The Ogre Downstairs

  “Not until you tell us,” said Johnny.

  “What makes you think I’m going to tell you?” countered Malcolm.

  “Because we won’t let you go until you do,” said Caspar.

  There was a short time of deadlock. Malcolm leant defiantly against the wall, and Caspar leant on his arms to hold him there and wondered what he could do to scare Malcolm into confessing. Then Malcolm said, with great loftiness, “You wouldn’t understand if I did tell you. You’ve no idea of system, or controlling your experiments, or even keeping your ideas in order. All you do is muddle about and hope. It’s no wonder you haven’t made the discoveries that I have. I bet you didn’t even realise that it’s always the things on the lower layer that are odd. But I’ve come to that conclusion, because I’m systematic.”

  This exasperated Johnny and Caspar. They saw well enough that Malcolm had no intention of telling them what he had done with Parv. pulv. and was just trying to distract their attention.

  “Stop waffling,” said Johnny. “And tell us.”

  “Can you see any reason,” said Malcolm, “why I should share my discoveries with you, Melchior?”

  Johnny, to be quite honest, could see no reason at all. Which meant that Caspar was forced to say, “Because we’re going to make you tell us. What have you found out?”

  “Nothing I’m going to tell you,” said Malcolm.

  Caspar lifted Malcolm away from the wall and banged him back, so that his irritatingly tidy head thumped against the plaster. “What other chemicals do things?” he asked menacingly.

  At that moment, Douglas, outside on the landing, said, “Hey, Malcolm!”

  Caspar and Johnny both jumped, because they had not heard Douglas come upstairs. Malcolm looked at Caspar, coolly and jeeringly, and Caspar looked back, daring Malcolm to shout for help.

  “Malcolm?” said Douglas again. They waited tensely while Douglas went into the room across the landing and came out again. Then Douglas said, “Oh drat!” and went galloping away downstairs. As soon as he had gone, Caspar felt suddenly tired to death of the whole matter. He wanted to yawn in Malcolm’s face. Instead, he let go of him. Malcolm, with dignity, straightened his tie and went towards the door.

  But Johnny at that moment thought of a very good reason why Malcolm should share at least one discovery with them. “You tell us about Parv. pulv.,” he said. “You’d never have known anything could happen at all, if Douglas hadn’t seen Gwinny flying.” And he did not move from in front of the door.

  Malcolm stopped. There was not so much difference between his size and Johnny’s, and Johnny was burly. “I dare say we’d have worked it out,” he said loftily.

  “Yes. We,” said Johnny. “Don’t pretend Douglas isn’t helping you.”

  “So what?” said Malcolm. “Don’t tell me you’re working entirely alone, Melchior. And there are three of you.”

  “But Douglas is older,” said Johnny. “So it’s not fair.”

  “Your ages add up to more than ours,” said Malcolm.

  Caspar felt more tired than ever. “Oh, let him go, Johnny,” he said. “This is boring.”

  Johnny moved reluctantly aside. Malcolm swiftly got his hand to the doorknob. Then he said, “I don’t see I’ve any call to tell you anything. I bet you only discovered the flying powder by mistake and spilt it on Gwinny by accident.”

  The mortifying thing was that this was quite true. As Malcolm slipped round the door, Johnny said angrily, “You wait. I’ll discover something you’ve never dreamt of. You needn’t think you’re so clever.” Malcolm shut the door in his face with a bang. Johnny turned round and ploughed feverishly through the construction kits to the chemistry set. He threw himself down beside it and began to scrabble among the comics and toffee bars around it. “The instructions,” he said. “Have you seen the instructions, Caspar?”

  “No. Why?” said Caspar, yawning.

  “I’ve got to find out which tubes were on the bottom layer,” Johnny said desperately. “I’ve got them all mixed up.”

  Caspar saw reason in this. They searched fiercely. Johnny found the broken test tube that had held the flying mixture and cut his finger on it. Caspar found nothing but toffee bars and comics, until he thought to lift up the lid of the chemistry set. The outside of it said Magicator Chemistry by Magicraft. Guaranteed non-toxic, non-explosive. The inside of the lid said the same, but underneath that were instructions of a sort. Caspar read, 1. Try this experiment with Marble Chips. “These are no good,” he said. “I did all these at school.”

  “No, you fool!” said Johnny, sucking his bleeding finger. “Under your knee.”

  Caspar seized the little pamphlet he was kneeling on. Magicator Chemistry, it said. But it turned out to be a set of quite ordinary experiments, all of which either he or Johnny had done at school. And nowhere did it give a list of the substances in the set. “This is no good either,” he said, smothering a yawn.

  “All right,” Johnny said grimly. “I’ll just have to go through and test each one. I’m not going to be beaten by that stuck up toff, so there!”

  By supper time, he had sorted out the chemicals he knew, but by then he was too tired to go on. He was only too glad to trudge downstairs and sit round the table with four other people as tired as he was.

  “Good gracious!” said Sally, looking round their white faces and reddened eyes. She knew there was every reason why Douglas should be heavy-eyed and morose, but she could not understand the rest of them. “I hope you’re not all sickening for something.”

  “Only sickening in the other sense,” said the Ogre, with his usual uncanny instinct for wrongdoing. “They were fooling about half the night, that was all.”

  “Oh no, Father, I think I really am going down with something,” Malcolm said coolly. “I have a heavy feeling in my head.”

  “Serve you right,” said the Ogre.

  “And I think there must be something wrong with me too,” Gwinny said hastily. “Because I’m so quiet.”

  “Please don’t apologise,” said the Ogre politely. “It’s a welcome change.”

  The meal finished in silence both weary and nervous. Though the Ogre said nothing more, Caspar could not help keeping an anxious eye on Douglas. He was even more nervous of him than of the Ogre. When he found Douglas morosely waiting in the hall after supper, it took him some courage not to run away. But all Douglas did was to thrust the Indigo Rubber records at him.

  “They’re clean now,” he said. “Mind you keep them that way.” Then he went away upstairs. Caspar, hardly able to believe his good fortune, stood clutching the records and looking after him uncertainly. Douglas leant down over the bannisters. “I haven’t forgotten I owe you,” he said. “If I could keep my eyes open I’d give it you now.”

  It was surprising how ready everyone was for bed that night. By nine o’clock, thick silence had fallen on the house. Caspar was just dropping asleep, thinking that he was going to get an all-time low mark in tomorrow’s French test, when Johnny said, irritably and drowsily:

  “Do you think Malcolm was lying about the things in the bottom layer?”

  Caspar wanted to go to sleep so badly that he said, “I’ll get it out of him tomorrow – if you shut up and don’t say another word.”

  It was a rash promise. Johnny held him to it next morning. “I did my bit,” he said. “I didn’t say a word – and I lay awake for nearly a quarter of an hour worrying. Now you go and squidge Malcolm.” Then, seeing how reluctant Caspar was, he added, “Or I won’t tell you a single thing I discover. Ever.”

  “Oh, all right!” Caspar said crossly. And, as they heard Douglas bounding downstairs at that moment, he went across the landing there and then.

  The door was ajar. Caspar opened the hostilities by doing as Malcolm always did – knocking and going in without waiting for an answer. Malcolm was tying his tie in front of the mirror. Caspar, who rarely looked in a mirror if he could help it, and specially not to tie his tie, felt very scornful.
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  “What do you want?” said Malcolm.

  “Information,” said Caspar. “Were you lying about the things on the bottom layer or not?”

  “No,” said Malcolm, and, as he tightened the knot of his tie, he whistled, gently and mockingly, We Three Kings of Orient Are.

  Caspar of course perceived the insult. “Then if you weren’t, prove it,” he said.

  “Why?” said Malcolm, and pursed his lips to whistle again.

  “Whistle that again and I’ll knock your head off!” snarled Caspar.

  Malcolm smiled maliciously. “Why not, Capsule?”

  “And don’t call me that, either!”

  “It suits you. Everyone knows you’re a perfect pill,” said Malcolm. Then, just before Caspar had time to explode, he went on patronisingly, “I’ve no objection to proving it, since you’re obviously too stupid to work it out for yourself.”

  “Go on then,” said Caspar.

  Malcolm left the mirror and opened the glass cupboard, where the chemistry set was neatly laid on a shelf. “See?” he said, lifting the lid. “These are all things we’ve heard of. But underneath,” he said, lifting off the first layer and revealing the second, “you’ve got things even Douglas has never heard of. And most of them don’t react in ordinary tests. Do you follow me?”

  “Yes, teacher,” said Caspar. “What does that prove?”

  “Well, you don’t think I’m going to test one for you now, before breakfast, do you?” demanded Malcolm.

  “Yes,” said Caspar.

  “Well, I’m not,” said Malcolm.

  “So you were lying? I thought you were,” said Caspar.

  “I was not!” said Malcolm. “All right. Which one shall I test?”

  “This one,” said Caspar, pointing to a bottle labelled Animal Spirits.

  “That’s a boring one,” said Malcolm. “Nothing happens, even when you taste it, except you feel rather lively for a bit. What about this one?”

  He picked up a slender tube called, as far as Caspar could see, Misc. pulv.

  “What about it?” Caspar said suspiciously.

  “I don’t know,” said Malcolm. “I’ve done everything I can think of with it, and nothing’s happened. The only thing I haven’t done is taste it.”

  “Taste it!” said Caspar. “Suppose it’s poison?”

  “It says non-toxic,” Malcolm said coolly. “I’m willing taste it, if you’ll agree to taste it too.” He looked patronisingly at Caspar, as if he knew Caspar would not dare.

  Caspar thought he saw his game. “If you think you’re going to get out of it that way, you’re making a big mistake,” he said. “All right. Let’s both taste it.”

  It was clear Malcolm had hoped to get out of it. He uncorked the tube most unwillingly and said, “It’s going to taste pretty nasty, I think.”

  “Hard luck,” said Caspar. “Hand some over.”

  Malcolm carefully picked up a little glass shovel and spooned a small quantity of white powder out of the tube and on to Caspar’s palm. Caspar could not help being impressed with the difference between this care and Johnny’s slapdash methods. Then the smell of the powder met his nostrils.

  “Eeughk!” he said.

  “That’s why I didn’t taste it,” said Malcolm, shovelling the powder on to his own palm. He carefully recorked the tube and put it and the little shovel down. “So if neither of us wants any breakfast, it’ll be your fault. Ready?”

  “Ready,” said Caspar, daunted but determined. They both watched one another like cats for any sign of weakness – and of course both would have died rather than show any – as they each raised a stinking hand to his mouth, put out a reluctant tongue and licked up a mouthful of what was certainly the nastiest taste Caspar had ever come across. The eyes of both watered. It was stronger than onions and bitterer than gall. Both trying to conceal their shudders, they swallowed.

  The result was the most curious whirling, dizzy, sick feeling. Caspar had to shut his eyes. He felt as if he were being taken up by a small whirlwind and put down facing the other way. Fighting not to be sick, he opened his eyes and stared at the white face opposite him. Then he shut his eyes again, opened them, and stared with unbelieving horror. Though he did not often look in mirrors, he knew his own face when he saw it.

  The mouth in his face opened. His own voice said shakily, “Oh no!”

  “What’s happened?” Caspar said, hoping it was not as he feared. But that hope was almost gone when he found himself speaking in Malcolm’s cool, precise voice. He dived round and made for the mirror, and the false Caspar opposite him did the same. They fought and jostled to get in front of it. Like that, shoving and pushing with arms and legs rather shorter and weaker than he was used to, Caspar managed to look into his own eyes. Sure enough, they were Malcolm’s cool grey ones. Above them was Malcolm’s smooth hair; below, Malcolm’s nose and precise mouth. And beside him, Malcolm was staring out of Caspar’s brown eyes at Caspar’s shaggy black hair, with an expression of acute horror on Caspar’s face.

  “What’s the antidote?” Caspar demanded in Malcolm’s voice.

  “I don’t know,” Malcolm said helplessly in Caspar’s.

  “Well, let’s find out!” Caspar said desperately.

  Sally’s voice bawled from downstairs. “Malcolm! Caspar! If you don’t come down this minute, you’ll both be late for school!”

  “What shall we do?” said Malcolm.

  “We’ll have to go down,” said Caspar. “We only had a lick. It might wear off.”

  “Hurry up!” boomed the Ogre’s voice. After that, neither of them dared linger. Caspar dived across the landing for his schoolbag, Malcolm snatched up his and, one behind the other, they pounded downstairs to the kitchen.

  Douglas was just getting up to leave. “You’ve got the wrong bag,” he said to Caspar, thinking he was Malcolm.

  “So’s Caspar,” said Gwinny.

  “Are you two all right?” asked Sally. “You both look white as ghosts. You haven’t time for cereal. Here’s your eggs.”

  The thought of eggs – or indeed anything else – after that powder made both of them feel sick. “I don’t think I want an egg,” Malcolm said faintly.

  The Ogre took his head out of the newspaper and glared at him. “Your mother’s cooked it, so you’ll eat it,” he said. “And take that look off your face, boy.”

  Caspar looked at his own egg with loathing and silent resentment. The Ogre always picked on him, not Malcolm. And, even if this time it was really Malcolm he was picking on, it was still not fair. “I don’t want my egg either,” he said.

  “You heard what I said to Caspar,” said the Ogre, and hid his head in the newspaper again.

  Reluctantly, they both opened their eggs and toyed with the contents. Caspar wondered what had possessed the lunatic who first thought of eggs as food.

  “You’d better go, Johnny. And you, Gwinny,” said Sally. “There’s no need for you to be late as well.”

  Johnny, as he got up to go, stopped behind Malcolm’s chair. Taking him for Caspar, he whispered, “Was it true, or not?” Caspar saw an expression of complete bewilderment spread over his own face. Its eyes glanced at him for help. He gave it a very small nod.

  “True,” Malcolm said in a firm whisper. Johnny looked satisfied.

  “Get on with your breakfast, Caspar,” said Sally.

  Johnny and Gwinny left. The real Caspar and the false picked at their eggs again. Each was hoping that the powder would wear off before they were forced to go to school, for it was quite clear that they could not go as they were. And each was determined never, ever to tell a soul what had happened. The mere idea of the way Johnny would laugh made Caspar squirm. Probably Douglas would laugh even louder – at any rate Caspar could tell that Malcolm felt exactly as he did about it. His own face was extraordinarily easy to read. Malcolm’s thoughts flitted over it almost as clearly as if he had spoken them. It was the strangest part of the whole horrible experience. He had never bee
n able to tell what Malcolm was thinking before. He wondered if Malcolm found his own face as easy to understand. Meanwhile they dillied. They dallied. Since the powder showed no sign of wearing off, both clutched their heads and tried to look ill. Both left their eggs half-eaten.

  “I’ve had enough of this,” said the Ogre. “My car is going to be at the front of the house in one minute. If I have to fetch you out to it, neither of you is going to enjoy sitting in it.”

  They saw there was no help for it and went to get their coats. Each naturally took his own without thinking, and then had to change, because Malcolm’s coat would not fit Caspar’s body. And they had to change schoolbags as well.

  “If we can’t get out of it,” Malcolm whispered, “we’ll have to change classes too, I suppose. Do you agree? I can’t tell a thing you’re thinking.”

  This surprised Caspar. He had to think about it for a moment. “You know,” he said, “I think your face is bad at showing expressions. I’ve never been able to tell what you’re thinking either.”

  “Really?” said Malcolm, in considerable astonishment. “But I always know what I—”

  Sally came out of the kitchen in her coat. “Are you two still here!” she exclaimed. “Get out to the car at once.”

  By the time they came out of the front door, the Ogre’s thumb was on the horn-button and the Ogre’s face like thunder. “Sally and I,” he said, “are going to be late for work. I’ve a good mind to take the day off and help your headmaster cane you.”

  He drove them to the school and dropped them at the main gate. Since one of the masters was just going in as they arrived, Caspar and Malcolm were helpless. All they could do was pelt towards the lines of people going into Assembly and remember to join the class that matched their bodies.

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Long before the morning was over, Caspar had given up dreading that he was going to turn suddenly into himself again in front of the whole class. Instead, he gave himself up to despair, muddle and boredom. He had simply no idea which group Malcolm was in for any subject. By the time he discovered that it was usually the most advanced, it was time for French, and Malcolm turned out to be bad at French. Caspar arrived late and out of breath. Mr Martin said, “Ah, the Absent-Minded Professor is with us, I see.” This relieved Caspar’s mind a little, because it looked as if Malcolm was always in a muddle – although he did not like the way the rest of the group laughed. But it did not make up for having the same lesson, word for word, that he had had himself exactly a year before. Nor was it any comfort to know that the French test Malcolm was doing in his place at that moment was certainly going to get nought out of ten – or worse, if that was possible.