Eva Ibbotson - The Ogre of Oglefort

The relief was tremendous. Neither of the children had admitted how frightened they were of hearing Charlie’s story.

So Mirella said good night and went along to her room, but as she passed the open door of Dr. Brainsweller’s bedroom, Mirella heard voices.

“Ridiculous person,” said a woman’s voice, “appearing like that and calling him Bri-Bri — and those absurd spectacles. No wonder the poor man gets upset — you did quite right, spinning a web over her face. We’ll have to keep an eye on him — wizards are highly strung, everyone knows that.”

Mirella looked in at the open door. At first she thought the room was empty. Then she looked up at the ceiling where two large spiders were sitting close together and conversing.

Mirella hurried on. She had understood the spiders quite clearly. So what on earth was the matter with the little dog?

She decided to wait till the morning, but as soon as it was light she crept back to Ivo’s room and told him what had happened.

“So it wasn’t that the beans had stopped working, because I understood the spiders as clear as anything.”

They couldn’t make it out. They tried again, asking Charlie simple questions, talking clearly and slowly — but all he did was scratch at the door and indicate that it was time he went out for his morning run.

“We’ll have to go and see the ogre,” said Mirella. “And I don’t care if he’s in a state about his funeral pajamas or the trombone — we’ll make him tell us who Charlie was. Now we’ve started we can’t just stop.”

So they went to see the ogre, who was just finishing his breakfast. They explained about the beans and the animals and demanded to know the truth about Charlie.

The ogre wrinkled his vast forehead.

“Charlie?” he said. “Who’s he?”

“The little white dog. The one who follows us everywhere. You must know who he is. White with a brown patch behind his ear.”

“Oh, him,” said the ogre. “He’s a mongrel. Been around for a while.”

“Yes, but who was he?” said Mirella urgently. “Who was he before you changed him?”

The ogre shrugged. “He wasn’t anybody. He’s just a dog, always has been. Now about the hearse — I think it should have my name on the side and a little poem. The kind you get on gravestones.”

But the children weren’t listening. They were hugging each other, then dancing around the room — and Mirella’s eyes had filled with tears of relief and happiness.

Charlie was a dog. Charlie was himself and nothing else. Charlie was Charlie!

The Grumblers, who had fled from the dungeon, were on their way back home. They had managed to get a fishing boat to take them to the port of Osterhaven and were waiting for the overnight ferry bound for Great Britain, when Mr. Hummock pointed to a notice on the harbor wall.

“My goodness, look!” he said. “It’s that wretched girl who tried to get ahead of us with the ogre and told us about the blood and the syringes and all that. Princess Mirella.”

His wife came to look and sure enough, there was Mirella with her thin face and her wild dark hair. But it was what was written underneath the notice that really excited them.

REWARD it said in huge letters, and then: A HUNDRED THOUSAND POUNDS IS OFFERED TO ANYONE WHO CAN GIVE INFORMATION ABOUT THE WHEREABOUTS OF THE PRINCESS. PLEASE APPLY TO THE MAJOR-DOMO, MONTEFINO PALACE, WATERFIELD.

The couple turned to each other excitedly.

“That’s a lot of money,” said Mr. Hummock. “Why don’t I go to Waterfield and claim it, and then I can send you your share.”

But his wife thought that this was a bad idea. They had decided to get a divorce and live in different places. “I don’t trust you,” she said.

So they decided to go together, and instead of boarding the ferry, which was going back to Britain, they waited for the local boat, which puttered around the island and ended its journey at Waterfield Docks.

“There are two people who say they have news of the Princess Mirella, Your Majesty,” said the majordomo.

Mirella’s mother leaped to her feet and called for her husband.

“Show them in quickly, quickly,” she said.

The Hummocks appeared. Each of them wanted to be the one to break the news, so they talked together and interrupted each other — but in the end Mirella’s parents understood that their daughter was in the castle of the dreaded Ogre of Oglefort and in great danger.

“Oh heavens!” said the queen, clutching her heart. “Oh how dreadful — oh my poor dear girl!”

“We must send an army to rescue her at once,” said the king. “There is no time to be lost.”

So the Grumblers were sent off to get their reward, and the king and queen set to, to organize an army to slay the ogre and rescue their daughter from the evil monster’s clutches.

“Phillipe must bring his soldiers,” said the king.

Phillipe was the prince with the stamp collection, the one who had married their eldest daughter, Sidony.

“And Tomas must bring some of his troops,” said his wife.

Tomas was the prince who sucked peppermints because he worried about his breath and was married to their second daughter, Angeline.

“But of course it is Umberto who must be at the head of the whole army,” agreed the king and queen. “And there is no time to be lost.”

So messengers were sent to Prince Phillipe and to Prince Tomas and to Prince Umberto, who was after all Mirella’s proposed bridegroom.

The princes were not pleased at all. None of them wanted to confront an ogre, and their wives cried dreadfully.

Sidony cried because she was expecting a baby, and she begged her husband to stay at home.

“What if poor little Sweetie Pie was to grow up without a father?” she asked.

Angeline cried even harder, because she wasn’t just expecting one baby, she was expecting twins.

“I couldn’t bring up the Little Puddings all by myself,” she sobbed. “I simply couldn’t.”

But of course they knew really that their husbands had to do their duty.

The most difficult to persuade was Prince Umberto, who had never in his life led an army or done anything braver than throw a wooden ball at a coconut, but he had no choice. He now owed so much money that without Mirella’s father to bail him out he would have had to flee from his country or risk imprisonment, so he hurried to Waterfield in a very grand uniform and chose the most valuable horse in the royal stables for his mount. To the sound of a splendid brass band, the three princes rode off to rescue Mirella from the vile and dreadful ogre who had her in his power.

The army which set forth looked impressive, though in truth it was composed mainly of friends of the princes and their servants. There were the Household Guards in gold and purple with white plumes in their helmets, and the Royal Fusiliers in green and yellow with velvet caps, and the Soldiers of the Bedchamber in crimson and velvet. True, none of them had ever been in a battle, and there was a serious shortage of weapons and ammunition, but the people who cheered and waved and shouted as the army marched away were not upset by this. The schoolchildren were given a holiday, and that night there was feasting and rejoicing in the town because everyone was certain that the ogre would be slain and the Princess Mirella returned to them.

When Ivo was not returned to the children’s home on the day he was due back, the principal sent around the orphanage secretary to investigate.