The Ogre Downstairs. Diana Wynne Jones
was the wet mop Gwinny seemed to be nursing and a muddy splotch on the pillow.
“What the dickens are you all doing here?” said the Ogre.
“Telling her a bedtime story,” said Caspar breathlessly.
“Why does it need two of you and all this din?” demanded the Ogre.
Caspar and Johnny could not think. Gwinny said brightly, “They were doing it with funny voices to make me laugh.”
“Were they!” said the Ogre, “Well they can just stop!”
“Oh no,” said Johnny. “We were just near the end. Can’t we just finish?”
“No you just can’t,” said the Ogre. “Your mother and I are entitled to some peace.”
“Please!” they chorused desperately.
“Oh, very well,” said the Ogre irritably. “Five minutes. And if I hear another sound there’ll be trouble. What are you doing with that filthy mop?”
Again neither Caspar nor Johnny could think. “It’s a broomstick,” said Gwinny. “The story’s about a witch.”
“Then you can either do without or change the story,” said the Ogre. “I’m taking that back where it came from.” He strode over to the bed and tried to wrench the mop out of Gwinny’s hands. Gwinny lost her presence of mind and hung on to the mop with all her strength. The force with which the Ogre tore it free raised her a full foot off the bed and Johnny with her. Luckily, Johnny’s weight and Caspar’s were enough to bring her down again fairly quickly, and the Ogre did not notice their sudden elevation because his foot chanced, at that moment, to kick against the backbrush. He picked it up and looked at it meditatively. “I can think of a very good use for this,” he said. “Don’t tempt me too far.” Then he went away, taking the mop and the brush with him.
They listened tensely to his retreating footsteps. When he had reached the bathroom, Caspar said, “Now what shall we do? We can’t sit here all night.”
“But I’ll be cold on the ceiling,” Gwinny whimpered.
“You could take a blanket up with you,” Caspar suggested.
“If you could hold her down,” said Johnny, “I think I can fix her.”
“All right,” said Caspar. “But don’t be too long.”
So Johnny departed downstairs with heavy-footed stealth and Caspar tried to keep Gwinny in place. He found it next to impossible on his own. In a matter of seconds, she was floating clear of the bed, bedclothes and all.
“Oh, what shall we do?” she wailed.
“Shut up for a start,” said Caspar.
The bedclothes slid away and Caspar was hanging on to Gwinny’s nightdress. There was a slow tearing sound. Gwinny whimpered and began to rise again, gently but surely. Caspar was forced to let go of her nightdress and catch hold of her ankles. There he hung on desperately. He found, in the end, that if he leant back, with his head nearly touching the floor and all his weight swinging on Gwinny, he could keep her floating upright about three feet from the floor. They had reached this point when Johnny came swiftly upstairs and entered the room with a bucket of water, looking very businesslike.
“Oh good,” he said, when he saw the position Gwinny was in, and he threw the water over the pair of them.
He had not thought to bring warm water. Gwinny squealed. Caspar gasped and nearly let go. He was about to say some very unkind things to Johnny, when he realised that Gwinny was now much easier to hold down.
“It’s working,” he said. “Go and get some more.”
Johnny turned, beaming with relief, and went galloping away downstairs, bucket clattering. Somewhat to Caspar’s annoyance, he did not stop at the bathroom, but went on galloping, right downstairs to the kitchen, because the water ran more quickly from the taps downstairs. Caspar shook his soaking hair out of his eyes and hung on grimly. Gwinny’s teeth chattered.
“I’m freezing,” she complained. “My nightie’s soaking.”
“I know,” said Caspar. “It’s dripping all over me, and I’m sitting in a puddle, if that’s any comfort.”
After what seemed half an hour, they heard Johnny pounding upstairs again. Caspar was too relieved to worry about the noise he was making. He just listened to Johnny pounding closer and closer and prayed for him to hurry. As Johnny’s feet crossed the landing below, a confused noise broke out on the same level. Johnny had started on the last flight of stairs, when Douglas erupted into another shattering roar.
“What the blazes are you doing? There’s water pouring through our ceiling!”
Johnny did not answer. They heard his feet climbing faster. Then came the feet of Douglas, pounding behind. Behind that again were other feet. Caspar and Gwinny could only wait helplessly, until the door at last crashed open and Johnny staggered in, red-faced and almost too breathless to move, with water slopping over his shoes out of the bucket.
“Throw it,” Caspar said urgently.
Johnny croaked for breath, heaved up the bucket and poured the water over Gwinny, drenching Caspar again in the process. It did the trick. Gwinny dropped like a stone and landed on Caspar. There was a short time when Caspar could not see much and was almost as breathless as Johnny. When he recovered sufficiently to sit up, Douglas was standing behind Johnny, looking as if he had frozen in the middle of shouting something, and behind him were the Ogre and their mother.
“Johnny!” said Sally. “Whatever possessed you?”
“Take him downstairs, Douglas,” said the Ogre, “and make him clear it up. These two can clear up here.”
“Come on,” Douglas said coldly. Johnny departed without a word. There really was nothing to say.
An hour later, when Gwinny had been put to bed in a clean nightdress and everywhere wet mopped dry, Caspar and Johnny went rather timidly into their room expecting to see the carpet, where the rest of the chemicals had gone, floating against the ceiling – or at least ballooning up in the middle. But the only sign of the spill was a large purple stain and a considerable remnant of bad smell. Much relieved, Caspar opened the window.
“It must only work on people,” Johnny said thoughtfully.
“We’d better clear it up,” said Caspar.
Johnny sighed, but he obediently trudged off to the bathroom for soap and water. He returned, still thoughtful, and remained so all the time he was rubbing the carpet with the Ogre’s face flannel. The stain came off fairly easily and dyed the flannel deep mauve.
“Couldn’t you have used yours or mine?” said Caspar.
“I did. Douglas made me use them on their room,” said Johnny. “Listen. Gwinny got an awful lot of that stuff on her, didn’t she? Suppose you use less, so you weren’t quite so light, wouldn’t you be like flying?”
“Hey!” said Caspar, sitting up in bed. Since he had had to change all his clothes, it had seemed the simplest place to be. “That’s an idea! What did you put in it?”
“I can’t remember,” said Johnny. “But I’m darned well going to find out.”
In the days that followed, Johnny experimented. He made black mixtures, green mixtures and red ones. He made little smells, big smells, and smells grandiose and appalling. These met with the smells coming from Malcolm’s efforts and mingled with them, until Sally said that their landing seemed like a plague spot to her. But whatever smell or colour Johnny made, he was no nearer finding the right mixture. He went on doggedly. He remembered that