“What are you doing?” Sally said.
“Cleaning the stairs,” gasped Johnny.
They opened the door of their room, threw the toffee bars inside and shut the door firmly on them.
“Well, don’t make that kind of noise any more,” said Sally, arriving on the landing behind Malcolm. “Remember we’re trying to give a grown up party this evening. Malcolm, I think I’ll need to press your suit. Can I get it?”
She and Malcolm went to the other room. Caspar and Johnny opened the door of theirs just in time to stop two of the toffee bars coming out underneath it again. The books were scattered all over the room, and there was now a hole in one of Caspar’s blankets. The four missing toffee bars had draped themselves over the lukewarm radiator again. Caspar and Johnny once more peeled them off it and packed them into the box with the other six. Then they piled not only books, but cricket bats, train sets, roller skates and any other heavy thing they could lay hands on onto the Monopoly-board, until the heap stretched halfway up the wall. The box still heaved and bulged beneath it.
“Oh, this is hopeless, Johnny!” Caspar said, adding his pink football to the heap. “Please get rid of them.”
By this time, Johnny was feeling much the same. But he wanted to be the one to suggest it. “I’ll think about it,” he said, and busied himself with the chemistry set.
Then Gwinny came in and looked at the heap and the heaving box in undisguised alarm. “Johnny, you must get rid of them,” she said.
But this only made Johnny obstinate. “They’re only cold, poor things,” he said. “They can’t help it.” And, after nearly an hour of arguing, he had managed to convince himself that he was sorry for the toffee bars and had never wanted to get rid of them at all. “And they’d freeze in the garden,” he said.
At that moment, Douglas thumped at the door and called out crossly. Caspar hurried to open it in case Douglas came in and asked about the heap of things on the box. But Douglas did not attempt to come in. He simply stood on the landing looking worried and annoyed. “One of you’s going to have to be a waiter after all,” he said. “Malcolm can’t.”
“Why not?” said Caspar.
Douglas hesitated. “Oh, come and look at him,” he said at length. “Serve him right if you all laugh your heads off!”
They all trooped across the landing after Douglas, feeling very interested. Douglas flung open the door of the room and bowed to them as they went in.
“Lady and gentlemen,” he said. “My brother, the—Hey, Malcolm! You were orange when I went out!”
“You didn’t have to show everyone,” Malcolm said uncomfortably.
He was a beautiful bright green all over, even his hair and his fingernails. His mouth and his eyes were a slightly darker green. He looked very peculiar indeed. But, while they were staring at him, quite confounded, he became more peculiar still. Another colour seemed to be emerging through the green. At first they could not tell what colour it was going to be. Then it spread slowly, stronger and stronger, like rings in water, or even more like the coloured circles you see when you press your eyes, and turned out to be deep crimson.
“The green was quite pretty,” Gwinny said, in some disappointment.
“How did you get like that?” said Caspar – and had a feeling he had said something like this before.
“Doing an experiment,” the now crimson Malcolm admitted. He looked as if he had some dire disease.
“Stupid little ass!” said Douglas. “I’d warned you.”
“You didn’t do it on purpose, I suppose?” Johnny said suspiciously. “So as not to be a waiter.”
Malcolm looked indignant and began, at the same time, to flush slowly indigo. “Of course not! It was something I was doing.” He waved towards the table. Gwinny kept her eyes carefully on the experiment set up there, because Malcolm now looked as if he were turning into dark stone and it worried her. “I was just pouring in Irid. col.,” Malcolm explained, “and it splashed in my eye and I went blue.”
“What were you doing?” said Johnny.
“Something complicated,” said Malcolm. “Looking for invisibility, if you must know.”
“Oh, so am I!” Johnny said in surprise. To Gwinny’s relief, Malcolm began to turn yellow. She felt he looked more natural like that, even if it was a bright daffodil yellow. “Bet I find it first,” said Johnny.
“Who cares?” said Douglas. “Which of you’s going to be a waiter?”
“It’ll have to be me, I suppose,” Caspar said reluctantly.
“Then go down and tell the Ogre,” said Douglas. “I’ll fix Sally.”
“How?” said Caspar. “If she sees Malcolm like that, she’ll have a fit. Hey! You called him the Ogre too!”
“Well, he is, isn’t he?” said Douglas. “And I’m going to tell Sally Malcolm’s shamming ill in order not to be a waiter.” Malcolm gave a cry of indignation and went lavender-coloured. “Serve you right,” Douglas said unfeelingly. “If you can think of any other way of stopping her coming to look at you, tell me.”
Malcolm obviously could not. “Cheer up, Malcolm,” Gwinny said, seeing how dejected he looked. “That’s a really pretty colour.” Malcolm sighed. He was beginning to be a deep chestnut brown when Caspar left the room to find the Ogre.
The Ogre, with his pipe contentedly purring in his mouth, was in the dining room, moving the table. When Caspar came in, he said, “Take the other end and lift it over to the wall. Then go away.”
While they were carrying the table, Caspar explained – rather haltingly – that Malcolm seemed to be ill. “So I think I’ll have to be a waiter instead,” he said.
The Ogre put the table down with a thump. “No,” he said. Caspar was intensely relieved. “You’re bound to do something unspeakable,” said the Ogre.
“I swear I won’t,” Caspar said unconvincingly.
“No,” said the Ogre. “If you’re there, all I’ll be able to think of is what horrible thing you’re going to do next. I’ll make do with Douglas, thank you.”
Caspar should have gone away at once after that. But he wanted to be able to assure Douglas that the Ogre refused whatever he said. So he said, “But if I promise—”
“Then you’ll break that promise,” said the Ogre, “as surely as you’ll break all the wine glasses.”
Thankfully Caspar turned to leave. But he had to stop rather suddenly as Sally hurried in with a tray of wine glasses.
“Don’t bring those near Caspar!” said the Ogre.
Sally laughed. “Isn’t it a pity Malcolm’s unwell?” she said, and Caspar could see she knew Malcolm was perfectly all right. “But it’s an ill wind. I rather like the idea of a representative from both sides. Don’t you, Jack?”
The Ogre looked at her balefully. “All right,” he said, to Caspar’s dismay. “You win. But don’t blame me if he wrecks everything.”
“Does your suit still fit you, Caspar?” said Sally.
Three hours later, the lower part of the house had been feverishly cleared until it looked like somewhere completely different. Gwinny was hanging about outside the bathroom watching her mother put on make-up. Sally was wearing a silvery dress and Gwinny could not take her eyes off it.
“Doesn’t Mummy look beautiful?” she said to the Ogre. She was rather surprised to find he agreed.
Upstairs, Malcolm was turning from puce to mustard-colour, and Johnny was anxiously watching the mound of things heaving above the toffee bars. Downstairs in the kitchen, Caspar and Douglas, both feeling tight in the sleeve and constricted in the neck, were moodily standing by the trays and plates of food spread ready on the kitchen table. Caspar was feeling that Fate had played him a dirty trick. Douglas was worrying about Malcolm.
“Sally’s bound to find out tomorrow,” he said. “I don’t know what to do.”
“Have you tried washing his eye?” asked Caspar.
“I thought of that. It doesn’t work. He is a stupid, careless idiot!” said Douglas.
“You sounded just like the Ogre when you said that,” said Caspar.
“Are you trying to be funny?” growled Douglas.
“No,” said Caspar, who was in no mood to be bullied. “Sometimes I’m surprised Malcolm even survives, the way you sit on him.”
Douglas glared at him, which made him look like the Ogre too. “If you—”
But the doorbell rang. Douglas had to hurry to let in a troop of cheerful guests. After them came more, and more. People filled the dining room, the sitting room and then packed into the hall, where they stood shouting happily at one another. The Ogre pushed his way among them with bottles of wine, and both Douglas and Caspar were far too busy pushing their way after him with trays of food to think of being annoyed with one another for some time. Then they met again in the hall, where the noise seemed to be solid and Caspar could see nothing but people’s backs. Caspar’s head was aching, and he was hating being a waiter even more than he had thought he would. Nobody seemed to want food anyway.
The Ogre was pouring a drink for a lady standing at the foot of the stairs, and Douglas was just beside him. “Oh, are these your two sons?” the lady cried shrilly to the Ogre. The Ogre, who was too busy pouring wine to listen, nodded. “How nice!” exclaimed the lady. “I could see they were brothers. They look so much alike.”
Douglas and Caspar looked at one another unlovingly over their trays. “This was all I needed!” Douglas said into Caspar’s ear. “Fancy being taken for one of your family!”
“Same here,” said Caspar. And it was annoying to see from the hall mirror that he and Douglas were, in fact, not unlike one another. Caspar turned away crossly from their reflections and saw a toffee bar making its way downstairs.
Douglas had seen it too. Caspar could tell from the expression on his face in the mirror when he turned back to balance his tray on the hall stand. But Douglas said nothing. He simply held his tray of food persuasively out to the lady.
“Oh, those do look nice!” she said. “I oughtn’t, you know. I’m supposed to be slimming.”
While her attention was occupied, Caspar slipped round her and went flying up the stairs. He caught the toffee bar on the fifth stair and lugged it on upwards, raging.
Johnny was near the head of the next flight, looking absolutely desperate, wrestling with an octopus-like bundle of threshing toffee bars. Malcolm, at that moment a startling shade of orange, was out on the landing holding another. He looked very nervous of it. It kept curling round his arm and he kept shaking it off.
“What on earth do you mean, letting them out like this!” Caspar roared, with a ferocity which would have done credit to the Ogre.
“I can’t help it!” panted Johnny. “They keep getting out whatever I do.”
“Then get rid of them. Now. This moment,” ordered Caspar. “This one was right down near the hall.”
“How can I?” demanded Johnny. “I can’t take them down through that beastly party, can I?”
Malcolm, flushing deep blue, suggested, “Why not throw them out of the window?”
“I’m not going to hurt them!” Johnny said hysterically.
“All right,” thundered Caspar, “if you’re that soft, you can take them to the bathroom, put them in the bath and run hot water on them until they melt. And do it now! You help him,” he said to Malcolm, since Malcolm plainly knew all about it anyway.
“But—” said Malcolm.
“No, I—” began Johnny.
“Do as you’re told!” Caspar howled at them. He slung the strayed toffee bar at Malcolm and went rushing away downstairs to retrieve his tray before someone knocked it off the hall stand. As he galloped downstairs, the noise and smell from the party rose about him in warm waves. As he rounded the last bend, he had a glimpse of Sally, looking very busy and pink and happy, pushing among the shouting people, and he realised the party was going very well. But suppose the toffee bars got loose in it! It did not bear thinking of.
Douglas had rescued Caspar’s tray. He was waiting at the bottom of the stairs as Caspar came hurtling down. “Here you are,” he said. “That was one of the Animal Spirits things, wasn’t it?”
“Yes,” said Caspar, too distraught to wonder how he knew. “And that stupid little fool Johnny insisted on keeping them, and now they’re all over the place!”
“What’s he doing about them?”
“I told him to put them in the bath and melt them,” Caspar said, rather pleased with his idea.
“Go back and tell him not to risk it,” Douglas said urgently. “They’ll swim like fish, if ours are anything to go by, and think how near the bathroom is! Go on. Go back and stop him. Hurry!”
He glanced nervously over his shoulder. Caspar looked too and found that the Ogre was pushing his way across the hall, obviously coming to ask what he and Douglas thought they were doing. But Douglas pushed Caspar towards the stairs and Caspar fled up them again, feeling the force of the Ogre’s glare like a hot blast on his back.
When he arrived in the bathroom, it was full of steam. The plug was in the bath, the hot tap – which never ran properly – was trickling hot water, and Johnny and Malcolm were obediently lowering struggling toffee bars into it.
“Take them out again,” Caspar said breathlessly. “Douglas says they’ll swim and not to risk it.”
“Oh, blast Douglas!” said Johnny. “Malcolm’s already told me that and I’m going to risk it.”
Caspar looked at Malcolm properly and found he was his right colour again. “Thank goodness!” he said. “That’s one thing gone right, at least. How do you know they’ll swim?”
“Because all ours did,” said Malcolm. “Douglas tried to drown the dustballs in Gwinny’s room and the ones in ours, and he couldn’t. Would you like to see them?”
“No!” bellowed Caspar. “Get those toffee bars out. Throw them out of the window. And I’m sending Douglas up in five minutes to make sure you’ve done it!” Feeling extremely hectic, he pelted down into the roaring party again.
As soon as he had gone, Johnny said to Malcolm, “What do you mean – dustballs?”
“Just lumps of dust,” said Malcolm. “At least, we think they were, but they grew. They look more like mice now. Shall I show you?”
“If you like,” Johnny said, with alacrity. He took a look at the toffee bars in the bath. They were evidently enjoying the warm water. Each bar was nestling down into it, and two were struggling for the place under the trickling tap. The water was already brownish with melted toffee. “Caspar can give orders all he likes,” he said. “But you can see that’s the kindest end for them. Come on.”
He shut the bathroom door reverently and followed Malcolm up to his room. There, Malcolm opened the glass cupboard and showed him a shoebox on the bottom shelf. Huddled in it were six or seven greyish, fluffy lumps. Johnny was charmed. To his mind, they were even better than the toffee bars. He admired them wholeheartedly.
Malcolm was obviously pleased by Johnny’s admiration. “They’re not bad,” he admitted. “But they keep getting out. There used to be loads more.” Then, as if he were letting Johnny into an even better secret, he said, “And these are my pencils.”
Johnny, extremely flattered and quite lost in admiration, stared open-mouthed at the six pencils standing upright in a row on top of the cupboard. “What do they eat?”
“Wood-shavings,” said Malcolm. “I have to keep sharpening ordinary pencils for them, or they eat the furniture. They only eat at night too. They hop about and keep Douglas awake, and he throws things at them. That’s how he knocked the Animal Spirits over and made the dustballs.”
“But how did they get up to Gwinny’s room?” said Johnny. “You said—”
“No. I made those.” Malcolm said, looking a little self-conscious. “I spilt Animal Spirits in her room when I – when I was—Well, come and see, if you like.”
So once again Johnny followed Malcolm upstairs. The noise of the party faded away behind them, and everything faded out of Johnny’s min
d except amazement at Malcolm’s secret cleverness and acute curiosity about what he would see in Gwinny’s room.
Gwinny was kneeling in the middle of her room cooking something in an old tobacco tin over the spirit lamp from Malcolm’s chemistry set. Seeing Johnny, she looked alarmed and rather guilty.
“It’s all right,” said Malcolm. “Can I show him the people?”
“If you want,” Gwinny said cautiously.
Malcolm beckoned to Johnny. “Over here. But go quietly, because they get awfully angry if you frighten them.”
Mystified, Johnny went to the place Malcolm showed him, to one side of Gwinny’s doll’s house, and Gwinny watched him rather apprehensively while Malcolm leaned forward and gently eased off the front of the doll’s house. Johnny peered past him into its small dining room. The ten doll’s house dolls were sitting at the table, in the middle of eating supper. They were only too clearly alive. A number of them looked round irritably at the gap in the front of their house. Johnny could not help laughing at the expression on their faces.
Gwinny relaxed. “Are they ready for their pudding?” she asked.
“I think so,” said Malcolm.
“Well, it won’t be long,” said Gwinny.
One of the men dolls left his chair and came to the gap. He pointed at Johnny and shouted something in a small grating voice that reminded Johnny of a tummy rumbling. Johnny laughed again, rather nervously.
“I don’t understand their language,” Gwinny explained. “But I think he means go away, they’re having supper. Move over and let me give them this.”
Johnny obediently moved, and watched, fascinated, while Gwinny spooned warmed-up custard into a tureen one of the women dolls fetched for her. He could not have described his thoughts. He felt he ought to be angry with Gwinny for making friends with Malcolm behind his back like this – except that he felt quite friendly towards Malcolm himself. He felt extremely honoured to be shown all Malcolm’s secrets too. His only unpleasant feeling was a certain amount of envy. Malcolm had done such clever things with the Animal Spirits.