The Ogre Downstairs (7 page)

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 been 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.

L
ong 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.

The first thing he did at Break was to hunt for his own body among all the other people. He found himself extraordinarily hard to recognise at a distance. Malcolm evidently had the same trouble. It was halfway through Break before they succeeded in meeting. Caspar found his own face looking quite haggard.

“This is awful!” Malcolm said. “I can’t understand a word. You had a French test and I got you nought, I’m afraid.”

“I was going to anyway,” said Caspar. “Don’t worry. It’s an emergency, after all. Let’s say we’re ill and get sent home.”

“But they take your temperature,” said Malcolm. “And I bet we’re both normal.”

“Normal!” said Caspar. “Let’s just go home, then.”

“And someone finds out and tells Father?” said Malcolm. “You go, if you want.”

“I don’t want,” said Caspar.

“I tell you what,” said Malcolm, “suppose we skip lunch and belt round to that toyshop and ask him for the antidote. Because I don’t think we’re going to change without one, do you?”

“No,” agreed Caspar. “But I can’t bear missing lunch. After no breakfast I’m starving already. What lunch are you?”

“Second.”

“And you go to First as me.” said Caspar. “That gives us half an hour. Meet you outside the canteen. And tell me which group you’re in for maths.”

“Hunter’s,” said Malcolm. “And who are your friends?”

Caspar was reciting the names of his friends, and Malcolm was nodding and saying he was glad, he had worked most of them out right, then, when Johnny came up and took hold of Malcolm by the elbow.

“Oh, do come on, Caspar,” he said. “My lot are waiting.”

Malcolm, with an apologetic look at Caspar, went off with Johnny. Caspar, before he remembered, had a moment of purest seething fury that they should march off and leave him like that. Then he realised that this was exactly what he and Johnny usually did do. For the rest of Break he wandered moodily and dismally round by himself, working out the implications of this, and arguing against his conscience that he was
not
mean to Malcolm – oh no – Malcolm went out of his way to insult them both anyway. But, argue as he might, the fact remained that Malcolm was supposed to be part of their family now, and neither he nor Johnny had made the slightest attempt to look after him at school.

“But think how he jeers,” Caspar told his conscience. And his conscience smartly returned that one by reminding him that Malcolm’s face was not good at showing feelings, and asking Caspar what he would do himself if he were too proud to beg someone to be friends.

At this point, it occurred to Caspar that no friends had
come up to him at all, during lessons or during Break, and that he had been wandering round entirely and gloomily alone – as he remembered seeing Malcolm doing. And he felt more wretched than ever.

Then came an appallingly boring maths lesson. After that, Caspar discovered that Malcolm’s situation was worse than he had realised. The last session before lunch was Craft. Everyone gathered at tables with paint, wood, paper and clay, and everything got much more free and easy. Malcolm was making a boat. It was such a good boat too that Caspar was afraid to spoil it by doing anything to it, so he had to pretend. While he was busy pretending, a group of girls came up and tried to drip paint on the boat.

Caspar snatched it away to safety. “You do that again and see what you get!”

The girls burst out laughing and mimicked what he said. Caspar found Malcolm’s cheeks hot. For Malcolm’s stiff face seemed incapable of talking in anything but a precise, posh way, and Caspar was well aware that he had mimicked Malcolm himself as often as he could.

Realising this made him unobservant for a moment. He did not see one of the girls creeping round the other side of him until it was too late. He pounced round, but she had already snatched the boat away. With screams of laughter, the girls passed it to the boys, and the boys tossed it from one to another, inviting Caspar to come and get it. It was a fragile as well as a beautiful boat. Caspar was in agonies in case they broke it. He felt he had no option but to defend Malcolm’s property, and he started after it.

Immediately, his way was barred by a peculiarly unpleasant boy called Dale Curtis, grinning nastily. “And where do you think you’re off to?” he said.

Caspar, with his eye anxiously on Malcolm’s boat – which someone was now balancing on a ruler – was forced to a standstill. He never had liked Dale Curtis – in fact, now he came to think of it, 3H were an awful lot of kids altogether and it was hard on Malcolm having to be in with them – but Dale Curtis, being a year younger, had never bothered him before. Now, half a head shorter than he was used to, and with a feeling that his shorter arms were not very strong ones, Caspar found Dale Curtis quite a different proposition.

“You’re not supposed to run about in Craft,” said Dale, who had been doing nothing else himself since the lesson started. “Get back to your table like a good little boy.”

Caspar saw that he had no choice but to fight Malcolm’s battle for him. It made it rather easier that it was his own for the moment. “Get out of my way,” he said.

Dale drew breath to mimic him, and gave Caspar his chance. He weighed in with a trick that he and Johnny thought was probably judo. It was not so effective as usual, because Malcolm’s arms were really so weak, but it served to tip Dale off balance. And while he swayed, Caspar hit him as hard as he could. The force of the punch almost broke Malcolm’s arm – but Caspar knew it had to be hard to do any good. Dale fell over a chair, red-faced and swearing, and Caspar was able to walk over to the boy balancing the boat on the ruler. The boy handed
him the boat without a word. Caspar took it, trying not to show that his hand had been numbed by Dale’s teeth. Malcolm’s poker-face helped considerably there.

Then, of course, Mrs Tremlett noticed something was going on and hurried over. “What’s the matter with Dale?”

Half a dozen boys drew breath to say Malcolm McIntyre had hit him. Caspar glared round them, forcing as much threat into Malcolm’s face as Malcolm’s face would hold. It did the trick. Nobody spoke.

“Dale?” said Mrs Tremlett.

“I fell over,” Dale said, glowering at Caspar in a way that suggested further trouble coming.

None, however, came just then, though one of the girls – the 3H girls seemed to Caspar a really terrible lot – said, “I’m going to tell Mr Hunter what you did to Dale.”

“Right. I’ll make sure I find you after that,” said Caspar.

They left him alone then. He had a lonely kind of peace through the rest of Craft, and through lunch. Malcolm was waiting for him outside the canteen. They set off at once to trot the distance into town.

“I had to hit Dale Curtis,” Caspar panted after a while, “or they’d have broken your boat.”

Malcolm said nothing. But Caspar could tell from his own readable face that Malcolm was ashamed Caspar had found out the way the class treated him.

“I think they’re a horrible crowd,” Caspar said.

“Yours are nicer,” Malcolm panted curtly.

“Specially the girls,” puffed Caspar. Malcolm said
nothing. “And Dale’s going to be after you,” Caspar continued. “I’ll teach you some of our judo, if you like.”

“I can manage,” Malcolm panted.

“Then hit him hard. Ever so hard,” Caspar advised. After that he was too breathless to go on.

They trotted hard, until, with heaving chests, they came into a little old yard-place, almost beside the Ogre’s office block and quite dwarfed underneath it. Caspar had never seen the place before, but Malcolm evidently knew it, for he made straight for a dark little shop there. The name over the window was
Magicraft Ltd
and in the window were a variety of toys, including a chemistry set like the ones the Ogre had bought. It looked a good shop.

Malcolm pushed open the door. An old-fashioned bell tinged, and their labouring lungs drew in strange spicy smells. An old man in crescent-moon-shaped spectacles pottered out from the dark space behind a scarred and aged counter, and pushed his glasses up to stare at them. They stood, thoroughly out of breath and rather shy, staring back at him and at the string bags full of footballs, the miniature golf clubs, the toolsets and dolls which dangled above the counter and framed the old man.

“Speak up, speak up,” said the old man. “Early closing today. I close in five minutes.”

“Well,” said Caspar, “you know those chemistry sets—”

The old man nodded, and they saw he had a gold-embroidered skullcap on his head. “I do indeed. Those are one of our best lines. But all our goods give satisfaction or money back, you know. I hope you haven’t come to complain.”

“No, not really,” said Malcolm. “It’s that powder called
Misc. pulv
.—”

“Failed to give results?” said the old man, with his eyebrows mounting nearly to his skullcap. He looked with interest from one to the other and – though, maybe, it was simply that his eyebrows being raised so high made his face seem so droll – he appeared to be highly but secretly amused by what he saw. “Now that surprises me,” he said.

They were fairly sure the old man knew just what had happened. That, in a way, was a relief, although it did not seem fair to them that he should laugh at their troubles. Both opened their mouths to explain further, but as they did so the bell tinged behind them. Someone else came into the shop. Caspar and Malcolm looked at one another. It was going to be fairly embarrassing to explain in front of another customer. Nevertheless, Malcolm said, “Yes. It gave results. But—”

The old man shifted his half-moon glasses and looked beyond him. “Good day to you, my dear sir.”

To their consternation, the Ogre’s voice replied, “Good day to you.” Caspar’s brown eyes met Malcolm’s grey ones, and they both wondered whether to turn and run. “Hallo you two,” said the Ogre genially. “Preparing to be late this afternoon as well, are you?”

“I think we’d better go now,” said Caspar, in Malcolm’s primmest manner.

“I’ll drive you back,” said the Ogre. “Fascinating place, this, isn’t it? What’s your latest line?” he asked the old man.

“I’ve some very nice footballs,” said the old man, and
he turned a moon-spectacled eye on Caspar and Malcolm. He might have been calculating whether footballs would please them, but they both thought the look was distinctly malicious. “Just wait while I fetch them down, sir.”

The two boys stood helpless while the old man brought a boathook and hooked down a string bag of bright pink footballs, and the Ogre, hands in pockets and pipe in mouth, admired them. The Ogre was the last person they wanted to know about
Misc. pulv
. Caspar and Malcolm were perfectly sure that the old man knew it and that he was not going to tell them the antidote if he could help it. He chattered to the Ogre about how good these footballs were, and how poor most footballs were these days, and the Ogre agreed that footballs were not what they were in his young days, until Caspar and Malcolm grew desperate. One after another, they bobbed forward and tried to whisper to the old man.

“Ah, you can see they’re keen,” said the old man gleefully to the Ogre. “Boys always know a good football when they see one.”

“I’ll take two,” said the Ogre.

“What’s the antidote?” Caspar managed to whisper.

“Eh?” said the old man. “That’ll be eighty pence, sir, and cheap at the price, if I may say so. And can I trouble you to leave now, as I’m closing? My early day, you know.”

“Of course,” said the Ogre. “Come along, you two.”

Caspar lingered. Malcolm hung back. “Just a moment,” Malcolm said.

“Early closing,” said the old man firmly.

“Come along,” said the Ogre, more firmly still.

Despite all their efforts to loiter, in two seconds they were outside the door of the shop, each clutching a pink football he did not want. A key clicked in the door of the shop. A blind came down behind the glass, with the word CLOSED painted on it. That was that. As the Ogre led the way to the car park, Malcolm looked at Caspar despairingly.

“Early closing means we’ve got to stay like this until lunch time tomorrow,” he said.

“I
know
,” said Caspar, “What did you have to make me taste that stuff for?”

“It was your fault. You called me a liar. Watch out,” said Malcolm. “Don’t forget I’m bigger than you now.”

“As if I cared!” said Caspar.

The Ogre turned round, looking his most sinister. “Is something troubling you?” he enquired. “Nothing I can’t settle by crashing your heads together, I hope? And how about a word of thanks for the footballs?”

“Oh – thank you,” they said, and miserably followed him to the car. When he had dropped them at school, they stood just inside the gate wondering what on earth to do with the footballs. They were so very pink.

“I suppose he meant to be kind,” Malcolm said drearily. “Would Gwinny like them?”

Caspar thought he had never hated the Ogre more. “No she wouldn’t. She hates pink. Let’s try leaving them in the cloakroom. Someone’s bound to steal them. What are we going to
do
?”

“Stay this way till tomorrow, I suppose,” Malcolm said, sighing heavily. “There’s the bell. Come on.”