“They’re worse than fishing bait,” Johnny said crossly. “They look rather like bait, don’t they?” Caspar agreed. Even though the pieces of plastic were all colours of the rainbow, they did, all the same, look remarkably like grubs and larvae. “Find the lids,” Johnny said, “They’ll never stay in all day if we don’t shut them up.”
By pulling everything out of the cupboard and raking through the resulting heap with an old golf club, Caspar found three of the lids. The fourth lid was missing. They had to cover the remaining tin with comics and stick them down with sticky tape. Johnny taped the other lids too, to be on the safe side. There began to be quite a noise of soft writhings and tappings as the imprisoned construction kits tried to get out. By this time it was late. They heard Gwinny going downstairs, followed by Douglas. Caspar had to hurry to get dressed.
“I think I ought to make holes in the lids,” Johnny said, while Caspar was hunting for his shirt. “If they’re alive, it’s not kind if I don’t, is it?”
“Well, don’t make the holes too big or they’ll get out through them,” Caspar said, pulling his shirt out from under the heap of things by the cupboard.
Johnny found a skewer in the same heap and hammered away at the lids, punching holes. “Lucky we’ve got some Animal Spirits left still,” he called above the battering. “I wonder what else it works on. I must try. I’d rather like a table that was alive, wouldn’t you? It could follow me about until I wanted to use it.”
“Could you train it to keep still while you were writing, though?” Caspar wondered. “And you’d have to get it to sham dead in front of the Ogre, or there’d be trouble.”
Johnny, quite enraptured with this idea, finished making holes and hunted for the Animal Spirits bottle while Caspar tied his shoes. As their mother called up to them to hurry, he found it. He gave a cry of despair.
“Blast Douglas! Blast the Ogre too! I had to get into bed when he came upstairs and I forgot to put the stopper in. It’s all evaporated!”
“Borrow some of Malcolm’s,” Caspar suggested as they hurried downstairs.
“Catch him lending anything!” Johnny said crossly. “Oh, blast!”
He was still cross when they set off for school, and crosser still at Break, when Caspar insisted on finding Malcolm.
“What do you want to find him for?” he demanded.
“If you’d been him for a day, you’d know why,” Caspar retorted, and went off to search. He found Malcolm at the very moment when Malcolm hit Dale Curtis as hard as he could and made Dale’s lip bleed. Dale looked so savage at this, and Malcolm so unexpectedly small, that Caspar made haste to range himself beside Malcolm and give Dale the long menacing look that gangsters give on television. Dale returned it. But he saw he would have to reckon with Caspar Brent as well as Malcolm McIntyre. He decided to leave Malcolm alone for the moment, and strolled loftily away.
“Come and play football with a tennis ball,” Caspar invited Malcolm.
Malcolm gingerly flexed a hand which Caspar guessed was numbed. “You don’t have to look after me,” he said haughtily.
“I’m not,” said Caspar. “I knew you wouldn’t play. I only asked you because our goalie’s no good.”
There was a pause. Then Malcolm said graciously, “I’ll keep goal for you if you like.” Caspar, rather pleased with his cunning, took him over to the game. Johnny did not say anything, but the expression on his face was not pleasant. And Caspar had a premonition that there was going to be trouble with Johnny – bad trouble – perhaps not now, but sometime soon.
CHAPTER NINE
Gwinny, meanwhile, had a queer experience at her school. She was Nature Monitor, and it was her job to come in before afternoon school and get things ready. It was one of those fine, warm days that happen in late autumn and, since it was Friday, Gwinny was looking forward to the weekend. The Ogre was going to be away all Saturday and Sunday at a conference and things would be fun for once. Gwinny sang to herself as she gave out pencils and Nature folders.
As she leant forward over the big table in the centre of the classroom to push the folders across it, something climbed out of her pocket and landed with a soft clump on the table. Gwinny craned her head round. She stared, frozen and bent over. It was the toffee bar she had borrowed from Johnny, complete with its white and yellow wrapper. And it was crawling across the table in a slow, deliberate way, as if it knew where it was going.
“No, stop! Come back!” Gwinny said to it. She felt all guilty and responsible. The toffee bar was alive, and she had no doubt that it was the bottle Douglas spilt which had done it. She put down the folders, a little nervously. She was not exactly frightened. The toffee bar was only four inches long and flat as a ruler. But, even so, if it was alive, it was not precisely a toffee bar any longer.
The toffee bar crawled steadily on until it came to a patch of sunlight in the middle of the table. There, it stopped and stretched and coiled itself this way and that with evident enjoyment.
“Oh, do come back!” Gwinny said to it.
But the toffee bar took no notice. It stretched several times more, rather harder. Then, quite suddenly, the white and yellow paper split in two along the top of it. The toffee inside wriggled a little, and then it crawled out from the paper, a smooth yellow-brown strip.
“I’ll have to catch you,” Gwinny said firmly. She reached out, not quite so firmly, and tried to take hold of the toffee bar. It must have seen her hand coming. Its limber brown body jack-knifed and leapt away from her fingers. In a flash, it had jumped off the table, wriggled over the floor and gone to earth in a shelf of library books.
Gwinny had to leave it there because the rest of the class was coming in. She hurriedly put the cast-off wrapper in her pocket and gave out the rest of the folders. For the rest of the afternoon she was in agonies. The toffee bar just would not stay quiet. Gwinny could hear it slithering and clumping behind the books in the bookshelf, and so could the rest of the class.
“Has somebody brought a mouse in here?” asked Mrs Clayton.
Nobody answered, but to judge from the looks and giggles, everybody thought somebody had. Gwinny felt more and more guilty and ashamed.
When everyone went out for PE last period, Gwinny borrowed Linda Davey’s handkerchief, because her own was only a tissue, and stayed behind. As soon as she had collected the folders, she set out with great determination to trap the toffee bar by emptying the bookshelf, book by book. The toffee bar scuttled away from the open spaces, until she had it penned in a corner, behind three Mary Plain books. Then she took those out all at once and pounced. She got it. It wriggled frantically. Gwinny did not like it, because she hated smooth, warmish, wriggly things. But she managed to wrap it in Linda’s handkerchief and knot the corners together so that it could not escape. It seemed strong, and Gwinny rather thought it had grown since it cast its wrapper.
Somehow – she did not know why – she was deeply ashamed of it. After school, she avoided all her usual friends and went home secretly by back ways. The toffee bar was wriggling so wildly by then that Gwinny had to take the handkerchief out of her pocket and hold it hard by the knots in order not to lose it. And she wondered what on earth she was going to do with it when she did get it home.
It made her later than usual. She reached the front gate at the same time as Malcolm. “What have you got there?” he asked, looking with interest at the bulging, jerking handkerchief. “A mouse?”
Gwinny felt she knew Malcolm quite well now that she had spent a whole evening thinking he was Caspar. Besides, she was desperate to tell someone who would understand. “No, it’s a toffee bar,” she said. “And it’s rather awful. It’s alive.”
“Not really?” said Malcolm, and his face went pink with excitement. “Show me.”
“Get ready to catch it then,” said Gwinny. “You wouldn’t believe how nimble it is. It got away like a flash before Nature this afternoon.” Malcolm nodded and held his hands out ready. Gwinny began unknotting the handkerchi
ef. But the toffee bar was too lithe for either of them. It was out and slithering down Gwinny’s arm before Malcolm could move. It dodged as he grabbed it, leapt from the hem of Gwinny’s coat to the ground, and made off like a yellow-brown streak into the bottom of the hedge. “Oh, bother!” said Gwinny.
Malcolm gave a roar of delighted laughter. “And it really was toffee!” he said. “How splendid! Was it that bottle Douglas kicked over?”
“I think it must have been,” said Gwinny.
“How marvellous!” said Malcolm. “Gwinny, I’ll give you a big reward for this. Wait and see.” And, with a whoop of excitement, he went dashing into the house and pounding up the stairs as heavily as ever Johnny did.
Gwinny followed him. She found the Ogre in the hall, balefully watching Malcolm’s flying heels disappearing round the corner. “The habits of your family must be catching,” he said to Gwinny. “That was Malcolm, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Gwinny. “He’s excited about something.”
“Evidently,” said the Ogre sourly.
“He’s not doing any harm,” said Gwinny. “He needed to run about a bit. He’s much too old-fashioned usually.”
“Old-fashioned?” said the Ogre. “It’s odd you should say that. I’ve always thought you were the old-fashioned one.”
“Oh, not me,” Gwinny said. “I’m modern. In fact,” she said, thinking of the toffee bar, “I may be quite newfangled. I’ve just made a really up-to-date invention.”
The Ogre laughed. “Then you’d better take out a patent,” he said, as he went into the sitting room, “before somebody else steals your invention.”
Gwinny went upstairs rather thoughtfully. For the invention, though it had been Douglas who kicked the bottle, might be said to be Johnny’s, and she had a feeling Johnny would be furious to know she had told Malcolm. She went past the door of Johnny’s and Caspar’s room and straight up to her own.
Beyond that door Caspar and Johnny were staring fascinated at the six or seven toffee bars curled up on comics and basking in the afternoon sun. They had all cast their wrappers, and these lay littered about, most of them near the space where the construction kits had been. Johnny set off to catch one of them. Immediately, another toffee bar darted out from under a comic beside his foot and flashed away towards the cupboard. The basking bars, aroused by the movement, uncurled and shot off also. In a second, there was not a sign of them, except for a faint rustling here and there.
“Just like lizards,” Johnny said, more fascinated still.
Caspar was looking at the cast-off wrappers. “There’s an awful lot of these,” he said. “Twice as many as we saw.”
“Some of them may be off ones we ate,” said Johnny.
“How many did we have?” said Caspar.
“No idea,” said Johnny.
“Then we’d better count these wrappers,” said Caspar. “And find another box to put the toffee bars in when we do catch them. They’re going to get all over the house if we don’t look out.”
“I’ll go down and look for a box,” said Johnny. But, before he went, he untaped the lid of one of the biscuit tins and had a look to see how the construction kits were getting on. They seemed to be writhing and heaving much as before, and the inevitable one or two came over the edge and had to be put back. “Oughtn’t we to feed them?” he said. “If they are alive.”
“Bring some biscuits when you get the box,” said Caspar. “The toffee bars may be hungry too.”
So Johnny rammed the lid back on and went down to the kitchen, while Caspar collected all the toffee wrappers he could find and made a careful count. It came to nineteen. The thought of catching nineteen nimble toffee bars was a little daunting. He had only succeeded in catching one by the time Johnny came back with a large cardboard box and a packet of Small Rich Tea Biscuits, and the only reason he caught that one was that Johnny had bitten a piece off it the evening before. It was much slower than the others in consequence, and went with a sort of limp.
“Oh, the poor thing!” Johnny said, when Caspar showed him. “I’ll never eat another toffee bar again!” He put it tenderly in the cardboard box and made it comfortable with some comics and a small Rich Tea biscuit. It did not want to stay. Crippled as it was, it kept trying to get out, until Caspar thought of putting the box against the radiator. The lame bar seemed to like that. It curled up peacefully and began to look a little sticky.
Then they tried to catch the eighteen others. After half an hour of tearing around and desperate pouncing, they had caught exactly one each, and both the Ogre and Douglas were roaring for silence. The only thing for it seemed to be to clear the floor.
So, for the first time in their lives, they put everything in the cupboard or on the bookshelves, and piled the other things on the windowsill. And very hard work it was too. But they had their reward. It was an easy matter then to hunt the flying toffee bars as they shot along the sides of the room, and almost as easy to catch the ones that retreated under the beds.
“Well, at least we know nothing else came alive now,” Caspar said, dusty and triumphant, carrying a whipping handful of toffee bars over to the radiator and counting them as he dropped them into the box. “Nineteen. That’s all of them at last.”
The warmth of the radiator pleased their captives. They curled up drowsily among the comics, and Johnny gave them some biscuits. But the biscuits were untouched after supper, and the construction kits had not eaten theirs either. Johnny became worried. He was leaning over the cardboard box trying to tempt at least the lame bar to eat, when Sally came in.
“What a wonderfully tidy room!” she said. “What have you got in that box?”
“It’s my comic store,” said Johnny, deftly pulling a couple of comics over the captives.
“What system!” said Sally, laughing. “Have either of you seen Jack’s best pipe? He wants it to go away with.” They had not. “I’d better ask Gwinny,” said Sally.
When she had gone, Johnny fetched some lettuce, but neither the construction kits nor the toffee bars seemed to care for lettuce either. So, on Caspar’s advice, Johnny gave the problem up for the moment and started to learn the poem he should have learnt last week. Caspar began on his homework.
They were interrupted by a sharp scuttering noise. They looked up, and then at one another, mystified. The scuttering came again. Johnny pointed. Out from under Caspar’s bed, into the middle of the empty floor, came the strangest creature yet. It was dark brown and moved in a quick, lively way that put them in mind of a miniature squirrel or chipmunk. Yet its small chunky body did not seem to have a recognisable head. It had a long stiff tail which it held high behind it as it ran and which it seemed to use for balance. And it seemed to have a bold and enquiring disposition, for it stopped to sniff with interest at Caspar’s foot, which was hanging down from his bed, and its tail quivered as it sniffed.
It took them nearly a minute to recognise the Ogre’s pipe, which Gwinny had dropped the night the flying mixture splashed on her.
“Who was it said nothing else had come alive?” said Johnny.
Caspar could not help laughing. “Let’s give it him to go away with,” he said, and he got off his bed to catch it. The pipe at once dropped on its side and shammed dead.
“You’ve frightened it!” said Johnny. “And don’t you dare give it to the Ogre. He’d try to light it.”
Caspar realised this would be cruel. He got gently back on his bed again, and they waited to see what the pipe would do. It lay for a while. But when neither of them moved, it got up on its bowl again with a powerful whisk of its stem and began scuttering about the carpet, exploring. It seemed very interested in the biscuit tins. For some time it ran round and round all four. Then, with a mighty hop, it managed to jump on top of one. There, it scrabbled round the holes Johnny had made and seemed to become increasingly desperate. It uttered a tiny agitated squeak or so.
“I think it wants it open,” said Johnny. “Shall I open one?”
“Yes,” said Caspar. “Let’s see what it does then.”
Johnny stole heavily over to the tins. The pipe took fright and hid from him, by jumping into the gap between two tins. But when Johnny had taken off a lid and retreated, it came boldly out and hopped up on to the edge of the open tin. They watched it bend forward over the writhing plastics, with its tail cocked for balance and quivering. Its bowl moved, and they both distinctly heard a golloping.
“It’s eating them!” Johnny exclaimed.
Having fed largely and, incidentally, solved two of their problems at one go, the pipe decided they were friendly and went roaming boldly about the room. Caspar could not resist fetching Gwinny to see it. Gwinny was enthralled. The Ogre’s pipe so enchanted her that her lack of surprise and interest in the toffee bars passed unnoticed – to her great relief.
“Show Mummy,” she said. “She’ll love it.”
But Johnny refused, on the grounds that Sally could not be trusted not to tell the Ogre. At this, Gwinny became rather thoughtful and went away as soon as she could.
The Ogre left Saturday morning. There was a wonderful feeling of freedom without him, though this was a little spoilt for Caspar by Johnny worrying about what toffee bars ate. To make up for starving them, Johnny turned the cardboard box on its side and let the toffee bars have the freedom of the room. He put them down a saucer of water. The pipe, when it wanted a drink, drove the toffee bars off with a vicious curving rush which sent them scattering all over the room, but otherwise it took no notice of them.
All the same, the toffee bars had definitely grown. Caspar could not see what Johnny was worrying about. He played Indigo Rubber full blast and refused to listen to him. Across the landing, Douglas’s guitar thrummed. Then Douglas went off on his bicycle and returned with two Indigo Rubber records of his own.
“Thank heaven Jack can’t hear this,” Sally said, when both record players were going.
“I think it’s because he isn’t here,” Malcolm explained.