The Ogre Downstairs

by Diana Wynne Jones

  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.”

  They trudged off to endure the afternoon. Caspar had hoped that it would not be too bad, since Malcolm’s year had football. But Malcolm played in goal. Caspar, who liked to be up front somewhere, had never kept goal in his life, and he let in almost every shot.

  “I thought that was one thing you were good at!” someone said to him disgustedly afterwards.

  “Yes,” Caspar snapped, thoroughly weary and cross. “But I broke my arm on Dale Curtis this morning.” And he marched away to the cloakroom, longing to get home. To his annoyance, the boy followed him, apologising. Caspar was just about to get rid of him, when it came to him that Malcolm could do with a friend – or he could, if he was going to have to be Malcolm for the rest of his life. So they talked about how horrible Dale Curtis was all the way to the cloakrooms. The pink footballs were still there. Nobody had even wanted to steal them. Malcolm was there too, looking at them morbidly.

  “What on earth are those?” said the boy.

  “Ogre’s eyeballs,” said Caspar. Malcolm gave a scream of insane laughter.

  “Not off his rocker, is he?” asked the boy.

  “No, but he’s not quite himself today,” said Caspar.

  He and Malcolm walked home together, nursing the footballs and mournfully considering all the possible troubles and misunderstandings waiting for them at home.

  “But not to tell anyone,” Malcolm insisted.

  “Not a darned soul,” Caspar agreed.

  “Caspar’s gone friends with Malcolm,” Johnny reported to Gwinny. “Would you believe that? They’ve both got pink footballs to prove it.”

  “Why?” said Gwinny. “Can I borrow a toffee bar?”

  “Only if you get out. I’ve got some experiments to do,” said Johnny. “If you ask me, it’s sinister. Caspar was awfully strange at school too.”

  Caspar was fairly sure Johnny was suspicious, but there was nothing he could do about it. He did his best to behave like Malcolm. He went up to the tidy room and put the pink football very neatly away in the glass cupboard, which was a thing he was sure Malcolm would have done. But as soon as Douglas came in, he realised how little he really knew about Malcolm’s habits and had to hurry away downstairs before Douglas started asking awkward questions. There he found Malcolm had solved his share of the difficulties. Caspar came into the kitchen, and there was Malcolm helping Sally get supper and chattering away to her gaily. Sally, thinking he was Caspar, was talking happily back.

  Caspar stood in the doorway, overwhelmed with jealous rage and suspicion. He knew he was being unreasonable. He knew Sally was supposed to be Malcolm’s mother too now. But he could not get over the feeling that this was a really underhand trick. And the worst of it was that Malcolm looke
d so cheerful that Caspar had a horrible notion that, if they were to find the antidote, Malcolm was enjoying himself so much as Caspar that he might choose to stay that way. Then what would become of him? As soon as he could, he caught Malcolm in the dining room.

  “You mean sneak! What do you mean by sucking up to my mother like that?”

  “I wasn’t!” Malcolm said indignantly. “I was keeping out of Johnny’s way. And it’s nice talking to Sally. I like her.”

  “But not when she thinks you’re me. Why don’t you talk to her that way when you’re yourself, if you like her that much?” said Caspar, grinding Malcolm’s teeth.

  “Because it’s not so easy. Because Douglas—Anyway, you don’t think I like being you, do you?” said Malcolm.

  “No, but I do,” Caspar said, and stormed off to the Ogre’s study, feeling both angry and relieved.

  But the real trouble came after supper, when the Ogre demanded peace and quiet and everyone retreated upstairs. Then Caspar was forced to go into the same room as Douglas and do his best to behave like Malcolm in front of the person who probably knew Malcolm best of all. He was very nervous. Douglas sat down at the table by the window and spread out a great many books. Caspar, hoping this was the right thing to do, sat down opposite him and opened Malcolm’s schoolbag. As Malcolm, he had been given French and Maths. He began to do them, in Malcolm’s small neat writing, but with his own brain, which found them easy and boring. He had plenty of space to think in, and he could not help thinking that to work this way – instead of sprawling on an untidy bed as he usually did – was very grown up and comfortable. He began to feel a little smug, and to wonder if Malcolm was getting on so well.