Sally did not appear at breakfast the next day. “Your mother’s feeling rather tired,” the Ogre said, when Gwinny asked. No one was surprised.
The Ogre’s idea of breakfast was thick, lumpy porridge, which he ate with salt and seemed to enjoy. No one else found it easy to eat, and Malcolm, who was looking white and ill, had none at all. And, as they set off for school, Caspar was positive he saw a toffee bar crossing the sitting room floor. It looked as if Johnny’s disaster had not got rid of them after all.
When Gwinny got home, the house was queerly silent. At first, she thought the queerness had to do with the stale wine smell left over from the party. Then it dawned on her that she could not hear Sally moving about anywhere. Sally always reached home before Gwinny did.
“She must be ill,” Gwinny thought. “Poor Mummy, all alone ill all day.”
She went quietly and considerately upstairs and softly opened her mother’s bedroom door. The room was empty and the bed unmade. A heavy smell of toffee hung in the air. The reason, Gwinny saw, was that every remaining toffee bar in the house had made for the warmth of this room’s radiator and melted to death on it. More than half of them were Douglas’s dark ones. Parents and babies too had flocked to the radiator. Little red and yellow wrappers fluttered in the updraught or slowly slid down the sleepy dark rivers of melting toffee. Pale toffee overlaid dark toffee, and dark toffee trickled on top of that. The radiator was fat with it, and it had dripped to the carpet in a dozen small, growing mountains.
“That must have upset Mummy,” Gwinny thought. But she was too puzzled about where Sally could be to bother with the poor, silly toffee bars. Sally was not in the still damp bathroom, nor in any other bedroom. She was nowhere downstairs. Gwinny went back to the toffee-scented room and thoughtfully opened Sally’s wardrobe. The silvery party dress was hanging there, but most of the everyday clothes had gone.
With an anxious, heavy, foreboding feeling, Gwinny went downstairs to the Ogre’s study and sat in the Ogre’s leather chair to wait for the Ogre. After a minute, there was a slight clatter, and the Ogre’s pipe hopped up from the garden on to the sill of the open window. It looked at Gwinny enquiringly. Gwinny stretched out a hand and made a fuss of it, but her heart was not in it. She was waiting. At length, the Ogre’s car growled past the side of the house and crunched on the gravel. The door slammed. The Ogre’s heavy footsteps filled the empty house. The pipe, knowing the sound, scuttled across to the pipe rack on the desk and put itself there, ready to be smoked.
The Ogre opened the study door and came in, with his least likeable expression on his face. “What do you think you’re doing here?” he said when he saw Gwinny. “Get out.”
Gwinny stood up. “Will you please tell me where Mummy is,” she said bravely.
The Ogre glowered. “She went to your grandmother’s. She needed a rest.”
“Oh,” said Gwinny. “Did she go straight from work?”
“She did,” said the Ogre. “Out.”
Gwinny, very straight and upright, walked past him and along the hall. She knew something was not right. And she felt heavier and more anxious than ever. The front door opened as she reached the hall. Gwinny stood still and watched Caspar, Johnny and Malcolm come in.
“Is something wrong?” Caspar said, seeing her face.
Gwinny nodded. “Mummy’s gone. The Ogre said she’s gone to Granny’s straight from work.”
All three looked at her in dismay. None of them were exactly surprised, remembering the expression on Sally’s face the night before, and the things the Ogre had said to her. But it was odd.
“Why didn’t she tell us?” Johnny said.
“I don’t know,” said Gwinny. “But I don’t think the Ogre was telling the truth.”
“Why not?” said Caspar.
“Because she hasn’t made her bed,” said Gwinny. “She always does.” Johnny and Caspar looked at one another in alarm and bewilderment.
“You could check up,” Malcolm suggested. “Is your grandmother on the phone?” He was very pale and tired-looking. Gwinny thought he might be ill.
“Are you all right?” she asked.
“Perfectly,” said Malcolm.
Caspar threw down his schoolbags and seized the address book by the telephone. He found the number and dialled. “Where’s the Ogre?”
“Study,” said Gwinny. “Don’t talk loud.”
Granny answered the phone. “Caspar! Well I never!” She was both surprised and delighted. “And how are you all?”
With his stomach sinking a little, Caspar said, “Fine, Granny. Has Mum arrived yet?”
“Your mother?” said Granny. “No, I’ve not seen Sally, dear. Why?”
Caspar did not quite know what to say after this. “Well,” he explained hesitantly, “I thought she was supposed to be coming to see you straight from work.”
“Oh, I see!” cried Granny. “Thank you for warning me, dear. Sally knows how I hate being taken by surprise. I’ll go and put a cake in the oven for her. Thank you, dear. Goodbye.” Since Caspar had no idea how to explain what he meant without alarming Granny thoroughly, he was thankful when she rang off.
“Well?” asked Johnny.
“Granny didn’t know she was coming. But she might just not have got there yet,” Caspar said, hoping for the best.
“Well, she ought to have done,” said Gwinny. “Because I think she went this morning.”
“So do I, now I think about it,” said Malcolm.
They looked at one another, all thoroughly alarmed, wondering what this meant. And while they were standing in a group, staring, the front door opened again and Douglas came in. He stopped short when he saw the look on their faces. “What’s up?” he said.
“Mummy’s gone,” said Gwinny. “And the Ogre told me a lie about where she was.”
Douglas looked as dismayed as they were, and more dismayed still as they explained. “You have to hand it to my father,” he said at length. “He certainly has a knack of getting rid of his wives.”
The story of Bluebeard burst into Johnny’s head. “You don’t think,” he said, “that he’s killed her and buried her at the end of the garden, do you?” Gwinny was horrified.
“Don’t be a nit!” said Douglas. “People don’t do that.” Somehow, neither Gwinny nor Johnny was reassured by the way he said it. And, unfortunately, Caspar was too worried himself to think of backing Douglas up. So Gwinny and Johnny both gained a distinct impression that, if it had chanced to be the fashion to kill your wife and bury her at the end of the garden, Douglas would have expected the Ogre to do it. “You see,” said Douglas, glancing at Malcolm. Then he saw how ill Malcolm was looking. “You’d better get to bed,” he said.
“If you don’t mind,” Malcolm said politely, “I think I will.”
At that, Caspar and Johnny noticed how poorly he seemed and loudly told him not to be a fool and to go to bed at once. Malcolm went away upstairs rather gladly.
“He always gets ill if people hit him,” Douglas explained. “I was up half the night with him and—”
“Don’t you hit him, then?” Caspar asked, in some surprise.
“Of course not!” Douglas said irritably. “But the point is, I think Sally may even have left last night. They had a flaming row, anyway. They were shouting at one another until gone three o’clock.”
“What about?” Johnny asked miserably.
“You, I think,” said Douglas. “Then I heard Sally slamming round the house afterwards. And I don’t think she was here this morning, whatever Father said.”
“Then where do you think she went?” said Caspar.
“Couldn’t tell you for toffee, I’m afraid,” said Douglas.
Gwinny clapped her hands over her mouth. “Oh! The toffee bars! They’re all over that radiator again. I forgot.”
“Oh no!” said Johnny.
They all streamed upstairs to look. The mess was, if possible, worse now. “Wow!” said Douglas, when he saw it.
“The ones you hid in our cupboard had babies, in case you didn’t know,” Johnny told him. Caspar was too depressed to do more than give Douglas a disgusted look.
“I’m sorry,” said Douglas. “How was I to know they’d do this? We’d better get it cleared up before the Ogre sees it.”
Nobody argued about that. Douglas fetched the fateful bucket again. Johnny brought six face flannels – Sally’s was missing. Gwinny found soap and soda and washing powder, and Caspar collected all the fluttering wrappers. Then they all set to work to peel the upper layers of toffee off the radiator.
The Ogre, alerted by the clattering of the bucket and the running of taps, appeared in the doorway while they were doing it. Johnny uttered a yelp of dismay. They all froze. “Who did it this time?” said the Ogre.
Since nobody exactly had done it, nobody answered.
“Are you here in an organising capacity, Douglas?” the Ogre enquired. “Or have they corrupted you too?”
Douglas went red. “It may surprise you to know,” he said, “that it was at least half my fault.”
The Ogre shook his head. “It doesn’t surprise me at all. Johnny and Caspar could corrupt a saint. And I’ve had enough of them. I’m going to get rid of them if I can.”
“Get rid of them?” Gwinny said, quite appalled. “Like you got rid of Mummy, you mean?”
“I haven’t got rid of Sally,” the Ogre said irritably.
“Then what have you done with her?” demanded Caspar. “You didn’t tell Gwinny the truth, did you?”
“You lied,” said Johnny.
“Yes, whatever you did, you’d no call to lie to them,” Douglas said angrily.
The Ogre looked along their four defiant faces in the greatest surprise. He could not in the least understand why they should be so angry. It never once occurred to him that they needed to be told the truth. “You’re all being quite ridiculous,” he said. “Sally’s simply gone away for a short holiday. You wretched children had tired her out between you.”
“She hasn’t gone to Granny, though,” said Caspar. “And why didn’t she tell us?”
“If you must know, she’s gone to a hotel by the seaside,” said the Ogre. “And she didn’t tell you because she was sick and tired of you.”
“Is that the truth this time?” Douglas demanded.
“Douglas,” said the Ogre, “you may bully Malcolm, but you are not going to use that tone with me.” They all knew at once from this that he had not told them the truth. And, if they needed anything more to complete their hatred and distrust of him, they had it in what he said next. “This is your fault, Caspar and Johnny,” he said. “You two are destroying Sally’s health, what with your water and your toffee and climbing on roofs, and I’m going to send you away to boarding school after Christmas to learn some decent behaviour. I’ve had enough of you.”
Caspar and Johnny were too appalled to speak. Douglas said, “That’s quite unfair! It’s just that these two haven’t learnt how not to be found out yet, and we have!”
“I take it you’re asking to be sent away too?” said the Ogre.
“No fear!” said Douglas, with deep feeling.
“Then don’t provoke me,” said the Ogre. “Get this revolting mess cleaned up, and then get down to the kitchen and find something we can eat.”
It took them well over an hour to get all the toffee off the radiator. Then Douglas went down to the kitchen and did his best there. His best turned out to be large quantities of baked beans, which were stuck together in lumps, and also rather chilly.
“Is this all you could manage?” demanded the Ogre discontentedly.
“It’s the only thing I know how to cook,” Douglas explained.
Caspar, Johnny and Gwinny were astonished at his ignorance. “We can all do bacon and eggs,” said Caspar. “And Gwinny knows lots of things.”
“Thank God!” said the Ogre. “Then put those beans back in the tins and do bacon and eggs.”
They obeyed him. Gwinny thought that perhaps the beans would not keep in opened tins, so Caspar reheated them in the frying pan. “Go and ask Malcolm if he wants any,” he told Johnny.
“Where is Malcolm?” asked the Ogre. “Buried in an experiment?”
“No, ill. And you haven’t even noticed,” said Douglas.
When Johnny went upstairs, he found Malcolm asleep, with the six pencils standing on his pillow as if they were guarding him. His face was so wan and white that it quite worried Johnny. But Johnny felt it was no good telling the Ogre. The Ogre did not care two hoots whether any of them lived or died – with perhaps a bias in favour of their dying.
At this notion, the beginnings of an idea came into Johnny’s head. He went over to the table, where Malcolm had left his chemistry set, and took a cautious look to see how Malcolm was getting on with his search for invisibility. To his pleasure, he found Malcolm had actually left a page of notes about it. Johnny, who carried everything comfortably jostling about in his head, was rather astonished by this, but he picked the paper up all the same. Then, feeling rather dishonourable, and keeping a wary eye on Malcolm’s sleeping face, he read the notes through.
It was a list of the combinations Malcolm had tried, using one main ingredient from the lower layer and a number of other things, and an account of what he had done to each combination. One way and another, Johnny had tried two-thirds of them too. The other third, Malcolm had now saved him doing. Better still, Malcolm had made two headings for his next experiments, which were to be with Dens Drac. and Petr. Philos., both of which Johnny had already tried. Which left only Noct. Vest. that neither of them had tried. They were very close! Johnny promised to himself that he would make Malcolm a present of the formula when he had it, to make up for reading his notes, and crept out of the room.
“He’s asleep,” he reported downstairs.
“More for the rest of us,” said the Ogre, with a total lack of feeling.
You wait! thought Johnny. With any luck, you’ll be in prison by Sunday.
Everyone ate the bacon and eggs with such gusto that Gwinny was hard put to it to find any spare food for her people. All she could collect was baked beans, bacon rind, and a rather old tangerine. She put these things in a teacup and went upstairs to borrow Malcolm’s spirit lamp as usual.
Malcolm was still asleep, and the pencils were still standing guard on his pillow. Gwinny was alarmed at how pale his face was. She stood and looked at him for a while, and, the longer she looked, the more angry and motherly she felt about him. “But it’s no good telling the Ogre,” she thought. “He won’t care.” Besides, it was the Ogre who had made Malcolm ill by hitting him last night. He must have hit him awfully hard, Gwinny thought. Johnny had cried his eyes out. She stared at Malcolm’s pale face, quite forgetting the damage he and Johnny had done between them, and the list of the Ogre’s crimes grew longer in her head. After hitting the boys, the Ogre had done something dreadful to Sally – something so dreadful that he dared not tell them the truth. He was going to send Caspar and Johnny to a horrible school – Gwinny knew it must be horrible, since Douglas preferred to stay at home with the Ogre rather than be sent there. And now the Ogre did not care that Malcolm was ill.
It seemed to Gwinny that it was high time someone put the Ogre down, before he did anything else.
She squared her shoulders and went over to the chemistry set. The chemicals with the most poisonous names seemed to be Noct. Vest., a nasty spiky name, and Petr. Philos., which sounded like the noise you made being sick. Gwinny took two fresh test tubes and carefully poured two-thirds of each chemical into them. After that, with great consideration, she sharpened a heap of pencil shavings on to Malcolm’s pillow, so that his pencils should not disturb him by asking for food in the night. Then she took her test tubes and the spirit lamp away upstairs.
There was a scampering of dustballs as she opened her door. Gwinny was no longer afraid of them – as she had been when Malcolm first made them – but there were such a lot of them that they were a dreadful nuisance. They ran everywhere and ate her people’s food. Her people had taken all her pins and needles to use as weapons against them. The doll’s house was in a state of siege this evening. The people would not let her open it, even when she had shooed the dustballs away. In the end, she had to hand them their baked beans on a teaspoon through their bedroom window.
“Oh dear!” Gwinny said. “I wish I had some rat poison.”
This caused her to look at her two test tubes again. Petr. Philos. had turned out to be little pieces of stone, rather like road chippings. She decided, on second thoughts, not to use it, in case the Ogre noticed it crunching in his teeth. So she took just Noct. Vest. downstairs with her.
Half an hour later, the smell of baking drew Douglas from the sitting room, where he was working in order not to disturb Malcolm, and Caspar from upstairs. Johnny was very busy with crucibles and would not leave them.
“Those look good!” Caspar exclaimed, as Gwinny carefully turned out twelve warm golden buns on to a wire tray. He seized one and crammed it whole into his mouth. Douglas seized two and did the same.
Gwinny smiled as she went to the oven again. That meant her baking was sure to tempt the Ogre. Very carefully, she fetched out the thirteenth cake.
Douglas looked at it over her shoulder. “What’s that?” he asked, with his mouth full.
“It’s not for you,” Gwinny said firmly.
“I should hope not!” said Douglas.
This cake was not golden, but grey. It had a hard, rocky look, and its surface glittered in an odd way. Gwinny had tried to make it look more edible by planting a cherry not quite in the middle.
Caspar looked at it critically. “If I were you,” he said, “I should give that to the O—”
The Ogre, also attracted by the smell, came in at that moment. Gwinny, rather pink in the face, hastily put the grey cake back in the oven and shut the door on it. She had no wish to do her deed in public.
“Congratulations, Gwinny,” said the Ogre with his mouth full, and went out again.
Douglas and Caspar stared outraged at the one bun remaining.
“He ate eight!” said Caspar.
“Isn’t that typical?” said Douglas, but Gwinny only smiled.
As Caspar went back into his room, Johnny gave a cry of triumph and held up a piece of filter paper with a hole in the middle.
“Got it! It’s when you heat it up and let it go cool again.”
“Got what?” said Caspar.
“Ahah!” said Johnny. “Just try putting your finger through the hole in this paper, then you’ll see.”
He held the paper out in both hands towards Caspar. Caspar obligingly knelt down beside Johnny and put out a finger. To his surprise, his finger did not go straight through the hole. It met, instead, something which felt exactly like damp filter paper. Almost unable to believe it, Caspar carefully ran his finger all over the blank space. It was astonishing. He could see Johnny’s sweater through the space, but the hole was blocked with invisible, pulpy filter paper.
“Good lord!” he said. “It’s invisible!” He took his finger away and found that the tip of it had gone slightly blurry. As he looked, the whole top joint blurred and then vanished. It had gone so completely that Caspar could not help taking a quick look down at his finger from top view. He had half-expected to see a cross-section of bone and flesh. But it simply looked pink. Gingerly, he touched the space where the missing top joint should have been. And he could feel it still there.
“I wish you hadn’t done that!” Johnny said crossly.
“Why?” said Caspar, who was beginning to feel rather pleased with it.
“Because the Ogre’s bound to notice.”
“The Ogre wouldn’t notice if I stuck it in his eye,” said Caspar. “And do let’s think about where Mum’s gone now. She must be somewhere.”
But Johnny did not seem to want to discuss Sally. “It’s the Ogre’s fault,” he said. “And he’ll pay for it. You wait.” Then somewhat to Caspar’s surprise, he packed up his chemistry set and went to bed.
Since Caspar was also rather tired, he too went to bed early, and then lay awake a long time wondering where Sally was, why she had gone and why the Ogre would not tell them. Then, he thought of sixteen totally unlikely ways of finding her. And, finally, he began dismally wondering whether boarding school was as dreadful as he feared. The only comfort he could see was that Malcolm had survived one. And that was not very comforting.