Eva Ibbotson - The Ogre of Oglefort

Ivo bent down to pat him, but Mirella had sat bolt upright and given a little shriek.

“Oh!” she cried. “It’s Squinter! It’s my—” Then as the dog came forward and she could see him in the light, her face fell. “No it’s not! His eyes are wrong.”

Ivo was indignant. “What do you mean, his eyes are wrong? He’s got lovely eyes.”

“Yes, I know. Oh… it doesn’t matter.”

“Look, if you come downstairs we could share him. Please. There’s so much to do.”

But seeing what she had thought was her beloved dog had reduced Mirella to a wreck. “Look, just go away, will you,” she said. “And you can take the tray back, too. I don’t eat bacon; I’m a vegetarian.”

She managed to wait till the door was shut and then she threw herself onto the bed in a storm of sobbing.

The ogre was not getting better — in fact he was getting worse. His thighs throbbed, his forehead pounded, blisters had come out on his stomach. At night he had terrible dreams and occasionally he screamed in his sleep — horrible screams which echoed through the castle.

“Oh why did Germania have to die?” he moaned. “It’s all hopeless since Germania died.”

Germania was his wife, the ogress he had loved so much.

The troll did his best to nurse him but the ogre was not a good patient. He didn’t like his medicine; he wouldn’t get out of bed to do his exercises, so that he got weaker and weaker; and he wouldn’t let the troll bathe him.

“Ogres don’t have baths,” he said. “It’s not what they do.”

So a family of wood lice settled behind his ears, liking the warm dampness; leeches clung to his yellow toes; a spittlebug lived in his left nostril.

Everyone did their best. The Hag remembered a spell for bringing down swellings which she had used in the Dribble, but as soon as one part of the ogre subsided, another part swelled up again. The wizard mixed potion after potion but the ogre just turned his head away. The only thing he wanted them to do was sit by his bed and listen to his dreams, which were mostly about his aunts. The ogre had three aunts who lived in separate places a long way away. There was the Aunt-with-the-Ears who could hear a man turning over in his bed on the other side of a mountain, and the Aunt-with-the-Nose who could smell people at a distance of twenty furlongs, and the Aunt-with-the-Eyes who could see an insect stirring in a neighboring county.

But the rescuers were not only trying to look after the ogre. Every room in the castle was dirty and neglected; there was very little food; and the couple in the dungeon only came out to ask for breakfast or lunch or dinner and went back in again.

“We’d better see what there is outside,” said Ulf.

So they went out over the drawbridge. In the moat they came across the gudgeon whom the ogre had changed. He seemed to be happy and contented, though they couldn’t be sure. Finding out what fish are thinking has never been easy.

On the other side of the bridge they found a walled kitchen garden and an orchard, both overgrown and full of weeds. There were a few vegetables still in the ground and the soil was good, but there was a terrible lot of work to do — and in the orchard rotten apples lay where they had fallen. They were on their way back when Charlie took off suddenly and, following him, they came to a large mound entirely covered in bare, gnawed bones. To their surprise Charlie did not pick up a single bone but sat down respectfully with a few quiet wags of his tail. Coming closer, they saw that the mound was a grave, and on top was a tombstone with the words: HERE LIES GERMANIA HENBANE OF OGLEFORT, BELOVED OGRESS AND WIFE OF DENNIS CONSANDINE. MUCH MISSED.

“Oh dear,” said the Hag. “That’s another thing that needs doing. We’ll have to tend the grave. Some of those bones look dreadfully untidy. Those Grumblers down in the dungeon will have to come and help or go away. We can’t do everything on our own.”

But the Grumblers wouldn’t help and they wouldn’t go away. They turned out to be a married couple called Hilary and Neville Hummock, and they had come to Ostland because they didn’t like each other anymore.

“In fact we hate each other,” Mrs. Hummock had explained. “So I’m going to be a wombat and live on land and Neville is going to be a mudskipper and live in the water, and that way we won’t see each other.”

Ivo thought he had never heard anything so silly — but it was Mirella that everyone was worried about. She hadn’t eaten anything since she’d come and she was still locked in her room. After all they had come to rescue the princess and as far she they could see she was just fading away.

“I’ll have one more go,” said Ivo. “I don’t know if it’ll be any use but I’ll try.”

This time he took Charlie straightaway. Mirella didn’t open the door at first but when the dog scratched at the wood, the handle turned slowly.

“What do you want?”

Ivo put down the tray. “I want you to come down and help. I want you to be sensible. The Hag’s working her fingers to the bone and those horrible people in the dungeon won’t do anything and the ogre’s taken to his bed and here you are just sulking.” He paused. “Please, Mirella. Please? I thought maybe we could be friends — there isn’t anyone else my own age.”

But he was shocked by the way she looked. Her black eyes had rings under them; she seemed hardly to have slept; her hair was in tangles. If she wasn’t ill already she soon would be, and Charlie, too, seemed to be worried as he sniffed round her ankles and whimpered.

“It’s no use. My parents will find me sooner or later. They’re bound to. They’ll send out armies and all that sort of stuff, and when that happens I’ll jump out of the window. I’d die rather than go back.”

“That’s silly. You’re just being a coward.”

“I am not !” Mirella rounded on him. “I came over the bridge above the ravine in the dark, and there were some ghastly creatures sort of moaning and gibbering and trying to get me. Then I walked for miles and miles without food and it was scary, but I didn’t mind because I thought when I got to the ogre he would change me into a bird and everything would be all right, but now I can’t be bothered with anything.”

“And suppose he had changed you — perhaps it wouldn’t be so marvelous. You’d have to eat things like ants, which you kept as pets in the palace, and all sorts of insects.”

“No I wouldn’t. I’d be a seabird and swoop down into the waves.”

“Oh yes? I suppose spearing fish in your beak would be better? I suppose you think fish don’t feel pain — you’ve seen them twitch and wiggle on the end of a line.”

Ivo was getting angry again. “When I think of the people who’ve been told they’re ill and they’re going to die — children even — and they’d give anything they’ve got—”

But he couldn’t get through to Mirella. She had sunk into a black hole where nothing existed except her own despair.

“Isn’t there anything we can do about her?” Ivo asked the Hag. “How can she not want to be a human being… a person with arms and legs and thoughts ? Why does she want to throw it all away?”

He looked out of the window at the brilliantly green grass, the clear blue sky. They had expected only darkness and danger but it was very beautiful at Oglefort. There was so much to learn and see and do, and he and Mirella could have done it together.

The Hag put an arm around his shoulder.