The Ogre of Oglefort

“Ogres may be, but we aren’t,” said Ulf, who was longing to get out into the forest. “Come on.”

Slowly—very slowly—grumbling furiously, collapsing again and again on the stairs, the ogre arrived in the laundry room. Clouds of steam were rising from the hot tub and he gave a bellow of rage.

“You’re going to boil me alive,” he roared. “It’s a plot.”

Ulf took no notice. He took the ogre’s dressing gown and hung it on a hook. Then he poured two more buckets of warm water into the first of the gigantic tubs, and the whole room filled with steam.

“Get in,” he said.

“Very well,” said the ogre. “You are hurrying me on to my death but nobody cares. Germania would have cared, but she’s under the mound.”

Ulf waited.

Still grumbling, the ogre began to lower his bulk into the tub. Water slopped onto the floor. Ulf picked up his long-handled back scrubber and the cake of soap. The ogre, complaining the whole time, lowered himself farther, and then a little farther still, into the water. . . .

The children had gone into the orchard to pick the last of the apple crop when Mirella suddenly said, “Oh no! I’m an idiot—the poor little bat—it’ll be boiled alive in the heat.”

Ivo stared at her.

“What are you talking about?”

“The fruit bat in the laundry room, don’t you remember? The very young one that was hanging above the range. I bet Ulf won’t have had time to collect it and let it out.”

She ran like the wind toward the castle and threw open the door of the laundry room. Clouds of steam billowed toward her; the fire roared. She could make out nothing at first, then saw what she had expected.

The little bat had fallen to the ground and was fluttering, stunned and frightened, in a corner, half drowned, getting caught on the wooden slats. Ignoring everything except the animal she had come to save, Mirella knelt down on the floor, groping and searching. As soon as she had fastened her hand around the petrified, quivering creature, it squealed and bit. Her clothes were soaked, her hair trailed in the puddles, but she saw nothing except the plight of the terrified bat.

The ogre had lowered himself farther into the tub—but as his behind touched the water, he rose up again, pointing a furious finger at Ulf.

“It’s too hot! I told you it was too hot. You’re trying to kill me.” He grabbed a towel and wrapped himself in it. It was only now that he saw Mirella crawling on the floor.

“And WHAT IS THAT?” he roared, wrapping himself tighter in the towel. “Get it out! Get it out at once!”

Mirella neither saw nor heard him. She went on crawling along the soaking floor, while the ogre yelled and cursed, and more and more steam billowed through the overheated room.

CHAPTER16THE NORNS

After they had sent the rescuers off to save the Princess Mirella and slay the ogre, the Norns fell into a deep sleep.

They slept for days and days, snoring gently in their bed in the cave deep under Aldington Crescent underground station.

And while they slept, the ghosts went around and around in the ghost train along the deserted track, and the Harpies roosted and the rats scuttled about, and water dripped from the roof.

When at last they woke, the Norns were very woozy, not quite certain where they were and how much time had passed. They sat up slowly and stretched out their skinny arms, and the nurses who had been dozing in the back of the cave came forward with syringes and gave them injections and handfuls of pills, which they popped into their mouths.

Even so it was a few more days before the Norns remembered about the princess and the ogre. Then the First Norn said, “Ogre slain?”

And the Second Norn said, “And princess saved?”

“Must be,” said the Third.

All the same, they thought they had better make sure. The magic screen was brought down in the lift by the Norns’ attendants and set up in a corner of the cave. Then the Norns were wheeled over, the necessary words were said—and the screen flickered into life.

As before the picture showed the wave-lashed cliffs, then the forest path which led to the castle—then the castle itself.

There were no ogres to be seen in the great rooms of the castle—perhaps the monster was already dead and buried? And no sign of the rescuers either.

But now the picture traveled down and down, into the dungeon and past it—into a dreadful torture chamber full of smoke.

The smoke swirled and rose and blotted out what was in the room. They could make out nothing at first; there was only the smoke . . . or was it mist . . . or steam?

Then the hellish vapor cleared for a moment and they saw a truly terrifying sight. The hideous ogre, far from dead, was standing beside a boiling cauldron. He was wrapped in a kind of shroud; his fiendish face was twisted with rage; his great forefinger pointed at something which crawled like a tortured beast of burden on the floor.