The Ogre Downstairs (17 page)

With one accord, Douglas and Johnny looked round to see how near the car was. It was twenty yards off. Between them and it, the lane was filled with motorcyclists stepping free of the ground and moving menacingly down towards them.

“I don’t like the look of this,” said Douglas. “And don’t tell me it’s my fault. I know.”

The nearest man struggled up from the earth and shook himself. Stones clattered from his leather clothes and mud spattered the boys. Carefully he drew his boot from the last of the gravel and walked a step or so towards them.

he demanded of Douglas.

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand,” Douglas said.

The man looked round at the other motorcyclists.

“
” he said angrily.

From the way the others reacted, it was clear that, whatever this meant, it meant no good to Johnny and
Douglas. They all gave the boys most unpleasant, blank looks and strolled nearer. “
” said one. And one who was still only half out of the ground added, “
” Neither of these suggestions sounded pleasant. Johnny looked despairingly round what he could see of the car park between the advancing leather suits. He found nothing but cars, lines of them, locked, silent and deserted. There did not seem to be another soul in sight.

“Get back to back,” said Douglas. “Use the mop on them.”

Johnny at once scrambled round Douglas and leant against his back. He held the dustbin lid as a genuine shield and put the head of the mop under one arm, with the stick pointing outwards towards what was now a circle of menacing motorcyclists. Behind him, he heard the clang of the strawberry soap rolling in the dustbin as Douglas raised that for a shield and levelled the broom. Johnny was glad that he had such a tall back as Douglas’s to stand against. If it had been Caspar’s or Malcolm’s back, he would have felt a great deal more frightened.

Not that their defences seemed to impress the motorcyclists. Some laughed jeeringly. One said,
” which was clearly a sarcastic remark of some kind, and all of them laughed.

Then the first of them said, “
” And they closed in. Johnny found his mop gripped and twisted, and hung on to it desperately. Behind him, Douglas braced his back against Johnny’s and hung on to the broom. Several more motorcyclists converged casually and quietly from the sides.

“
Help!
” shouted Johnny.

The Ogre, walking heavily under an enormous cardboard box, led the others up the next lane by mistake. Near the end of it, he stood on tiptoe to look for the right lane. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s over there. What’s going on in that lane?”

Caspar put his box on a convenient car bonnet and stood on its bumper to see. “Those look like Hell’s Angels,” he said.

“They do,” agreed the Ogre. “Perhaps we should wait till they go.”

But at that moment, Johnny shouted for help from the middle of the bunch of black leather bodies. Then Douglas shouted too. Caspar hastily picked up his box and all four of them edged between the cars as quickly as they could, until they came out beside the Ogre’s car in the right lane. Beyond, near the fence of the car park, the fight was heaving. Clangs and exclamations came out of it.

“Oh, they’re horrible!” said Gwinny. “What shall we do?”

“It isn’t Hell’s Angels,” said Malcolm, “exactly. It’s that stuff Douglas spilt. Look.”

They looked, and saw the last motorcyclist growing and struggling out of the ground, obviously in the most tremendous hurry to join in with the others.

“What was it called?” asked the Ogre.

“
Dens Drac
.,” said Caspar. “Do come on.”

“Stay where you are,” said the Ogre. “All of you. We can’t possibly tackle that number.” To their exasperation, he put his box down on the car bonnet and calmly sorted
through the things in it. He took out a tin of sardines.

“But what about Johnny and Douglas?” Gwinny said, dancing with anxiety.

“What are you
doing
?” said Caspar.

“Hoping the old trick still works,” said the Ogre, and threw the sardines with enormous force at a crash helmet bobbing in the middle of the scuffle.

The helmet immediately turned. They saw its owner go for the man nearest to him, evidently thinking he was the one who hit him.

“Oh, I see!” said Malcolm, and lifted a tin of peaches out of his own box.

“Not those,” said the Ogre. “I like them. Sardines and baked beans only.”

He shared them out. Caspar weighed a tin of beans in his hand, liked the weight, and hurled it into the crowd. He and Malcolm both scored direct hits on crash helmets, and the Ogre scored another. Each man they hit immediately turned on his neighbour. Within seconds, the whole group was savagely fighting among itself. Black leather arms and legs whirled. There were fierce shouts in a strange language. Gwinny added to the confusion by missing with her baked beans and producing an enormous clang, which must have been the dustbin.

The Ogre threw Caspar the car keys. “Unlock it and get yourselves and this stuff in,” he said. “Leave a door open for us.” He set off at a run for the milling motorcyclists and fought his way in among them. He disappeared completely almost at once. Gwinny wrung her hands in despair and could think of nothing else. Malcolm had to push her into the car.

They were hurriedly loading in the boxes, when the Ogre reappeared backwards from the fight, dragging Johnny and Douglas. Johnny and Douglas were pale and disordered, but they still had the mop, the broom and both parts of the dustbin. Gwinny’s tin was rolling thunderously about in the dustbin with the strawberry soap. They came panting up to the car and the Ogre thrust them into it. Nobody was sure how they all got in, but somehow they did it, and the Ogre fell into the driving-seat and started the engine. By this time, the motorcyclists were rolling in a heap on the ground, punching, kicking and even biting one another.

“Aren’t we going to do anything about them?” Caspar asked.

“No,” said the Ogre breathlessly. “We can leave that to the police.”

“But what happens when they turn out not to have names and addresses and things?” Malcolm wanted to know.

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” said the Ogre, backing briskly down the lane away from the struggle. “The police can think of something. Douglas, can you possibly lower that dustbin so that I could see something else in the driving mirror?”

Douglas tried, and produced yells of pain from Gwinny and Caspar. “I’m afraid I can’t.”

“Then I’ll have to guess,” said the Ogre. He turned round at the end of the lane, missing another car by what Malcolm said was less than half an inch, and sped across the gravel to the exit with the dustbin jouncing deafeningly. “Douglas,” he said loudly, “this was entirely
due to your high-handedness. If you do anything like that again, I’ll leave you to your fate.” Douglas answered with a shamed mutter. “And,” said the Ogre, “please let this be the last chemical event. If there are any more, I think I may go mad.”

They assured him that it would be, and they meant it. But they were reckoning without Gwinny. As they were carrying the boxes in through the back door, she gave a cry and threw herself on her hands and knees by the doorstep. Caspar, who nearly fell over her, wanted to know, rather loudly and angrily, what she thought she was doing.

“My pretty hairgrip!” said Gwinny. “Please help me find it. It’s so pretty.”

“Humour her,” said Johnny. “She was born like it.”

So they all put down their boxes again and, with some exasperation, hunted for the hairgrip. As Douglas said, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Five minutes later, the Ogre said, “Is this it?” He stood up holding something bright and yellowish.

“Oh yes!” Gwinny said, reaching for it eagerly.

But the Ogre lifted it out of her reach and turned round into the sunlight to see it properly. “Where did you get this, Gwinny? It’s solid gold!”

“No it’s not,” said Gwinny. “It can’t be. It was just an ordinary one. I made it pretty like that with Peter Fillus.”

“What or who is Peter Fillus?” said the Ogre, still holding the hairgrip out of reach.

“It’s just some little stones out of Malcolm’s chemistry set,” said Gwinny. “They’re called Peter Fillus, and if you rub them on things they go pretty. I did my people some
candlesticks. But they don’t work on carpets and tables and things.”