CHAPTER FIFTEEN

Nobody really blamed the Ogre for staying in bed the next morning. They found themselves breakfast. Then Caspar went upstairs and was just dropping the stylus into his favourite Indigo Rubber track, when he remembered the Ogre was still asleep and took the record off again. It was just as well, because Douglas came in the next minute.

“Come on,” he said. “Let’s find Sally while the coast’s clear.”

He and Caspar fetched two of the chairs from the sitting room to the hall and sat in them while they went methodically through the address book. They took it in turns to telephone every soul in the book and ask them if they knew where Sally was. They had only got to B, when the doorbell rang. Douglas bawled to Gwinny to answer it.

The visitor was a man from the Council who told Gwinny he was the Rodent Operative. She and Malcolm and Johnny showed him the dustballs. They thought he was rather a nice man. He looked shrewdly at the scuttering, fluffy shapes.

“One of you’s been breeding a fancy kind of mouse here and let it get out, haven’t you?” he said. “I know children.”

They followed him from place to place round the house, watching with interest as he spooned out what looked like porridge oats with an old ladle and poured a little heap of the stuff in every corner.

“Don’t any of you touch this, mind,” he said. “It’s poison. Dries them up and does for them.”

This alarmed Gwinny. She was afraid her people might take it for porridge and eat it. So, as soon as the Rodent Operative had gone, she got Malcolm and Johnny to help her write out twenty-two cards, saying DANGER. They stuck the cards to matches and the matches into empty cotton-reels and put each notice beside one of the heaps of poison. Gwinny was not sure her people could read English, but she hoped they would get the idea all the same.

They were putting out the notices when Douglas and Caspar heard the Ogre come out of his bedroom.

“Take these chairs back,” Douglas said, with the receiver at his ear. “Then keep him away from here.”

Caspar trundled the chairs through the sitting room doorway and shut the door on them. When the Ogre stumbled downstairs in his dressing gown, Caspar met him at the foot of the stairs and hurried him away to the kitchen before he could ask what Douglas was doing. There he fed the Ogre solicitously with tea and pieces of charred toast.

“Very kind of you,” said the Ogre. “If I wasn’t so tired, I’d wonder what your motive was. Those blessed dustballs kept me awake half the night. Has the ratcatcher been?”

“Yes,” said Caspar, pointing to the heap of poison in the corner. “But Malcolm says you have to call him a Rodent Operative.”

The Ogre blinked sleepily at the pile of poison and Gwinny’s notice in front of it. “Why are you warning them?” he asked. “To give them a sporting chance?”

Caspar could not help laughing. “Gwinny did that,” he said. But he felt rather guilty, now that he knew the Ogre better. The Ogre liked making jokes. But he always made them with a perfectly straight face. Caspar feared that they had taken him seriously on a lot of occasions when he had only meant to be funny. “I’m sorry about the toast,” he said apologetically. “Only the dustballs ate the other end of the loaf, so I couldn’t make any more.”

“I’ve heard charcoal’s good for indigestion,” the Ogre said philosophically, and poured himself another cup of tea to help the toast down. Caspar was rather touched, because he saw that the Ogre was determined to behave well. He was wondering whether to go out and buy some more bread, when Douglas burst jubilantly into the kitchen. And so determined was the Ogre to behave well, that he did nothing but glower faintly.

“I’ve found her!” boomed Douglas, beaming with triumph.

“Found who?” the Ogre asked wearily.

“Sally, of course!” said Douglas. “She’s—”

The Ogre jumped up so hastily that his chair fell over and Caspar had to pick it up. “How on earth did you manage that?”

“I rang up everyone in the address book. And Aunt Joan told me.”

“And I rang Joan twice!” the Ogre said, in considerable disgust. “Where is Sally?”

“You’ll never believe it – with Aunt Marion! She—”

“Don’t tell me!” said the Ogre. “Joan and Marion thought it would teach me a lesson. Why did I take those chemistry sets back? I would have enjoyed turning Joan or Marion into a rather small hippopotamus. Did you ring Marion?”

“Yes, and I talked to Sally till the pips went. She—”

The Ogre hastened to the door and shoved Douglas aside. “Let me get to that phone!” But there he stopped and seemed puzzled. “What are you doing, wanting Sally back?” he asked Douglas. “I thought you were the anti-Sally party.”

Douglas went red. “Yes – I know,” he said. “But that was because I didn’t like all the change, really. Then the kids were so upset when she went, and – and I felt it was rather my fault she’d gone, because she tried like mad to be friends and I wouldn’t be.”

“You relieve my mind,” said the Ogre. “I thought it was my fault. How do you rate the chances of getting her back?”

“I keep trying to tell you!” said Douglas. “She said she can’t get here till about four o’clock, but—”

“You mean she’s coming today? Oh my God!” said the Ogre. “Look at the state this house is in!”

There followed some hours of hectic work. Malcolm and Johnny, who were busy wiring batteries to the doll’s house cooker so that Gwinny’s people could cook for themselves, were reluctant to stop, even for Sally. But Gwinny swore she would pull the wires out again unless they helped. She made them carry doll’s house and people out into the garden, to be away from the dust. Then everyone turned to.

It was hard work, because the vacuum cleaner proved to be broken and they had to manage without, but in the end the house gleamed and shone. No dust nor dustballs remained. Even Johnny’s and Caspar’s room was tidy, and the dustbins so full that their lids stood like hats, several feet too high, on top of wedged-down rubbish. The mop and the broom, which had both suffered much herding the invisible Johnny the night before, fell to pieces with use. The Ogre said they had better buy new ones, and another dustbin too.

“And some more baked beans, while we’re at it,” he said, looking round the empty larder.

Though Caspar knew this was only a joke, no one trusted the Ogre to go shopping. They all said they would go too and crammed themselves into the car. There Malcolm produced pencil and paper, rested the paper on Caspar’s back and made a list of essentials. It began with tinned salmon, because Malcolm liked it, and went on to caviare, because Gwinny said she had never had any.

“Put down porridge,” said the Ogre.

“Two dozen doughnuts, Malcolm,” said Johnny.

While the Ogre drove towards the shopping centre and the list lengthened, a curious smell began to fill the packed car. Caspar sniffed. It reminded him disturbingly of some of the smells Johnny had produced with the chemistry set. Douglas was sniffing too. They exchanged glances. But, for the moment, the main worry was the shopping list. Douglas took it away from Malcolm.

“We don’t want,” he said, crossing things out vigorously, “salmon, caviare, porridge, peanuts, or more than a dozen doughnuts. But you haven’t put in sandwich spread.” And he put it in.

“Why sandwich spread, just because you like it?” Johnny demanded belligerently. “Why can’t Malcolm have salmon?”

“Douglas,” said the Ogre, “stop being so domineering and allow each of us one luxury. Mine’s porridge. Gwinny can have caviare if she insists – though, honestly, Gwinny, you’d be better off with crisps – and then we’ll buy a few optional extras like eggs, bread and butter.”

“Do I get more crisps for the same money?” asked Gwinny.

“About a hundred times more,” said Caspar.

“Then put me down crisps,” said Gwinny.

The list was adjusted accordingly, and Caspar thought of tea just as they reached the shopping centre. The Ogre turned into the big gravelled parking area and found a space over in the far corner. They opened the doors and piled out. While the Ogre was locking the car, Douglas pounced on Johnny and Malcolm.

“You’ve kept some of those chemicals, haven’t you? Hand them over.”

Johnny and Malcolm looked sulkily at one another, and then from Caspar to the Ogre, hoping for some support against Douglas. But Caspar heartily supported Douglas and said so, and the Ogre at that moment happened to be half inside the car locking the far door.

After a second, Malcolm fetched a small phial from his pocket. “Oh, all right!” he said. “It was only Dens Drac., because I haven’t tried that yet.”

“So’s mine!” Johnny said in surprise. Having given himself away in this manner, Johnny was also forced to yield up his phial. Its stopper was cracked, which accounted for the smell.

“Typical!” Douglas said disgustedly. “Don’t you both realise we’ve all had enough of that!” He took both phials and hurled them away into the lane between the parked cars. Both burst as they hit the ground. Johnny and Malcolm miserably watched the white grains inside soak away into the wet gravel.

The Ogre came out of the car in time to see what Douglas had done. “That was rather uncalled-for,” he said. “Have you considered the effect of broken glass on car tyres? Go and pick up the bits.” And, when Douglas had grudgingly done so, the Ogre sent him with Johnny to the ironmonger while the rest of them went to buy food. “I’m not having either of you handle groceries with whatever that is on your hands,” he said.

Johnny and Douglas set off. Johnny was very resentful. Whatever Caspar said, it seemed to him that Douglas had no right to order him about. And he told Douglas so, several times.

“Oh, all right!” Douglas said at length. “I’m sorry. Are you satisfied now?”

“No,” said Johnny. “You’d no call to break my Dens Drac.”

“And what do you think you’d have done with it if I hadn’t?” said Douglas. “Made some awful mess, I bet.”

“I shall never know now, shall I?” Johnny pointed out.

When they reached the ironmonger’s, however, they stopped arguing about Dens Drac. in order to argue about whether to get an orange plastic dustbin or a shiny metal one. And having decided on the metal one, they disputed brooms, then mops.

“Sally likes them to match,” said Douglas. “I know she does.”

“Just because you do,” said Johnny. “I say, let’s get her a present, shall we?”

Quite suddenly, he and Douglas were overwhelmed with excitement that Sally was really coming back. They bought the first mop to hand. Then, without disputing at all, they went to the Chemist next door and pooled their money for a cake of soap shaped like a strawberry, which pleased them both very much. Douglas put it in the dustbin and carried that and the broom back to the car. Johnny marched beside him carrying the mop like a lance, with the dustbin lid for a shield.

To their annoyance, they were first back to the car. It was locked and deserted. They were wondering what to do with the dustbin while they went to look for the others, when Douglas said, “Hey, look! Mushrooms or something.”

It was in the spot where he had broken the phials. Several large, round white things were pushing up through the gravel, definitely growing. They did almost seem to be giant mushrooms. Douglas and Johnny were so intrigued by them that they dragged the dustbin over there to have a look. Whatever they were, there were nearly fifty of them, bulging and pressing up from the ground like big, solid bubbles. One or two of them had lines or strips of black and white squares across them.

“You know,” Johnny said, laughing a little. “They almost look like crash helmets.”

“They do rather,” Douglas agreed. “I wonder what they are.” Cautiously, he stretched out the broom and tapped the top of the nearest. It gave out a hard, solid rapping – exactly the noise you would expect from hitting a crash helmet with a broomstick.

The thing – whatever it was – objected to being rapped. It shook angrily, scattering gravel. The next second, it had grown to a complete sphere, and there was a face in the front of it. It was not a pleasant face, either. It was a coarse, sly, aggressive face, and it glared at them.

“It is a crash helmet!” exclaimed Johnny. “What’s he doing buried in the ground like that?”

They stared at the buried man in some perplexity, wondering how he got there and whether to help him out. While they stared, the face shook its chin free of sand and stones and spoke. it said.

“What language is that?” said Johnny.

“It might be Greek,” Douglas guessed, equally mystified.

A clattering of gravel made them look up. The other mushrooms, up and down the lane between the cars, had also grown into men in crash helmets. The next nearest was now only buried from the waist downwards. He had his hands on the gravel and was levering to get his legs free. Beyond him, a number had grown to full height and were stepping up on to the ground, shaking their boots. They were all identically dressed in black leather motorcycle suits and white crash helmets, and they all had most unpleasant faces.

With one accord, Douglas and Johnny looked round to see how near the car was. It was twenty yards off. Between them and it, the lane was filled with motorcyclists stepping free of the ground and moving menacingly down towards them.

“I don’t like the look of this,” said Douglas. “And don’t tell me it’s my fault. I know.”

The nearest man struggled up from the earth and shook himself. Stones clattered from his leather clothes and mud spattered the boys. Carefully he drew his boot from the last of the gravel and walked a step or so towards them.

he demanded of Douglas.

“I’m sorry. I don’t understand,” Douglas said.

The man looked round at the other motorcyclists.

“” he said angrily.

From the way the others reacted, it was clear that, whatever this meant, it meant no good to Johnny and Douglas. They all gave the boys most unpleasant, blank looks and strolled nearer. “ ” said one. And one who was still only half out of the ground added, “” Neither of these suggestions sounded pleasant. Johnny looked despairingly round what he could see of the car park between the advancing leather suits. He found nothing but cars, lines of them, locked, silent and deserted. There did not seem to be another soul in sight.

“Get back to back,” said Douglas. “Use the mop on them.”

Johnny at once scrambled round Douglas and leant against his back. He held the dustbin lid as a genuine shield and put the head of the mop under one arm, with the stick pointing outwards towards what was now a circle of menacing motorcyclists. Behind him, he heard the clang of the strawberry soap rolling in the dustbin as Douglas raised that for a shield and levelled the broom. Johnny was glad that he had such a tall back as Douglas’s to stand against. If it had been Caspar’s or Malcolm’s back, he would have felt a great deal more frightened.

Not that their defences seemed to impress the motorcyclists. Some laughed jeeringly. One said, ” which was clearly a sarcastic remark of some kind, and all of them laughed.

Then the first of them said, “” And they closed in. Johnny found his mop gripped and twisted, and hung on to it desperately. Behind him, Douglas braced his back against Johnny’s and hung on to the broom. Several more motorcyclists converged casually and quietly from the sides.

“Help!” shouted Johnny.

The Ogre, walking heavily under an enormous cardboard box, led the others up the next lane by mistake. Near the end of it, he stood on tiptoe to look for the right lane. “Sorry,” he said. “It’s over there. What’s going on in that lane?”

Caspar put his box on a convenient car bonnet and stood on its bumper to see. “Those look like Hell’s Angels,” he said.

“They do,” agreed the Ogre. “Perhaps we should wait till they go.”

But at that moment, Johnny shouted for help from the middle of the bunch of black leather bodies. Then Douglas shouted too. Caspar hastily picked up his box and all four of them edged between the cars as quickly as they could, until they came out beside the Ogre’s car in the right lane. Beyond, near the fence of the car park, the fight was heaving. Clangs and exclamations came out of it.

“Oh, they’re horrible!” said Gwinny. “What shall we do?”

“It isn’t Hell’s Angels,” said Malcolm, “exactly. It’s that stuff Douglas spilt. Look.”

They looked, and saw the last motorcyclist growing and struggling out of the ground, obviously in the most tremendous hurry to join in with the others.

“What was it called?” asked the Ogre.

“Dens Drac.,” said Caspar. “Do come on.”

“Stay where you are,” said the Ogre. “All of you. We can’t possibly tackle that number.” To their exasperation, he put his box down on the car bonnet and calmly sorted through the things in it. He took out a tin of sardines.

“But what about Johnny and Douglas?” Gwinny said, dancing with anxiety.

“What are you doing?” said Caspar.

“Hoping the old trick still works,” said the Ogre, and threw the sardines with enormous force at a crash helmet bobbing in the middle of the scuffle.

The helmet immediately turned. They saw its owner go for the man nearest to him, evidently thinking he was the one who hit him.

“Oh, I see!” said Malcolm, and lifted a tin of peaches out of his own box.

“Not those,” said the Ogre. “I like them. Sardines and baked beans only.”

He shared them out. Caspar weighed a tin of beans in his hand, liked the weight, and hurled it into the crowd. He and Malcolm both scored direct hits on crash helmets, and the Ogre scored another. Each man they hit immediately turned on his neighbour. Within seconds, the whole group was savagely fighting among itself. Black leather arms and legs whirled. There were fierce shouts in a strange language. Gwinny added to the confusion by missing with her baked beans and producing an enormous clang, which must have been the dustbin.

The Ogre threw Caspar the car keys. “Unlock it and get yourselves and this stuff in,” he said. “Leave a door open for us.” He set off at a run for the milling motorcyclists and fought his way in among them. He disappeared completely almost at once. Gwinny wrung her hands in despair and could think of nothing else. Malcolm had to push her into the car.

They were hurriedly loading in the boxes, when the Ogre reappeared backwards from the fight, dragging Johnny and Douglas. Johnny and Douglas were pale and disordered, but they still had the mop, the broom and both parts of the dustbin. Gwinny’s tin was rolling thunderously about in the dustbin with the strawberry soap. They came panting up to the car and the Ogre thrust them into it. Nobody was sure how they all got in, but somehow they did it, and the Ogre fell into the driving-seat and started the engine. By this time, the motorcyclists were rolling in a heap on the ground, punching, kicking and even biting one another.

“Aren’t we going to do anything about them?” Caspar asked.

“No,” said the Ogre breathlessly. “We can leave that to the police.”

“But what happens when they turn out not to have names and addresses and things?” Malcolm wanted to know.

“I haven’t the faintest idea,” said the Ogre, backing briskly down the lane away from the struggle. “The police can think of something. Douglas, can you possibly lower that dustbin so that I could see something else in the driving mirror?”

Douglas tried, and produced yells of pain from Gwinny and Caspar. “I’m afraid I can’t.”

“Then I’ll have to guess,” said the Ogre. He turned round at the end of the lane, missing another car by what Malcolm said was less than half an inch, and sped across the gravel to the exit with the dustbin jouncing deafeningly. “Douglas,” he said loudly, “this was entirely due to your high-handedness. If you do anything like that again, I’ll leave you to your fate.” Douglas answered with a shamed mutter. “And,” said the Ogre, “please let this be the last chemical event. If there are any more, I think I may go mad.”

They assured him that it would be, and they meant it. But they were reckoning without Gwinny. As they were carrying the boxes in through the back door, she gave a cry and threw herself on her hands and knees by the doorstep. Caspar, who nearly fell over her, wanted to know, rather loudly and angrily, what she thought she was doing.

“My pretty hairgrip!” said Gwinny. “Please help me find it. It’s so pretty.”

“Humour her,” said Johnny. “She was born like it.”

So they all put down their boxes again and, with some exasperation, hunted for the hairgrip. As Douglas said, it was like looking for a needle in a haystack.

Five minutes later, the Ogre said, “Is this it?” He stood up holding something bright and yellowish.

“Oh yes!” Gwinny said, reaching for it eagerly.

But the Ogre lifted it out of her reach and turned round into the sunlight to see it properly. “Where did you get this, Gwinny? It’s solid gold!”

“No it’s not,” said Gwinny. “It can’t be. It was just an ordinary one. I made it pretty like that with Peter Fillus.”

“What or who is Peter Fillus?” said the Ogre, still holding the hairgrip out of reach.

“It’s just some little stones out of Malcolm’s chemistry set,” said Gwinny. “They’re called Peter Fillus, and if you rub them on things they go pretty. I did my people some candlesticks. But they don’t work on carpets and tables and things.”

“Just metal?” asked the Ogre, with a strange expression on his face.

“That’s right,” said Gwinny.

“Fetch Peter Fillus here and let me see it,” said the Ogre, handing back the hairgrip.

While the others brought in the boxes, the dustbin, the mop and the broom, Gwinny sped upstairs and clattered down again breathless, holding a test tube half full of small stones.

“That’s all there is now,” she explained.

“I expect it will do,” said the Ogre and, still with the strange expression on his face, he carefully took out one small chip of stone and rubbed it along the handle of the dustbin lid.

The place where the stone had touched immediately became a long golden streak.

“That’s never gold?” said Douglas.

“I think it may be,” said the Ogre. “My guess is that Peter Fillus is the Philosopher’s Stone – and that’s supposed to turn base metal into gold.”

“Then we’re rich,” said Johnny. “Shall I get some money?”

The Ogre laughed. “No. Money won’t do, because we’d never get away with it. But any other metal thing that we don’t want – things which people might think were valuable—”

“Really horrible things, you mean?” asked Caspar.

“The more horrible the better,” said the Ogre.

There was a rush for metal, which rapidly became a competition to find the ugliest thing in the house. Gwinny proudly brought out a bloated silver teapot. Caspar fetched a set of spoons with handles like ships in full sail that were designed to hurt your hand, no matter how you held them. Malcolm produced a huge twiddly toast rack someone had given the Ogre and Sally for a wedding present, and Johnny capped that with some fire irons on a stand disguised as three dolphins. They found a brass corkscrew with a simpering swan for a handle, a tormented iron cage for putting plants in and a copper vase shaped like a rabbit. The Ogre found an ashtray, that everyone agreed looked like a man-eating fungus, and a gilded model of a horse frantically trying to get loose from a clock grafted on to its hind legs. But it was Douglas who produced the cream of the collection. After a long and patient search, he came into the kitchen carrying a pair of stainless steel candlesticks shaped like hen’s legs. Each had a clawed foot, and under that a ball on a pedestal. Above the claw was a long scaly leg, and above that metal feathers. The feathers just stopped at the top, and there was a hole for the candle there.

“Eughk!” said Gwinny, and the others looked at them with deep respect.

“First prize to Douglas,” said the Ogre. “But there isn’t much of this Peter Fillus. A careful selection, please. Those spoons say EPNS, so they’re out for a start. And I know that teapot has a silvermark, more’s the pity. Those fire irons—Yes, I know, Johnny, but whoever heard of a golden poker? We’ll have to choose things a jeweller would want to give us money for. Let’s take the hen’s legs, the horrified horse, that toast rack, the copper bunny and… What’s this?” He picked out of the heap a hollow aluminium cow with a hole in its back.

“It’s a jug,” explained Caspar, who knew it well. “You hold it by its tail and it sort of sicks milk through its mouth.”

“Ah!” said the Ogre, profoundly pleased. “This too, then.”

“I say,” said Douglas, surveying the selected horrors, “is there any chance these would make enough money to buy us a bigger house?”

“That was my idea,” admitted the Ogre.

This was enough to inspire everyone. They took the chosen horrors through to the dining room, with pork pies to sustain them, and set to work with the tiny chips of stone. Caspar and Douglas took a hen’s leg apiece. Gwinny worked on the copper rabbit and Johnny on the hollow cow. These were all quite simple things, soon finished and gleaming. So Johnny and Gwinny went to lean over the Ogre and point out to him the parts of the agonised horse he had missed. Malcolm rubbed diligently away at his toast rack. After a while, Caspar and Douglas tore themselves away from admiring their candlesticks and helped Malcolm. By this time, the stones were worn away to slivers and powder. They collected the grains on the ends of their fingers – rather inconvenienced by the Ogre’s pipe, which was wandering hopefully in between, hunting up crumbs of pork pie – and Malcolm used an accidentally gold-tipped knitting-needle to work Peter Fillus into the twiddles of the toast rack.

The Ogre finished the horse. There were still a few grains of Peter Fillus left, so, as a joke, he fetched the fateful bucket and gave it a golden rim. “A reminder of the bad old days,” he was saying, when Sally came in from the kitchen.

She was looking ten years younger for her short holiday. When she saw the bucket, the pipe, and the table laden with golden horrors, she stopped short in amazement. “Good heavens!” she said. “What are you doing?”

They rushed at her, clamouring explanations and welcome. She laughed. Half an hour later, when everything was explained, she was still laughing, but she seemed a little discontented too. “Well, I feel a bit left out,” she said, when the Ogre asked her what was the matter. “And I wish you’d waited with the Peter Fillus. I’ve got something worse than any of those.”

“What?” said the Ogre.

“Aunt Violet’s bequest,” said Sally. “I’ll show you.”

She went to the cupboard and brought out from the very back something that was like quantities of metal ice-cream cornets on springs, with an extra large cornet in the middle. It was very big and very ugly, and they had not the least idea what it could be.

“It’s called an epergne,” said Sally. “Now don’t you wish you’d waited for me?”

They had to admit that it beat even the hen’s legs.

Much later, when it was growing dark, Gwinny remembered her people, left out in the garden in their doll’s house. She hurried out to bring them in. To her dismay, the doll’s house was empty. Her people had gone. They had taken their gold candlesticks and their wax fruit, and a number of other things besides, and it looked as if they did not mean to come back. Nevertheless, Gwinny hopefully left the doll’s house in the garden for a week. But her people never came back. It seemed they must have set off in search of somewhere better to live. Gwinny was very hurt.

“They might at least have left me a note!” she said.

“You wouldn’t have been able to read their language,” Malcolm pointed out.

“It doesn’t matter. It would have been polite,” Gwinny said. But the fact was, her people had never been at all polite. In a way, she was relieved that they had gone.

The Ogre took the golden horrors to be valued the next Monday. After some delay, they were all sent to London to be auctioned, where they fetched prices that staggered the children. The hen’s legs and the anguished clock proved to be worth more than they had thought, even in their wildest dreams. They were considered curiosities. But it was the hollow cow that fetched the most. It was bought by a Collector, who called it a Cow Creamer, and who paid through the nose for it – much, as the Ogre said, as the cow poured milk – a price that amazed even the Ogre.

“Just think how much he might have paid for Aunt Violet’s epergne,” Sally said wistfully. “I wish you’d waited.”

They were able to move into a larger house almost at once, where, they all admitted, they were much happier. Everyone had a room to himself. Caspar and Douglas could play Indigo Rubber to their hearts’ content. The Ogre was still often forced to bellow for silence, but now everyone knew that his bark was so much worse than his bite, nobody let his roars trouble them. And the Ogre said he was growing hardened to living in a bear garden.

Malcolm took his pencils with him to the new house. For some months, they hopped round his room at night. But, like the stick-insects they rather resembled, they did not live very long. Soon, only the Ogre’s pipe was left to remind them of the chemistry sets. And as time went on, even that began to seem less like an animal and more like a pipe again. It spent longer and longer propped stiffly in the pipe rack, and seldom purred when the Ogre smoked it. They thought the Animal Spirits must be gradually wearing off it.

After his pencils died, Malcolm began to suggest going back to the old man’s shop to see what else he had to sell. So, in the end, Caspar went there with him. He went very much afraid they would get sold something worse than pink footballs or the chemistry sets. But the shop was gone. Where the dark court had been, they found a wide hole full of mechanical excavators. Next time they saw it, the space was filled with an office block even taller than the Ogre’s. That seemed to be the last of Magicraft.