The Ogre Downstairs (8 page)

They trudged off to endure the afternoon. Caspar had hoped that it would not be too bad, since Malcolm’s year had football. But Malcolm played in goal. Caspar, who liked to be up front somewhere, had never kept goal in his life, and he let in almost every shot.

“I thought that was one thing you were good at!” someone said to him disgustedly afterwards.

“Yes,” Caspar snapped, thoroughly weary and cross. “But I broke my arm on Dale Curtis this morning.” And he marched away to the cloakroom, longing to get home. To his annoyance, the boy followed him, apologising. Caspar was just about to get rid of him, when it came to him that Malcolm could do with a friend – or he could, if he was going to have to be Malcolm for the rest of his life. So they talked about how horrible Dale Curtis was all the way to the cloakrooms. The pink footballs were still there. Nobody had even wanted to steal them. Malcolm was there too, looking at them morbidly.

“What on earth are those?” said the boy.

“Ogre’s eyeballs,” said Caspar. Malcolm gave a scream of insane laughter.

“Not off his rocker, is he?” asked the boy.

“No, but he’s not quite himself today,” said Caspar.

He and Malcolm walked home together, nursing the footballs and mournfully considering all the possible troubles and misunderstandings waiting for them at home.

“But not to tell anyone,” Malcolm insisted.

“Not a darned soul,” Caspar agreed.

“Caspar’s gone friends with Malcolm,” Johnny reported to Gwinny. “Would you believe that? They’ve both got pink footballs to prove it.”

“Why?” said Gwinny. “Can I borrow a toffee bar?”

“Only if you get out. I’ve got some experiments to do,” said Johnny. “If you ask me, it’s sinister. Caspar was awfully strange at school too.”

Caspar was fairly sure Johnny was suspicious, but there was nothing he could do about it. He did his best to behave like Malcolm. He went up to the tidy room and put the pink football very neatly away in the glass cupboard, which was a thing he was sure Malcolm would have done. But as soon as Douglas came in, he realised how little he really knew about Malcolm’s habits and had to hurry away downstairs before Douglas started asking awkward questions. There he found Malcolm had solved his share of the difficulties. Caspar came into the kitchen, and there was Malcolm helping Sally get supper and chattering away to her gaily. Sally, thinking he was Caspar, was talking happily back.

Caspar stood in the doorway, overwhelmed with jealous rage and suspicion. He knew he was being unreasonable. He knew Sally was supposed to be Malcolm’s mother too now. But he could not get over the feeling that this was a really underhand trick. And the worst of it was that Malcolm looked so cheerful that Caspar had a horrible notion that, if they were to find the antidote, Malcolm was enjoying himself so much as Caspar that he might choose to stay that way. Then what would become of him? As soon as he could, he caught Malcolm in the dining room.

“You mean sneak! What do you mean by sucking up to my mother like that?”

“I wasn’t!” Malcolm said indignantly. “I was keeping
out of Johnny’s way. And it’s nice talking to Sally. I like her.”

“But not when she thinks you’re me. Why don’t you talk to her that way when you’re yourself, if you like her that much?” said Caspar, grinding Malcolm’s teeth.

“Because it’s not so easy. Because Douglas—Anyway, you don’t think I
like
being you, do you?” said Malcolm.

“No, but I do,” Caspar said, and stormed off to the Ogre’s study, feeling both angry and relieved.

But the real trouble came after supper, when the Ogre demanded peace and quiet and everyone retreated upstairs. Then Caspar was forced to go into the same room as Douglas and do his best to behave like Malcolm in front of the person who probably knew Malcolm best of all. He was very nervous. Douglas sat down at the table by the window and spread out a great many books. Caspar, hoping this was the right thing to do, sat down opposite him and opened Malcolm’s schoolbag. As Malcolm, he had been given French and Maths. He began to do them, in Malcolm’s small neat writing, but with his own brain, which found them easy and boring. He had plenty of space to think in, and he could not help thinking that to work this way – instead of sprawling on an untidy bed as he usually did – was very grown up and comfortable. He began to feel a little smug, and to wonder if Malcolm was getting on so well.

“Hey, Malcolm,” Douglas said suddenly. “Who was inside right for Sheffield Wednesday in 1948?”

Caspar had never dreamt Malcolm knew this sort of thing. He had no idea. He could no more tell Douglas
than if Douglas had asked him the Chinese for scrambled eggs. “I don’t know,” he said, “I’ve forgotten.”

“Come off it,” said Douglas. “You knew yesterday.”

“But since then I’ve had a – had a lapse of memory,” Caspar invented desperately. “I think it may be a kind of stroke.”

“Kids don’t have strokes,” Douglas said. He looked up and, for the first time, surveyed the quaking Caspar narrowly. “Are you playing secretive again?” he said. “I thought I’d cured you of that.”

“—No. Oh no,” said Caspar. “It’s ambrosia, or something. There’s a name for it.”

“Amnesia,” said Douglas. He looked at Caspar very hard. “What have you been up to? Have you done something stupid with that chemistry set again?”

“—No… Well, only in a sort of way,” said Caspar. Douglas, looking very menacing, began to rise from his chair. Caspar pushed his own chair back and braced his legs ready. “No, I didn’t. Nothing,” he said.

“
I told you not to do it when I wasn’t there!
” Douglas roared. His chair fell over behind him and he dived round the table at Caspar. Caspar knocked his own chair over getting out of the way. And something in the way he dodged, or looked, must have been wrong. Douglas stopped, put his eyebrows down and examined him again. “What’s going on here?” he said. “I’ll get it out of you if I have to take you apart!” Then he dived for Caspar again.

Caspar dodged him and fled him round the room. But when someone as large as Douglas is determined to catch someone Malcolm’s size, he does it. Douglas caught Caspar just by the door. He shook him with great vigour.

“Come on, own up,” he said. “Which one of them are you? What have you done with Malcolm?”

“I’m Caspar,” Caspar admitted, as clearly as his wildly nodding head would let him. “He’s me. And it was his fault too.”

“
You
—” Douglas started to roar.

The door came open and Sally said, “
Douglas
! What on earth are you doing to poor Malcolm?”

Douglas, still keeping tight hold of Caspar’s arm, became very correct and distant. “I’m not doing anything to Malcolm,” he said, truly enough.

“Then why are you crashing and roaring and shaking him like that?” Sally said. “You really must be careful. He’s a lot smaller than you are.”

“I know that,” Douglas agreed politely. “I haven’t hurt him.”

“
Yet
,” said Sally. “Come off it, Douglas. You looked ready to kill him when I came in.”

“But I haven’t,” said Douglas.

“Malcolm,” Sally said to Caspar, “are you really all right?”

Caspar would have loved to say
No! Save me!
But he did not dare, with Douglas gripping his arm. “I’m all right,” he said, in Malcolm’s prim little voice.

Sally looked from one to the other. “Oh, why are you two so restrained and uptight all the time?” she said despairingly. “I sometimes think it’s no good trying to get to know you. You simply won’t make any advances, will you?”

Caspar found this frankness of Sally’s embarrassing enough. Douglas, knowing he had hold of Caspar, not
Malcolm, plainly found it even worse. His face went scarlet. “Perhaps it’s our Scots ancestry,” he suggested uneasily.

“I think it’s just my voice with me,” Caspar claimed urgently, hoping his mother would take the hint and see he needed help.

Sally did not understand, though she grasped the urgency. “I’ve discovered that, Malcolm,” she said kindly, and turned to go. Caspar despaired. But Sally was plainly thinking the situation over. She halted at the door and turned back. “Malcolm,” she said, “come downstairs and talk to me while I do the ironing. I could do with some company.”

Caspar looked up at Douglas. Most grudgingly, Douglas let go of his arm and gave him a grim look behind Sally’s back. Caspar could not resist smiling with triumph as he followed Sally downstairs.

C
aspar spent the next hour or so sitting on the kitchen table attempting to fold shirts and talking to Sally, while the radio softly played music behind him. It was very comfortable. Caspar chattered away, and found that it made no difference that he was supposed to be Malcolm. His mother talked to him in just the same way. He thought he had better tell Malcolm.

At length, when the last shirt was folded and the ironing board put away, Sally said, “Well, I suppose you’d better get up to bed. I’ve enjoyed this talk.” Caspar looked at her and found it must be true. She looked far less tired and harrowed than usual. So he said goodnight and went softly upstairs.

He had decided what to do. His plan was to creep up to Gwinny’s room and explain to her. Since he had already confessed to Douglas, that seemed fair – and Gwinny was not so likely to laugh as Johnny. The real difficulty was getting through the landing below without Douglas hearing. Never had Caspar moved so quietly. He stole across the landing like a thief, and was rather glad that he had Malcolm’s lighter feet to do it on. There was no sound from Douglas’s room, no sign that he had heard. Heartily relieved, Caspar reached the next stairway and put on speed for Gwinny’s room and safety.

Douglas was waiting on the turn of these stairs. He grabbed Caspar so hard and unexpectedly that Caspar let out a high mouse-like squeak. He struggled madly, but Douglas was far too strong for him.

“I thought this was what you’d do!” Douglas said triumphantly. “Come on down. And don’t dare make a noise.”

He dragged the helpless Caspar back downstairs to the landing. Then he hauled him across, not to his own room, but to Caspar’s and Johnny’s, and threw open its door without knocking. He revealed Malcolm, as Caspar, standing by the opposite wall with a neat pile of comics in his arms, looking exasperated; Johnny kneeling by the chemistry set surrounded by tubes and bottles, looking indignant; and Gwinny sitting on Caspar’s bed, looking distressed and puzzled.

Their heads all whipped round as Douglas burst in dragging what appeared to be Malcolm. An expression of alarm came into the real Malcolm’s face at the sight of them. But he tried hard to look simply exasperated. “Did
you lot knock?” he said, in a very fair imitation of Caspar’s usual manner.

“All right, Malcolm. Come on out of it,” said Douglas.

Malcolm looked at Caspar, and Caspar, as far as Malcolm’s face would let him, tried to show that the game was up. Malcolm understood. He looked more alarmed than ever and backed against the wall. “You’ve gone mad,” he said.

“Stark, raving bonkers,” Johnny agreed loudly. “Don’t you know your own brother when you see him?”

“Yes,” said Douglas. “Even when he looks like Caspar. Come on, Malcolm. I rumbled him an hour ago.”

“I don’t understand,” said Malcolm firmly. Caspar knew it must be very hard for him to admit what had happened in front of Johnny and Gwinny.

“Nor do I understand,” Johnny said aggressively.

“We changed places, you nit,” said Caspar. “It was a sort of accident. And it was your fault really, sending me to squidge him.”

Johnny stared from one to the other with his mouth open. To Caspar’s relief, he showed no inclination to laugh – he was far too surprised. Gwinny bounced up from Caspar’s bed. “Oh, you
are
Caspar!” she said. “I can tell it’s you talking. I couldn’t think what had happened, specially when you started tidying up.”

“If you want any proof, that’s it,” said Douglas. “Did any of you ever see Caspar tidy up? Come on, Malcolm.”

“No,” said Malcolm.

“Right,” said Douglas and, towing Caspar, he plunged across the room, ploughing through comics and
scattering construction kits. Malcolm made a very feeble effort to dodge, and Caspar saw that this was where he had gone wrong. Malcolm must have learnt long ago that when Douglas was determined to get him, get him he would. He got him very easily this time, by the shirt collar. “Right,” he said. “Now you’re coming back to our room to find the antidote.” Pushing the two of them in front of him, as if they were the front part of a bulldozer, he ploughed them back across the room.

“Hey! Watch it!” Johnny cried indignantly, as the chemistry set leapt aside under their six flying feet. The tubes and bottles rattled together and tipped. Johnny threw himself forward and just saved a mass spill. But one of Douglas’s large feet kicked against the bottle Johnny had put down in order to catch the others, and sent it flying into the heap of plastic shapes Johnny was using to support test tubes. Johnny threw himself after it and picked it up all but empty. “Now look what you’ve done!” he said.

Caspar looked at the bottle anxiously. It seemed to be the one called
Animal Spirits
that Malcolm said was dull. So probably no harm was done.

Douglas thought the same. “One more mess won’t notice in this pigsty,” he called over his shoulder, propelling Caspar and Malcolm to the door.

“It’s nearly empty!” said Johnny.

“Too bad,” said Douglas.

“Pig yourself!” said Johnny.

“Can I come and watch!” Gwinny called after Douglas.

“No. Go to bed,” said Douglas.

Probably Gwinny would have protested. But the Ogre arrived on the landing as Douglas was running Caspar and Malcolm across it.

“Douglas, what
is
going on?” he said.

Douglas stopped in his tracks, but he kept tight hold of the other two. Inside Johnny’s and Caspar’s room, Gwinny struggled hurriedly under Caspar’s bed and tried not to sneeze in the fluff there. Johnny leapt into his own bed with all his clothes on, even his shoes, and pretended to be asleep.

“Nothing,” Douglas said uneasily.

“A – a game we’re playing,” Malcolm added guiltily.

“Called troikas,” Caspar supplied inventively.

“In which you harness three elephants to a sledge and gallop hard over the frozen floorboards,” agreed the Ogre. “
Stop!
”

“We will when we’ve got to our room,” said Douglas. “That’s our base.” He put the other two in motion with a push and a tweak, and they all scurried to the room opposite, where Malcolm humbly opened the door for them. The Ogre, having watched them go in, went to the open door of the other room. Gwinny and Johnny lay like ramrods.

“What horrible squalor,” remarked the Ogre and turned off the light and went downstairs. Gwinny scrambled out from under the bed, seized the nearest toffee bar and raced up to her room before she started sneezing. Johnny went to sleep as he was.

In the other room, Douglas said, “What was it? Something you ate?”

“Yes,” said Caspar.

“
Misc. pulv
.,” admitted Malcolm.

“You little twits!” said Douglas. “Right. Then we’ll take that out, and you’ll both have to eat some of everything else in the box until we find the antidote.”

Their stomachs heaved a little at the thought. “What if that doesn’t work?” asked Malcolm.

“Then you try each one again in combination with one of the others,” said Douglas. “And then with two others, and so on. Even if it takes all night.”

And that was just what he made them do. An hour later, they had gone all through everything once and were halfway through taking them all again with salt. Malcolm suggested they try salt first. “That’s what I put with
Parv. pulv
. to go small,” he explained.

“Then we won’t use
Parv. pulv
. this round,” said Douglas.

Caspar supposed he should be thankful. It made one less chemical to eat. By this time, he was feeling decidedly ill, and he could see Malcolm was too. When they came to
Animal Spirits
, which had a sweet, fizzy taste, it was so horrible with salt that they had to beg for a moment to recover in.

Douglas was grudging about it. “I think you deserve to feel ill,” he said.

“If you knew what a horrible day we’ve had!” Malcolm cried out. “And Father giving us pink footballs on top of it!”

“Oh, all right,” said Douglas, “You can have one minute, or we’ll be all night.” There was half a minute of silence, except for the gulps of Malcolm and the gasps of Caspar. Douglas unfeelingly watched the second hand of
his watch, until, quite suddenly, he forgot all about it and banged his forehead with his fist instead. “What a nit I am! This is no good. You’re bound to have to take
Misc. pulv
. again, to mix yourselves up the other way.”

“No!” said Caspar.

“I couldn’t!” said Malcolm.

“Yes you can,” said Douglas. “If you did it once, you can do it again. I don’t want to be stuck with Caspar as a roommate, whatever you want. Hold your hands out.”

Such was his ferocity that they both meekly did so. Douglas shovelled them out each a generous spoonful of
Misc. pulv
. The mere smell of it was almost too much for them.

“Eat it,” said Douglas. “Go on. I’ll count ten. One – two…”

On the count of eight they still thought they could not. On the count of nine, they wondered. On the count of ten, their nerve broke. Each lifted the nasty handful to his mouth, sucked some of the powder in and did their best to swallow. The whirling sensation that came after the appalling taste was the last straw. Gagging, they each opened their watering eyes and stared at the pale face opposite. They felt too ill even to be glad the stuff had worked.

“Has it worked?” Douglas demanded. They nodded, too far gone to speak. “Then don’t be sick in here,” said Douglas. “Get to the bathroom.”

They bolted for the door, tore it open, hammered downstairs shoulder to shoulder to the bathroom and flung themselves inside it. But by this time, their heaving stomachs had subsided somewhat.

“I think I’m all right now,” Malcolm said.

“So am I. Just about,” said Caspar.

And they both began to laugh. Malcolm fell across the washbasin and Caspar doubled up over the towel rail, and they laughed till their eyes watered again.

“Are you boys drunk or something?” demanded the Ogre on the threshold.

Malcolm looked up and caught Caspar’s streaming eye. “Eyeballs!” he gasped. They both fell in a heap on the bath mat, laughing hysterically.

“Get up,” said the Ogre irritably. “Get to bed. I want to have a bath.”

They staggered up and climbed the stairs, whimpering with mirth. Caspar laughed all the time he was crunching about his room hunting for his pyjamas, and he was still laughing a little when he went to sleep.

He did not sleep very soundly. He kept having wild dreams – possibly because of all the chemicals he had eaten – and once or twice he woke up almost completely, with a feeling that somebody was walking about the room. But the moon shining between the curtains showed him that no one was there.

He was woken in the morning by a shout from Johnny. “It’s that stuff Douglas spilt! Look what it’s gone and done!”

Caspar sat up and found Johnny, very scruffy and irritable from having slept in his clothes, standing up on his bed opposite. “What?” said Caspar.

Johnny went suddenly cautious. “Are you Caspar or Malcolm?”

“Caspar,” said Caspar. “Break my heart across your
knee,” he added, seeing that Johnny was still not sure.

Since this was a private family expression, Johnny was satisfied. “How did you get back?” he asked, with scientific interest.

“Douglas made us eat something of everything in the box.”

“He would!” said Johnny. “The flipping bully. And look what else he’s done. Down on the floor beside your bed.”

Caspar leaned over and looked. He saw an oozing, a shimmering and a writhing. The heap of coloured construction kits was in slow, wriggling motion, heaving and seething, each piece moving separately – almost as if it were alive. As Caspar watched, a bright blue plastic brick left this heap and looped its way slowly over an Indigo Rubber record towards his bed. Then it began to crawl up Caspar’s trailing blankets, for all the world like a bright blue caterpillar.

“I think they’re alive,” said Caspar.

“That’s what I thought,” said Johnny. “They’re all over the place, too.”

Johnny was right. Now Caspar looked, he could see pieces of plastic crawling slowly in every part of the room. A pink, screw-shaped one was climbing the wall beside Johnny’s bed. Several of the red kind with holes in were clinging to the curtains. Green and purple rods of different lengths were looping across comics, in company with red, black and yellow bricks. A cluster of the flat grey bits meant to make an aeroplane was hanging to the edge of the open cupboard door, quivering, not unlike a swarm of bees. Still barely able to believe it, Caspar
reached out and plucked the blue brick off his blankets. It was just a small oblong building-block, and it felt like plastic, but it nevertheless rotated itself between his finger and thumb as if it were trying to get loose. And when it found it was caught, it tried to curl up into a ball.

“They’re alive all right,” said Caspar.

“What are we going to do with them all?” Johnny said helplessly. “
Blast
Douglas!”

“What did it?” asked Caspar. “
Animal Spirits
?”

“Yes,” said Johnny.

“Malcolm thought that was dull and didn’t do anything,” said Caspar. “Fat lot he knew!”

“We mustn’t let him know,” Johnny said. “We’ll have to catch them all and hide them somehow.”

So Caspar got up and found the four large biscuit tins which Sally had given them to keep the construction kits in, and they set to work to fill them with squirming pieces of plastic. The heap by Caspar’s bed was easy enough to catch and scoop into tins – though pieces would keep writhing themselves over the edge of the tin and flopping to the floor – but the bits wandering over the room were quite another matter. It took them nearly an hour to collect them all. And each time they came back to the tins with a new handful, they had to pick up all the bits which had escaped on to the floor and cram them back into the tins too.

“They’re worse than fishing bait,” Johnny said crossly. “They look rather like bait, don’t they?” Caspar agreed. Even though the pieces of plastic were all colours of the rainbow, they did, all the same, look remarkably like grubs and larvae. “Find the lids,” Johnny said,
“They’ll never stay in all day if we don’t shut them up.”