Ogg
Page 27
Chapter 23
Before Antonia had even time to get her breath back, her mobile phone sang out. She must remember to change that ring tone, it was starting to get annoying. She glanced at her screen. Perg! Who else?
“Hello Perg”
“You’re back then, Ant. Are you OK?”
Was she OK? She really hadn’t had time to think about it. She shouldn’t be OK, not after almost being torn to pieces by a pack of human wolves. She should be a blubbering nervous mess, but she really believed she wasn’t too bad. Her hands were quite steady, her legs could carry her. She wasn’t even angry at Ogg, and, my God, she should be – leaving her alone and exposed like that. Yet it was as if it wasn’t really his fault, more her fault than his really, if that made any sense. So she supposed she was OK, apart from being a bit confused about the discrepancy between the way she was feeling and the way logic told her she should have been feeling.
At the other end of the phone, Perg’s patience gave out. His question had gone unanswered.
“What happened? Ant?”
What had happened? Had she solved the mystery? What was Ogg going to do now? What was she going to do? Pass her A levels and go to university? Or something more important? Was there anything more important? Had she come all this way, asking question after question, to get to the end of her journey, unable to think of anything except more questions.
“Ant!!!! What happened?”
“Oh, sorry Perg, I was thinking.” She noticed her voice had suddenly become calmer, no idea why. She was trying hard to think, but it wasn’t easy. None of her ideas seemed to stick together. She felt there were things she now knew, things she had just discovered, but she couldn’t explain how she knew them. So here she was, seeking for the explanations, and to her it seemed like thinking backwards, that her feelings had taken over and were in control of her thoughts. She was sure the end of the world problem had gone away, but how or why she had no idea. Could she say she just had a feeling? If she could, where did that put everything she had learned from Ogg, what kind of correct thinking was that?
“What happened,” Perg repeated. Antonia had forgotten to answer him again. She forced herself to speak, before her mind whizzed off and left him again.
“Well, I asked some people some questions, and they didn’t like it much. It seems not everybody enjoys looking for answers to difficult questions.”
“But did you find out about the end of the world?”
“Maybe. Maybe not. It was all a bit confused and noisy. There was a lot of shouting, people were quite angry with me.”
She wanted to tell him it was all right, that it wasn’t so serious, that Ogg had it all in hand, but even to herself she couldn’t explain why she felt that way. So how could she tell Perg?
“Was it dangerous?”
Had it been dangerous? Or had Ogg been standing invisibly over her all the time, ready to whisk her away when things got out of hand?
“Hard to say, really. Anyway, I’m back safely. No harm done!”
“And Ogg, what did he say?”
“Basically, goodbye. I don’t think we’ll see him again. At least, not for a while.”
Why had she said that? Ogg hadn’t said anything about not coming back. What was it he had done that made her believe that? She must have a reason. She must have thought it through. But she couldn’t remember. Was she thinking without knowing she was thinking? Can you do that? In any case, she would have to justify what she had just said to Perg.
“I’m not sure we need him any more, Perg. Or at least, not just at the moment”
“So the world isn’t going to end?”
“Who can tell that that, Perg? Who can even tell what the world really is? Now or in the future. Let’s not talk about it just now”
Neither of them said anything for a while. Perg wanted to say the right thing, but didn’t know what it was. Ant was being hopelessly enigmatic, and he was wondering what really had happened on her trip to the end of the world. Whatever had happened she seemed to have changed. At times she seemed to know everything; at other times she seemed to know nothing at all.
Antonia suddenly felt that the answer she was looking for was there, quite close, but just out of reach, but the harder she tried to catch it the more frustrated she would get. She should put it all away for the moment, Ogg, the end of the world, all the GPQs she had come across and hurt her head trying to answer. She wasn’t going to stop thinking about them, but now wasn’t the time. There was a time and a place for everything, and she just wasn’t up for this kind of deep thinking right now.
“Perg, you couldn’t help me with a maths problem, could you? I would ask Ogg, but he’s not around now. Anyway, he was never much cop at answering questions, was he?”
“I can try, shall I come round?”
“Yes, why not?”
There was another pause.
“Ant, will you have any spare time on Sunday? Only, my Mum called and invited us for Sunday dinner again, and Dad said he was really looking forward to a lively discussion with you.”
“As long as we’re back for about seven – I have an essay to finish.”
“Great I’ll tell them. And I’ll be round in ten minutes.”
“O.K.”
“O.K.”
END