling in the middle of her room cooking something in an old tobacco tin over the spirit lamp from Malcolm’s chemistry set. Seeing Johnny, she looked alarmed and rather guilty.

“It’s all right,” said Malcolm. “Can I show him the people?”

“If you want,” Gwinny said cautiously.

Malcolm beckoned to Johnny. “Over here. But go quietly, because they get awfully angry if you frighten them.”

Mystified, Johnny went to the place Malcolm showed him, to one side of Gwinny’s doll’s house, and Gwinny watched him rather apprehensively while Malcolm leaned forward and gently eased off the front of the doll’s house. Johnny peered past him into its small dining room. The ten doll’s house dolls were sitting at the table, in the middle of eating supper. They were only too clearly alive. A number of them looked round irritably at the gap in the front of their house. Johnny could not help laughing at the expression on their faces.

Gwinny relaxed. “Are they ready for their pudding?” she asked.

“I think so,” said Malcolm.

“Well, it won’t be long,” said Gwinny.

One of the men dolls left his chair and came to the gap. He pointed at Johnny and shouted something in a small grating voice that reminded Johnny of a tummy rumbling. Johnny laughed again, rather nervously.

“I don’t understand their language,” Gwinny explained. “But I think he means go away, they’re having supper. Move over and let me give them this.”

Johnny obediently moved, and watched, fascinated, while Gwinny spooned warmed-up custard into a tureen one of the women dolls fetched for her. He could not have described his thoughts. He felt he ought to be angry with Gwinny for making friends with Malcolm behind his back like this – except that he felt quite friendly towards Malcolm himself. He felt extremely honoured to be shown all Malcolm’s secrets too. His only unpleasant feeling was a certain amount of envy. Malcolm had done such clever things with the
Animal Spirits
.

“I must get them a kitchen,” said Gwinny. “They insist on a hot meal a day. But Malcolm lends me his lamp very kindly.”

Malcolm was looking shyly at Johnny, to see what he thought of the people. “It’s a terribly good idea,” Johnny said. “I wish I’d thought of it.”

“We didn’t do anything as good as the Ogre’s pipe,” said Malcolm. “I thought Douglas was going to burst when he saw it.”

“My people are quite as good!” Gwinny said indignantly.

“What else did you do?” asked Johnny.

Malcolm looked a little shamefaced. “Well – Douglas did it actually. He said it was to pay Caspar out.”

“Did what?” Johnny asked suspiciously.

“I think I’d better show you,” Malcolm said glumly, and got up.

Since Gwinny was quite as anxious as Johnny to know just what Douglas had done, she followed the boys downstairs, into the noise and smell of the party again. To their surprise, Malcolm took them into Johnny’s and Caspar’s room this time, and over to the cupboard.

“In here,” he said, opening it. “You’ll curse.” Then he said, in considerable dismay, “Oh dear!”

Johnny thrust him aside and looked in. On the bottom shelf, comfortably curled up in the remains of Douglas’s old sweater, were the two largest toffee bars yet. They were the dark treacly kind and had probably been the large sevenpenny size to begin with. By now, they were as big as conger eels. And, in a wriggling heap beside them, were at least a dozen tiny toffee bars, still too small to have cast their red and yellow wrappers.

“Oh!” exclaimed Gwinny. “They’ve had babies! How sweet!”

“
Sweet
!” Johnny said bitterly. All he could think about was the number of them. “Oh,
blast
Douglas! And I daren’t tell Caspar. He’d go
mad
!” Talking of Caspar took his mind to other things. A troublesome thought struck him. “I say! Did I turn the bathwater off, or not?”

Caspar, meanwhile, was still trying to get hold of Douglas. He could see him in the doorway of the sitting room as he came downstairs. But Sally was at the foot of
the stairs talking to the lady who thought he was Douglas’s brother.

“Darling, what have you been doing?” she said. “Do, please, stop disappearing like this.”

“Sorry,” said Caspar. “It’s the younger ones, really.”

“Ah, you take your new responsibilities seriously, do you?” said the lady, and made Caspar want to scream quietly.

He rescued his tray and set off towards where he had seen Douglas, but Sally said, “Not that way, Caspar. You go to the dining room.”

Caspar pushed his way towards the dining room, meaning to go the other way as soon as he was out of sight. The more he thought about it, the less he trusted Johnny and Malcolm either to throw the toffee bars out of a window or to melt them without letting most of them loose. Only Douglas, he felt, could see that they did it. And he thought he ought to set Douglas’s mind at rest about Malcolm too. But luck was against him. The Ogre was in the doorway of the dining room. He was not pleased with Caspar, and let him know it.