The Ogre Downstairs (12 page)

“Oh, are you with us again?” he said in a loud voice. “I hoped you’d gone for good.” A number of people around the Ogre laughed heartily. Caspar thought it a typically mean and Ogrish thing to say. “They’re shouting for food in the dining room,” added the Ogre.

So Caspar was forced to go into the dining room without having found Douglas. He thought the best thing to do was to work his way to the other end, go out through the kitchen and from the kitchen to the hall. But it took him some time. All the people packed into the
dining room seemed ravenous for food suddenly. They called Caspar this way and that and wanted to know if there were any sausages.

“I’ll go and see,” Caspar promised. He was more uneasy than ever, and he felt he simply had to find out what Johnny was up to. Leaving his nearly empty tray on the sideboard, he pushed his way to the other end of the dining room.

He had nearly fought his way to the kitchen door, when something warm splashed on his wrist. It was followed by a warm wet splash on his nose. He looked up. Most of the people round Caspar were looking up too, and looking annoyed. The reason was a brownish spreading stain on the ceiling. It doubled in size while Caspar looked at it, and the drips came faster and faster.

Caspar dived for the kitchen door. The drips, at the same moment, turned into a waterfall. Water fairly thundered down. Sally opened the kitchen door, holding a tray of sausages. She and Caspar stared at one another through a steaming cascade.

“What’s
happening
?” said Sally.

“I’ll find out,” said Caspar. He rushed through the waterfall into the kitchen and ran, steaming and gasping, into the hall. Water was coming through there too, and he got another ducking, shut his eyes and ran into Douglas coming the other way.

“What the—?”

“They’ve let the bath run over,” said Caspar. “Come on.”

He and Douglas struggled for the stairs. From the dining room came the sounds and smells of a tropical
rainstorm. Sopping people, crying out with dismay, came surging out into the hall and made it difficult for the two boys to get through at all. When they reached the foot of the stairs, the lady who thought they were brothers was no longer there. Her place had been taken by a fat jolly man who playfully prevented them from getting by – unless the lady had turned into a man. Caspar felt anything was possible just then.

“What’s going on, eh?” said the fat man, blocking the end of the stairs.

“Accident,” said Douglas. “Please let us through.”

“Reinforcements at hand! Taran-taran-tarar!” shouted the fat man and sat heavily on the bottom stair. They climbed over him desperately and he tried to hit them as they went.

They pounded up the stairs and reached the bathroom at the same time as Johnny, Malcolm and Gwinny. The door was open. The landing was a fog of steam. Through it, dimly, they saw the bathroom floor awash and the bath brimful of slightly toffee-coloured water.

“You stupid little oaf!” Douglas thundered at Johnny.

“I told you not to!” bawled Caspar.

“I didn’t mean—” said Johnny.

The Ogre breasted the steam and materialised in the bathroom door. He was carrying the backbrush. “Which of you did this?” he enquired in an unpleasantly quiet voice.

“Er,” said Johnny. “Me.”

“And me,” said Malcolm bravely, though he was white with terror. “I distracted his attention at a crucial moment.”

“Then,” said the Ogre, “the rest of you get downstairs and share out umbrellas or something. You two come in here.”

Johnny found he had been right to postpone being hit by the Ogre. It was an exceedingly unpleasant experience. To Caspar’s mind, the most unpleasant part was what the Ogre said to Sally after the last draggled guest had departed.

S
ally did not appear at breakfast the next day. “Your mother’s feeling rather tired,” the Ogre said, when Gwinny asked. No one was surprised.

The Ogre’s idea of breakfast was thick, lumpy porridge, which he ate with salt and seemed to enjoy. No one else found it easy to eat, and Malcolm, who was looking white and ill, had none at all. And, as they set off for school, Caspar was positive he saw a toffee bar crossing the sitting room floor. It looked as if Johnny’s disaster had not got rid of them after all.

When Gwinny got home, the house was queerly silent. At first, she thought the queerness had to do with the stale wine smell left over from the party. Then it
dawned on her that she could not hear Sally moving about anywhere. Sally always reached home before Gwinny did.

“She must be ill,” Gwinny thought. “Poor Mummy, all alone ill all day.”

She went quietly and considerately upstairs and softly opened her mother’s bedroom door. The room was empty and the bed unmade. A heavy smell of toffee hung in the air. The reason, Gwinny saw, was that every remaining toffee bar in the house had made for the warmth of this room’s radiator and melted to death on it. More than half of them were Douglas’s dark ones. Parents and babies too had flocked to the radiator. Little red and yellow wrappers fluttered in the updraught or slowly slid down the sleepy dark rivers of melting toffee. Pale toffee overlaid dark toffee, and dark toffee trickled on top of that. The radiator was fat with it, and it had dripped to the carpet in a dozen small, growing mountains.

“That must have upset Mummy,” Gwinny thought. But she was too puzzled about where Sally could be to bother with the poor, silly toffee bars. Sally was not in the still damp bathroom, nor in any other bedroom. She was nowhere downstairs. Gwinny went back to the toffee-scented room and thoughtfully opened Sally’s wardrobe. The silvery party dress was hanging there, but most of the everyday clothes had gone.

With an anxious, heavy, foreboding feeling, Gwinny went downstairs to the Ogre’s study and sat in the Ogre’s leather chair to wait for the Ogre. After a minute, there was a slight clatter, and the Ogre’s pipe hopped up from
the garden on to the sill of the open window. It looked at Gwinny enquiringly. Gwinny stretched out a hand and made a fuss of it, but her heart was not in it. She was waiting. At length, the Ogre’s car growled past the side of the house and crunched on the gravel. The door slammed. The Ogre’s heavy footsteps filled the empty house. The pipe, knowing the sound, scuttled across to the pipe rack on the desk and put itself there, ready to be smoked.

The Ogre opened the study door and came in, with his least likeable expression on his face. “What do you think you’re doing here?” he said when he saw Gwinny. “Get out.”

Gwinny stood up. “Will you please tell me where Mummy is,” she said bravely.

The Ogre glowered. “She went to your grandmother’s. She needed a rest.”

“Oh,” said Gwinny. “Did she go straight from work?”

“She did,” said the Ogre. “Out.”

Gwinny, very straight and upright, walked past him and along the hall. She knew something was not right. And she felt heavier and more anxious than ever. The front door opened as she reached the hall. Gwinny stood still and watched Caspar, Johnny and Malcolm come in.

“Is something wrong?” Caspar said, seeing her face.

Gwinny nodded. “Mummy’s gone. The Ogre said she’s gone to Granny’s straight from work.”

All three looked at her in dismay. None of them were exactly surprised, remembering the expression on Sally’s face the night before, and the things the Ogre had said to her. But it was odd.

“Why didn’t she tell us?” Johnny said.

“I don’t know,” said Gwinny. “But I don’t think the Ogre was telling the truth.”

“Why not?” said Caspar.

“Because she hasn’t made her bed,” said Gwinny. “She always does.” Johnny and Caspar looked at one another in alarm and bewilderment.

“You could check up,” Malcolm suggested. “Is your grandmother on the phone?” He was very pale and tired-looking. Gwinny thought he might be ill.

“Are you all right?” she asked.

“Perfectly,” said Malcolm.

Caspar threw down his schoolbags and seized the address book by the telephone. He found the number and dialled. “Where’s the Ogre?”

“Study,” said Gwinny. “Don’t talk loud.”

Granny answered the phone. “Caspar! Well I never!” She was both surprised and delighted. “And how are you all?”

With his stomach sinking a little, Caspar said, “Fine, Granny. Has Mum arrived yet?”

“Your mother?” said Granny. “No, I’ve not seen Sally, dear. Why?”

Caspar did not quite know what to say after this. “Well,” he explained hesitantly, “I thought she was supposed to be coming to see you straight from work.”

“Oh, I
see
!” cried Granny. “Thank you for warning me, dear. Sally knows how I hate being taken by surprise. I’ll go and put a cake in the oven for her. Thank you, dear. Goodbye.” Since Caspar had no idea how to explain what he meant without alarming Granny thoroughly, he was thankful when she rang off.

“Well?” asked Johnny.

“Granny didn’t know she was coming. But she might just not have got there yet,” Caspar said, hoping for the best.

“Well, she ought to have done,” said Gwinny. “Because I think she went this morning.”

“So do I, now I think about it,” said Malcolm.

They looked at one another, all thoroughly alarmed, wondering what this meant. And while they were standing in a group, staring, the front door opened again and Douglas came in. He stopped short when he saw the look on their faces. “What’s up?” he said.

“Mummy’s gone,” said Gwinny. “And the Ogre told me a lie about where she was.”

Douglas looked as dismayed as they were, and more dismayed still as they explained. “You have to hand it to my father,” he said at length. “He certainly has a knack of getting rid of his wives.”

The story of Bluebeard burst into Johnny’s head. “You don’t think,” he said, “that he’s killed her and buried her at the end of the garden, do you?” Gwinny was horrified.

“Don’t be a nit!” said Douglas. “People don’t do that.” Somehow, neither Gwinny nor Johnny was reassured by the way he said it. And, unfortunately, Caspar was too worried himself to think of backing Douglas up. So Gwinny and Johnny both gained a distinct impression that, if it had chanced to be the fashion to kill your wife and bury her at the end of the garden, Douglas would have expected the Ogre to do it. “You see,” said Douglas, glancing at Malcolm. Then he
saw how ill Malcolm was looking. “You’d better get to bed,” he said.

“If you don’t mind,” Malcolm said politely, “I think I will.”

At that, Caspar and Johnny noticed how poorly he seemed and loudly told him not to be a fool and to go to bed at once. Malcolm went away upstairs rather gladly.

“He always gets ill if people hit him,” Douglas explained. “I was up half the night with him and—”

“Don’t
you
hit him, then?” Caspar asked, in some surprise.

“Of course not!” Douglas said irritably. “But the point is, I think Sally may even have left last night. They had a flaming row, anyway. They were shouting at one another until gone three o’clock.”

“What about?” Johnny asked miserably.

“You, I think,” said Douglas. “Then I heard Sally slamming round the house afterwards. And I don’t think she was here this morning, whatever Father said.”

“Then where do you think she went?” said Caspar.

“Couldn’t tell you for toffee, I’m afraid,” said Douglas.

Gwinny clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh! The toffee bars! They’re all over that radiator again. I forgot.”

“Oh
no
!” said Johnny.

They all streamed upstairs to look. The mess was, if possible, worse now. “Wow!” said Douglas, when he saw it.

“The ones you hid in our cupboard had babies, in case you didn’t know,” Johnny told him. Caspar was too depressed to do more than give Douglas a disgusted look.

“I’m sorry,” said Douglas. “How was I to know they’d do this? We’d better get it cleared up before the Ogre sees it.”

Nobody argued about that. Douglas fetched the fateful bucket again. Johnny brought six face flannels – Sally’s was missing. Gwinny found soap and soda and washing powder, and Caspar collected all the fluttering wrappers. Then they all set to work to peel the upper layers of toffee off the radiator.

The Ogre, alerted by the clattering of the bucket and the running of taps, appeared in the doorway while they were doing it. Johnny uttered a yelp of dismay. They all froze. “Who did it this time?” said the Ogre.

Since nobody exactly
had
done it, nobody answered.

“Are you here in an organising capacity, Douglas?” the Ogre enquired. “Or have they corrupted you too?”

Douglas went red. “It may surprise you to know,” he said, “that it was at least half my fault.”

The Ogre shook his head. “It doesn’t surprise me at all. Johnny and Caspar could corrupt a saint. And I’ve had enough of them. I’m going to get rid of them if I can.”

“Get rid of them?” Gwinny said, quite appalled. “Like you got rid of Mummy, you mean?”

“I
haven’t
got rid of Sally,” the Ogre said irritably.

“Then what have you done with her?” demanded Caspar. “You didn’t tell Gwinny the truth, did you?”

“You lied,” said Johnny.

“Yes, whatever you did, you’d no call to lie to them,” Douglas said angrily.

The Ogre looked along their four defiant faces in the
greatest surprise. He could not in the least understand why they should be so angry. It never once occurred to him that they needed to be told the truth. “You’re all being quite ridiculous,” he said. “Sally’s simply gone away for a short holiday. You wretched children had tired her out between you.”

“She hasn’t gone to Granny, though,” said Caspar. “And why didn’t she tell
us
?”

“If you must know, she’s gone to a hotel by the seaside,” said the Ogre. “And she didn’t tell you because she was sick and tired of you.”

“Is that the truth this time?” Douglas demanded.

“Douglas,” said the Ogre, “you may bully Malcolm, but you are not going to use that tone with me.” They all knew at once from this that he had not told them the truth. And, if they needed anything more to complete their hatred and distrust of him, they had it in what he said next. “This is your fault, Caspar and Johnny,” he said. “You two are destroying Sally’s health, what with your water and your toffee and climbing on roofs, and I’m going to send you away to boarding school after Christmas to learn some decent behaviour. I’ve had enough of you.”

Caspar and Johnny were too appalled to speak. Douglas said, “That’s quite unfair! It’s just that these two haven’t learnt how not to be found out yet, and we have!”

“I take it you’re asking to be sent away too?” said the Ogre.

“No fear!” said Douglas, with deep feeling.

“Then don’t provoke me,” said the Ogre. “Get this
revolting mess cleaned up, and then get down to the kitchen and find something we can eat.”

It took them well over an hour to get all the toffee off the radiator. Then Douglas went down to the kitchen and did his best there. His best turned out to be large quantities of baked beans, which were stuck together in lumps, and also rather chilly.

“Is this all you could manage?” demanded the Ogre discontentedly.

“It’s the only thing I know how to cook,” Douglas explained.

Caspar, Johnny and Gwinny were astonished at his ignorance. “We can all do bacon and eggs,” said Caspar. “And Gwinny knows lots of things.”

“Thank God!” said the Ogre. “Then put those beans back in the tins and do bacon and eggs.”

They obeyed him. Gwinny thought that perhaps the beans would not keep in opened tins, so Caspar reheated them in the frying pan. “Go and ask Malcolm if he wants any,” he told Johnny.

“Where is Malcolm?” asked the Ogre. “Buried in an experiment?”

“No, ill. And you haven’t even noticed,” said Douglas.

When Johnny went upstairs, he found Malcolm asleep, with the six pencils standing on his pillow as if they were guarding him. His face was so wan and white that it quite worried Johnny. But Johnny felt it was no good telling the Ogre. The Ogre did not care two hoots whether any of them lived or died – with perhaps a bias in favour of their dying.

At this notion, the beginnings of an idea came into Johnny’s head. He went over to the table, where Malcolm had left his chemistry set, and took a cautious look to see how Malcolm was getting on with his search for invisibility. To his pleasure, he found Malcolm had actually left a page of notes about it. Johnny, who carried everything comfortably jostling about in his head, was rather astonished by this, but he picked the paper up all the same. Then, feeling rather dishonourable, and keeping a wary eye on Malcolm’s sleeping face, he read the notes through.

It was a list of the combinations Malcolm had tried, using one main ingredient from the lower layer and a number of other things, and an account of what he had done to each combination. One way and another, Johnny had tried two-thirds of them too. The other third, Malcolm had now saved him doing. Better still, Malcolm had made two headings for his next experiments, which were to be with
Dens Drac
. and
Petr. Philos
., both of which Johnny had already tried. Which left only
Noct. Vest
. that neither of them had tried. They were very close! Johnny promised to himself that he would make Malcolm a present of the formula when he had it, to make up for reading his notes, and crept out of the room.

“He’s asleep,” he reported downstairs.

“More for the rest of us,” said the Ogre, with a total lack of feeling.

You wait!
thought Johnny.
With any luck, you’ll be in prison by Sunday
.

Everyone ate the bacon and eggs with such gusto that Gwinny was hard put to it to find any spare food for her
people. All she could collect was baked beans, bacon rind, and a rather old tangerine. She put these things in a teacup and went upstairs to borrow Malcolm’s spirit lamp as usual.