Stopping for a Spell (8 page)

“I didn't know you all hated one another,” he said.

To his surprise, this stopped the argument at once. All the grannies turned and assured Erg that they loved one another very much. Then they turned and assured one another. After which they all went into the kitchen for a cup of tea.

Erg went back to work on his invention behind the sofa. The clip off the vacuum cleaner fitted nicely on the end of the sardine tin opener. But the invention needed something else to make it perfect. Erg could not think what it needed. He could not think clearly, because the grannies were now going up and down stairs, calling out about potatoes and rattling at doors.

Finally Granny Two came into the living room. “Erg, dear—Oh, dear! He's vanished, too. I'm so worried.”

“No, I haven't,” Erg said, bobbing up from behind the sofa. “I'm playing at hiding,” he explained, before Granny Two could ask. “What's the matter?”

“Emily's locked herself in the bathroom, dear. Be a dear and go and get her out.”

3

Emily Gets Converted

Erg sighed and went upstairs. But it was not a wasted journey. The thought of the bathroom put into his head exactly what would make the invention perfect. It needed glass tubes, with blue water bubbling in them, going
plotterta-plotterta
the way inventions did in films. He banged at the bathroom door.

“Go away!” boomed Emily from inside. She sounded tearful. “I'm busy. I'm reading Granny Four's book.”

“Why are you doing it in there?” Erg asked.

“Because they keep interrupting and asking where to put potatoes and oranges.”

“They want you to come out.”

“I'm not going to,” Emily boomed. “Not till I've read it. It's beautiful. It's ever so sad.” Erg could hear her sobbing as he went away downstairs.

He went to the kitchen, where the grannies were sitting among mounds of potatoes and oranges, and told them Emily was reading.

He thought he would never understand grannies. One by one, they tiptoed to the bathroom, rattled the handle, and whispered there was a cup of tea outside. “And don't hurt your eyes, dear,” Granny Two whispered. “I'm pushing a cookie under the door for you.”

It seemed to be keeping them busy. Erg sat behind the sofa and got on with thinking how to make blue water go
plotterta-plotterta
. But he had still not worked it out when Granny Four came and quavered to him that Emily had not touched her tea. Nor had he when Granny Two came to tell him that Emily was ruining her eyes. Nor had he when Granny One came and told him to go out and get some nice fresh air.

Erg was annoyed. He wished he had thought of locking himself in the bathroom, too. And he was even more annoyed when Emily at last came out. She came straight to the sofa and crashed heavily down on it with her chin resting on the back.

“What are you making, dear brother?” she said in a sweet, cooing voice.

Erg looked up at her suspiciously. There were tear streaks down Emily's face and an expression on it even more saintly than Granny Four's. “What's the matter with you?” he said.

Emily turned her eyes piously to the ceiling. “I have taken a vow to be good, dear brother,” she said. “It was that beautiful, sad book Granny Four gave me. The girl in it was called Emily, too, and she was terribly punished for her wickedness.”

“Go away,” said Erg. He was not sure he could bear it if Emily was going to be a saint as well as Granny Four.

“Ah, dear brother,” cooed Emily, “do not spurn me. I must stay and pray for you. You have wickedly taken all the kitchen things for that Thing you're making.”

“It's not a Thing!” Erg said angrily. Up till now he had not truly considered what his invention was, but Emily so annoyed him that he said rudely, “It's a prayer machine. You wind the handle and it answers your prayer.”

“Sinful boy!” Emily said, with her eyes on the ceiling again. “Let us pray. I pray that my beloved brother Erchenwald Randolph Gervase turns into a good boy—”

That was the most dreadful insult. Erg lost his temper. Usually when people said his string of terrible names, he hit them, but Emily was so much bigger than he was that he had never yet dared hit her. Instead, in a frenzy, he wound at the eggbeater. The squashed tin breathed in and out. The works of the clock ground and crunched inside. The chopstick revolved. The skewer twiddled. The sardine opener and the mincer cutters wobbled and whirled. Erg wound furiously:
pray pray pray praypraypray
. “Take Emily away!” he shouted. “I don't want her!”

In the midst of the noise, he thought he heard Emily stop being a saint and start shouting at him like she usually did. But he did not stop winding.
Pray pray pray praypraypray
.

When at last his arm became too tired to go on, he left off winding and looked up to glare at Emily. She was not there. In her place, with its chin resting on the back of the sofa, was a large yellow teddy bear.

4

A Large Yellow Teddy Bear

Erg stared at the teddy. The bear stared back at him. There was a sorrowful expression in its glass eyes and reproach written all over its yellow furry muzzle.

“Go away,” Erg said to it. “You're not Emily. You're just pretending.”

But the bear remained, leaning on the back of the sofa, staring reproachfully.

Erg took an alarmed look at his invention.
Could
it be a prayer machine? Could the chopstick perhaps really be a magic wand? These things just did not happen. On the other hand, he had never seen the teddy before in his life, and its furry face did look remarkably like Emily's. It was big, too, about as much too large for a teddy as Emily was for a girl. Erg tried not to think of what the grannies would say. He got up and searched the living room. Then he searched the garden. Emily was nowhere in either. Erg went out into the hall to search the rest of the house.

He stopped short. The front door was wide open. Granny Three was coming in through it, lugging bright red suitcases. Granny Three, of all people! Erg stared. Granny Three's hair was pale baby pink this time, and the new car outside in the road was bright snake green.

“There's no need to stare,” Granny Three said to him. “I've come to look after you. Have you seen Emily?”

“No,” said Erg, trying hard not to look guilty.

“Why not?” said Granny Three. “I've brought her such a sweet dress.” She put the suitcases down and picked up a dress from the hall stand. Erg blinked. It was a very small dress. It did not look as if it would fit the teddy bear, let alone Emily.

Still, this was the first time Granny Three had ever been known to give anyone anything.

The kitchen door opened, and Grannies Four, Two, and One looked out to see what was happening.

Granny Three took Granny Four in and, behind her, the unwelcoming faces of Grannies Two and One. She patted her pink hair and drew herself up tall. “I had to come,” she said. “My conscience wouldn't let me leave those two poor children alone.”

Erg was interested to hear that Granny Three thought she had a conscience. He always thought he inherited his lack of conscience from Granny Three. He looked at the other grannies to see what they thought.

Grannies Two and One did indeed draw breath as if they intended to say something thoroughly crushing, but then they looked at Erg and did not say it. Grannies Three and Four looked at Erg, too. All four put on sweet smiles.

And Erg felt horrible. He discovered he must have a conscience, too. He could not think why else he should feel so guilty about that teddy bear. Granny Three said brightly, “Well, what can I do? I brought my apron.” Erg crept away from them upstairs and searched the rest of the house. But Emily was not anywhere. And when Erg went downstairs again, the teddy still sat accusingly on the sofa. Erg was forced to believe that he had indeed turned Emily into a teddy bear.

He dared not tell the grannies. When they called him to lunch, he said, “Emily's locked in the bathroom again.”

“But she'll miss her dinner,” quavered Granny Four.

Granny Three, who had settled in as if she had always lived there, said, “Then there'll be more for us. No, dear,” she added to Granny One, “you must always mash potatoes with cream. I brought some cream.”

Granny Two could not take the matter so calmly. “We must get Emily out before she grows up peculiar!” she said, and she set off upstairs to the bathroom.

Erg raced up with her and was just in time to wedge the landing carpet under the door so that it would not open. He left Granny Two there rattling and calling and raced down to the living room. The teddy still sat there, vast and yellow, on the sofa. But Erg felt it would be just like Emily to turn into something else while he was not looking. Then he might not be able to find her to turn her back. He decided to take the teddy in to lunch with him. That was terrible. Granny Three actually smiled kindly. Granny Four took the teddy and sat it in a chair of its own. “Is it a teddy-weddy then?” she said, and pretended to feed the teddy with mashed potato. Granny One kept looking from Erg to the teddy to Granny Four and snorting sarcastically. And when Granny Two came downstairs, she said, “Oh, the fairies have brought you a teddy! How exciting!”

In between all this, all the grannies wondered where Emily was and said she was growing up peculiar.

But halfway through lunch Erg noticed the glass salt cellar, and he saw the way out of his troubles. Let him put that salt cellar upside down, with a drinking straw in it. Let both be filled with blue water going
plotterta-plotterta
. And Erg knew the machine would answer his prayer and turn the teddy back into Emily again. The trouble was, could he do it before the grannies noticed that the teddy's reproachful face was exactly like Emily's?