Diana Jones - The Ogre Downstairs

Gwinny was lying on her back near the middle of the ceiling now. Johnny raised the dripping mop and aimed it for the part of Gwinny’s legs where he thought the chemicals had splashed. But it is not easy to aim a long, top-heavy mop. He hit Gwinny plumb on the backside. She shrieked, “Stop it! It’s cold!” and went floundering and scrambling and bobbing out of reach, like an upside-down pink crab, with a muddy splodge on the back of her nightdress. Caspar got on to the bed and clawed at her legs with the backbrush as soon as they came near.

“Stop it, you beast!” said Gwinny, and scrambled back across the ceiling.

Caspar jumped on to a chair on the other side of the room and tried to reach her there. Johnny lofted the mop and prodded at her as she passed. Gwinny squealed with silly laughter and scrambled out of reach again. They pursued her. Caspar went leaping from chair to bed and back again. Johnny charged this way and that, prodding, and Gwinny scuttled and squealed all over the ceiling. Then Johnny, not looking where he was going, kicked the doll’s house over with a crash, scattering little tables and chairs and doll’s house people all over the room.

Gwinny turned over and drummed her heels on the ceiling, pointing furiously. “How dare you! Look what you’ve done! Pick them all up!”

“You come and do it,” said Johnny cunningly.

“I can’t, I can’t, I can’t!” said Gwinny, drumming away for all she was worth.

There were footsteps, and the shattering voice of Douglas bawled from the stairs, “Stop that din, can’t you! Some of us are trying to do homework.”

Gwinny’s heels stopped. Caspar and Johnny exchanged alarmed looks. Without a word, they got down and began collecting the chairs, tables and dolls. But the damage was done. Behind the feet of Douglas retreating, they heard a much more distant door slam. They waited. Heavy footsteps started upstairs. They galvanised Caspar. He leapt up, seized the mop and pointed it at Gwinny.

“Quick! Catch hold of that, Gwinny, and don’t let go.”

Gwinny was only too ready to do as he told her. She hung on to the wet end while Caspar heaved on the stick. It was extraordinarily hard work. Gwinny seemed a good deal heavier upwards, as it were, than she ever was on the ground. Johnny flung the last table into the doll’s house and helped Caspar heave. Slowly Gwinny was dragged down. Slowly and remorselessly the Ogre’s feet climbed the stairs. Once she was within reach, Gwinny was so terrified of rising again that she seized Johnny’s hair to hold herself down with.

“What do we do now?” said Johnny, through a grin of agony.

“Bed. The covers might hold her down,” gasped Caspar.

They towed the floating Gwinny over to her bed and attempted to put her into it. Gwinny did her best to help, but nothing seemed to stop her floating away upwards every time they tried to put her legs between the sheets.

The Ogre’s feet crossed the landing and began on the last flight.

Gwinny flung her arms round Johnny in terror. While she was anchored that much, Caspar let go, picked up all the bedcovers, flung them over her floating legs and flung himself after them. As the Ogre’s feet came up the last stairs, Johnny jumped on to Gwinny too and sat on her stomach.

When the Ogre tore open the door and stood glowering, he saw Gwinny in bed, Caspar sitting on one end of it, Johnny in the middle, and all their faces turned to him in not-quite-innocent alarm. The only thing out of place 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.