Eva Ibbotson - The Ogre of Oglefort

But then they came to an enclosure with a pool, and there, walking slowly out of the water, was a pygmy hippopotamus.

“I just fell in love,” said Bessie now. “It was so clean and so smooth and it didn’t mind being fat — it just wallowed and swam and wallowed again.”

Her grandchildren had tugged and whined for ice cream, but Bessie didn’t move. She had found the perfect way of living.

Finding the ogre and getting him to change her had taken a long time. She consulted every book she could find on magic and the lore of changing… but at last she had heard about the Ogre of Oglefort.

“So here I am,” said the hippo. “And I can’t imagine how I stuck being human for so long.”

The children realized that she had come to the castle because she was tired and would not want to do much work toward restoring the grounds. But they knew she would be able to help them with one question.

“You see, we need to find things we can eat, and of course fishing is an obvious thing to do. But we don’t want to eat — you know — changed people. A bank manager fried in batter probably wouldn’t taste very nice, and anyway there are things I suppose one just doesn’t do,” said Mirella.

Bessie saw this entirely but she said there wasn’t much need to worry. “There’s a pair of carp you want to steer clear of. They used to be philosophy lecturers in a university and spend the time worrying about how many angels can stand on the point of a needle and rubbish like that. I got to know them when we were waiting to be changed. But there’s a lot of freshwater crayfish — you could fish for those — they’re probably good eating. And the perch are just what they seem — not much flavor in them but if you’re short…”

The children thanked her. “You’ve been most helpful. We wouldn’t be depriving you?”

“Dear me, no. I’m a strict vegetarian.” She seemed to be thinking for a while. Then she said, “I mostly came here to rest, but if you like I could clear the odd drain for you — there’s a lot of weed choking some of the runnels. Just say the word.”

They found the aye-aye in the topmost branches of a bent fir, and for a long time it wouldn’t come down, just gave that sad high-pitched screeching wail which had seemed meaningless when they first heard it — but now they could make out what the terrified creature was saying.

“What do you want? Leave me alone. Don’t hurt me.”

“We’re not going to hurt you. We wouldn’t dream of it,” said Ivo. “We just want to make friends.”

It took a long time to coax the aye-aye down from the tree and to hear her story, but when they did, they understood why she was so shy and seemed so unhappy.

“My name is Nandi,” the little creature said, staring at them out of her huge, black-ringed eyes. “And I was born in India and they said I was pretty, so from when I was a little girl my mother put me in for beauty competitions till in the end I was Miss India with a big crown on my head and a lot of fruit round my neck and everyone shouting. And then I was Miss Eurasia with pomegranates and a purple bikini and cameras clicking. Then when we came to England I had to be Miss Hackney South with a Union Jack on my bosom and a wand — and then they put me in for the Miss Universe competition, but the heel came off my shoe in the procession and I fell over and everyone laughed — and my boyfriend was angry and left me because he had bet a lot of money on me winning. And he was the apple of my eye, so my heart was broken and I came here and asked to be an aye-aye and live where nobody can hurt me.”

When Nandi had finished speaking in her breathless little voice, the children were very shaken. They could see all the other contestants laughing and sneering as she ran off the platform, and they would have liked to put a bullet through the cruel man who had left her. They were so upset that they hardly dared ask Nandi if she would help them to make the castle gardens flourish, but she already knew what they wanted.

“I will help pull down the fruit on the high branches,” she said. “And I can put back some of the tiles on the roof. I have seen you working and I will help — but there must be no cruel men — and no competitions.”

“What nice people they all seem to have been,” said Mirella as they made their way back. “And all of them willing to help. After the Grumblers I was expecting the worst.”

But as they got closer to the castle, they both fell silent, because they were absolutely dreading what they had to do next: talk to Charlie, and find out what kind of a human being he had been.

“Even if we tried not to,” said Ivo, “I suppose it wouldn’t work. Now that we’ve swallowed the beans we can’t not talk to him.”

“It’ll probably be all right,” said Mirella. “He can’t have been anybody really horrid — he just can’t.”

They tried to think what sort of a person they wouldn’t mind him having been.

“I suppose if he’d been one of those people who go bird-watching and hiking on the weekends. Maybe takes school parties and shows them things?”

“In an anorak, with binoculars, who tells you it’s not a Lesser Spotted Flycatcher, it’s a greater one?”

“Or a geologist with a little hammer banging at rocks?”

But though those sort of people do a lot of good in the world, they didn’t want Charlie to be like that, and they didn’t want him to be an out-of-work actor, or an office clerk whose boss had been unkind to him. In fact they couldn’t think of a single sort of person they really wanted Charlie to be, and their steps got slower and slower as they got nearer home.

But when they walked into kitchen, the Hag told them that Ulf had taken the little dog to the forest and probably wouldn’t be back for a while. The evenings were long and light still, and there was no sign of Charlie or Ulf at the time they usually went to bed. Ivo had gone to his room, and Mirella was just saying good night when there was a scratching at the door, and when they opened it, Charlie rushed into the room — tired, happy, muddy, and ready to share his busy day in the forest.

The children looked at each other. Time to begin. So far Charlie’s barks had sounded as they always did, but it had been the same with the others at first — the gnu’s grunts, the aye-aye’s screeches had taken a moment to become understandable as human speech.

“Charlie,” said Mirella very seriously, taking the plunge and looking into the dog’s eyes. “We’re able to understand the language of animals now, so would you tell us who you are? Or rather who you used to be.”

And they waited, holding their breath.

But whoever Charlie had been, it was obviously not someone very quick on the uptake. He wriggled free of Mirella’s grasp and began to play his favorite game, leaping over the footstool and waiting for them to catch him.

“Please, Charlie,” said Mirella, “speak to us. Tell us about your past. We have to know.”

Charlie rolled on his back and let his paws go limp, ready to have his tummy tickled.

But the children felt they had to go through with it now — and how could they scratch the stomach of someone who might presently tell them that he was a High Court judge?

“Charlie, please try,” Mirella begged again.

But it was no use, and now Charlie had jumped onto the bed and begun his evening rearrangement of Ivo’s pillows.

“Of course,” said Ivo suddenly. “I know what’s gone wrong! All those magic things usually stop working after the sun has gone down. And it has gone down — look — there’s not a ray to be seen.”

Mirella ran to the window, and it was true. The evening star had just risen on a darkening sky.

“We’ll have to wait till the morning,” said Ivo.