Stopping for a Spell Read online

  The noise fetched Granny Two down the stairs. She stared at Granny One. “What are you doing here?” said Granny Two.

  “My duty,” said Granny One. “I’ve come to look after the children.”

  “So have I,” said Granny Two. “I can manage perfectly.”

  “Of course you can’t,” said Granny One. “You fuss all the time, and you spoil the children.”

  “And you,” said Granny Two, “are cruel to them.”

  Granny One had her mouth open to make a blistering reply when Granny Four tottered down the stairs, faintly wringing her hands. Granny One pointed at her unbelievingly. “Is she here, too?”

  “Yes, dear, but she can’t manage on her own,” said Granny Two.

  “Indeed, I can!” Granny Four quavered, clinging to the stair rail.

  “It’s just as well I came,” Granny One said grimly. “I see I shall have to look after the lot of you.”

  “I do not need looking after!” Grannies Two and Four said in chorus.

  By this time it was clear to Erg that three grannies kept one another even busier than two. Much relieved, he went into the kitchen. There he put the hot tap top back, and the knobs from the cooker, because he knew Granny One would notice those. Then he went out of the back door and into the living room by the French window and hid the invention safely behind the sofa. Then he went out into the hall again. The grannies were still insulting one another.

  “I didn’t know you all hated one another,” he said.

  To his surprise, this stopped the argument at once. All the grannies turned and assured Erg that they loved one another very much. Then they turned and assured one another. After which they all went into the kitchen for a cup of tea.

  Erg went back to work on his invention behind the sofa. The clip off the vacuum cleaner fitted nicely on the end of the sardine tin opener. But the invention needed something else to make it perfect. Erg could not think what it needed. He could not think clearly, because the grannies were now going up and down stairs, calling out about potatoes and rattling at doors.

  Finally Granny Two came into the living room. “Erg, dear—Oh, dear! He’s vanished, too. I’m so worried.”

  “No, I haven’t,” Erg said, bobbing up from behind the sofa. “I’m playing at hiding,” he explained, before Granny Two could ask. “What’s the matter?”

  “Emily’s locked herself in the bathroom, dear. Be a dear and go and get her out.”

  3

  Emily Gets Converted

  Erg sighed and went upstairs. But it was not a wasted journey. The thought of the bathroom put into his head exactly what would make the invention perfect. It needed glass tubes, with blue water bubbling in them, going plotterta-plotterta the way inventions did in films. He banged at the bathroom door.

  “Go away!” boomed Emily from inside. She sounded tearful. “I’m busy. I’m reading Granny Four’s book.”

  “Why are you doing it in there?” Erg asked.

  “Because they keep interrupting and asking where to put potatoes and oranges.”

  “They want you to come out.”

  “I’m not going to,” Emily boomed. “Not till I’ve read it. It’s beautiful. It’s ever so sad.” Erg could hear her sobbing as he went away downstairs.

  He went to the kitchen, where the grannies were sitting among mounds of potatoes and oranges, and told them Emily was reading.

  He thought he would never understand grannies. One by one, they tiptoed to the bathroom, rattled the handle, and whispered there was a cup of tea outside. “And don’t hurt your eyes, dear,” Granny Two whispered. “I’m pushing a cookie under the door for you.”

  It seemed to be keeping them busy. Erg sat behind the sofa and got on with thinking how to make blue water go plotterta-plotterta. But he had still not worked it out when Granny Four came and quavered to him that Emily had not touched her tea. Nor had he when Granny Two came to tell him that Emily was ruining her eyes. Nor had he when Granny One came and told him to go out and get some nice fresh air.

  Erg was annoyed. He wished he had thought of locking himself in the bathroom, too. And he was even more annoyed when Emily at last came out. She came straight to the sofa and crashed heavily down on it with her chin resting on the back.

  “What are you making, dear brother?” she said in a sweet, cooing voice.

  Erg looked up at her suspiciously. There were tear streaks down Emily’s face and an expression on it even more saintly than Granny Four’s. “What’s the matter with you?” he said.

  Emily turned her eyes piously to the ceiling. “I have taken a vow to be good, dear brother,” she said. “It was that beautiful, sad book Granny Four gave me. The girl in it was called Emily, too, and she was terribly punished for her wickedness.”

  “Go away,” said Erg. He was not sure he could bear it if Emily was going to be a saint as well as Granny Four.

  “Ah, dear brother,” cooed Emily, “do not spurn me. I must stay and pray for you. You have wickedly taken all the kitchen things for that Thing you’re making.”

  “It’s not a Thing!” Erg said angrily. Up till now he had not truly considered what his invention was, but Emily so annoyed him that he said rudely, “It’s a prayer machine. You wind the handle and it answers your prayer.”

  “Sinful boy!” Emily said, with her eyes on the ceiling again. “Let us pray. I pray that my beloved brother Erchenwald Randolph Gervase turns into a good boy—”

  That was the most dreadful insult. Erg lost his temper. Usually when people said his string of terrible names, he hit them, but Emily was so much bigger than he was that he had never yet dared hit her. Instead, in a frenzy, he wound at the eggbeater. The squashed tin breathed in and out. The works of the clock ground and crunched inside. The chopstick revolved. The skewer twiddled. The sardine opener and the mincer cutters wobbled and whirled. Erg wound furiously: pray pray pray praypraypray. “Take Emily away!” he shouted. “I don’t want her!”

  In the midst of the noise, he thought he heard Emily stop being a saint and start shouting at him like she usually did. But he did not stop winding. Pray pray pray praypraypray.

  When at last his arm became too tired to go on, he left off winding and looked up to glare at Emily. She was not there. In her place, with its chin resting on the back of the sofa, was a large yellow teddy bear.

  4

  A Large Yellow Teddy Bear

  Erg stared at the teddy. The bear stared back at him. There was a sorrowful expression in its glass eyes and reproach written all over its yellow furry muzzle.

  “Go away,” Erg said to it. “You’re not Emily. You’re just pretending.”

  But the bear remained, leaning on the back of the sofa, staring reproachfully.

  Erg took an alarmed look at his invention. Could it be a prayer machine? Could the chopstick perhaps really be a magic wand? These things just did not happen. On the other hand, he had never seen the teddy before in his life, and its furry face did look remarkably like Emily’s. It was big, too, about as much too large for a teddy as Emily was for a girl. Erg tried not to think of what the grannies would say. He got up and searched the living room. Then he searched the garden. Emily was nowhere in either. Erg went out into the hall to search the rest of the house.

  He stopped short. The front door was wide open. Granny Three was coming in through it, lugging bright red suitcases. Granny Three, of all people! Erg stared. Granny Three’s hair was pale baby pink this time, and the new car outside in the road was bright snake green.

  “There’s no need to stare,” Granny Three said to him. “I’ve come to look after you. Have you seen Emily?”

  “No,” said Erg, trying hard not to look guilty.

  “Why not?” said Granny Three. “I’ve brought her such a sweet dress.” She put the suitcases down and picked up a dress from the hall stand. Erg blinked. It was a very small dress. It did not look as if it would fit the teddy bear, let alone Emily.

  Still, this was the first time Granny
Three had ever been known to give anyone anything.

  The kitchen door opened, and Grannies Four, Two, and One looked out to see what was happening.

  Granny Three took Granny Four in and, behind her, the unwelcoming faces of Grannies Two and One. She patted her pink hair and drew herself up tall. “I had to come,” she said. “My conscience wouldn’t let me leave those two poor children alone.”

  Erg was interested to hear that Granny Three thought she had a conscience. He always thought he inherited his lack of conscience from Granny Three. He looked at the other grannies to see what they thought.

  Grannies Two and One did indeed draw breath as if they intended to say something thoroughly crushing, but then they looked at Erg and did not say it. Grannies Three and Four looked at Erg, too. All four put on sweet smiles.

  And Erg felt horrible. He discovered he must have a conscience, too. He could not think why else he should feel so guilty about that teddy bear. Granny Three said brightly, “Well, what can I do? I brought my apron.” Erg crept away from them upstairs and searched the rest of the house. But Emily was not anywhere. And when Erg went downstairs again, the teddy still sat accusingly on the sofa. Erg was forced to believe that he had indeed turned Emily into a teddy bear.

  He dared not tell the grannies. When they called him to lunch, he said, “Emily’s locked in the bathroom again.”

  “But she’ll miss her dinner,” quavered Granny Four.

  Granny Three, who had settled in as if she had always lived there, said, “Then there’ll be more for us. No, dear,” she added to Granny One, “you must always mash potatoes with cream. I brought some cream.”

  Granny Two could not take the matter so calmly. “We must get Emily out before she grows up peculiar!” she said, and she set off upstairs to the bathroom.

  Erg raced up with her and was just in time to wedge the landing carpet under the door so that it would not open. He left Granny Two there rattling and calling and raced down to the living room. The teddy still sat there, vast and yellow, on the sofa. But Erg felt it would be just like Emily to turn into something else while he was not looking. Then he might not be able to find her to turn her back. He decided to take the teddy in to lunch with him. That was terrible. Granny Three actually smiled kindly. Granny Four took the teddy and sat it in a chair of its own. “Is it a teddy-weddy then?” she said, and pretended to feed the teddy with mashed potato. Granny One kept looking from Erg to the teddy to Granny Four and snorting sarcastically. And when Granny Two came downstairs, she said, “Oh, the fairies have brought you a teddy! How exciting!”

  In between all this, all the grannies wondered where Emily was and said she was growing up peculiar.

  But halfway through lunch Erg noticed the glass salt cellar, and he saw the way out of his troubles. Let him put that salt cellar upside down, with a drinking straw in it. Let both be filled with blue water going plotterta-plotterta. And Erg knew the machine would answer his prayer and turn the teddy back into Emily again. The trouble was, could he do it before the grannies noticed that the teddy’s reproachful face was exactly like Emily’s?

  Erg knew that he was going to have to keep all four grannies very busy.

  5

  How to Keep Four Grannies Busy

  When lunch was over, the grannies all put on aprons to wash up. Erg said he would take some lunch to Emily. Granny One sternly handed him two oranges.

  “Eat those for vitamins,” she said.

  “That’s right, dear,” agreed Granny Two. “Push Emily’s under the door for her.”

  Erg went upstairs and parked the teddy and the lunch in the bath. Then he wedged the door again and went down to the living room. He peeled both oranges and broke the peel into very small bits, which he scattered all over the carpet. But it takes a lot to keep four grannies busy. Erg was still gulping and feeling much too full of orange when Granny One escaped from the washing up and stood in the doorway, staring grimly at the bits of orange peel.

  “I’ll use the vacuum cleaner on it, shall I?” Erg said brightly.

  “No, you will not,” said Granny One. She went and got the vacuum cleaner herself and firmly plugged it in.

  Erg watched expectantly as she switched it on. Since the clip that held the bag together was now part of the prayer machine, there was nothing to hold the dust in the cleaner at all. Dust came out in a cloud, like an explosion. Big wads of dirt followed it. And after that came orange peel, whirling and whizzing. Granny One switched the cleaner off in a hurry and screamed for help.

  Granny Four hurried in and turned faint in the dust. Granny Three came and turned the vacuum cleaner upside down. All the rest of the dust fell out of it.

  “I don’t understand these things,” Granny Three said fretfully. “Telephone for a man.”

  “Pull out the plug first!” gasped Granny Two, hastening to the scene. “There’s electricity leaking into it all the time!”

  “Nonsense!” snapped Granny One, coming to her senses. “Erg, what have you done to this machine?”

  But Erg was already tiptoeing into the kitchen. Hastily he unscrewed the salt cellar and poured the salt into the nearest thing—which happened to be the sugar bowl. He snatched up a packet of transparent drinking straws. Finally, he turned the tap on over the half-finished washing up. It was not long before bubbly water was pouring over onto the floor. Erg turned the tap off again.

  “Hey!” he yelled. “You left the tap running!”

  This fetched all four grannies back at a gallop.

  Satisfied, Erg went back into the dust-hung living room and collected the invention from behind the sofa. He took it up to the bathroom and locked himself in with it and the salt cellar and the straws and the teddy and Emily’s lunch. He thought he had given himself an hour’s peace at least.

  But it takes more than dust and water to keep four grannies busy. Ten minutes later Granny Four was rattling at the bathroom door. “Emily, dear, are you all right?”

  “It’s me in here now,” Erg called. “Emily’s gone for a walk.”

  “Then could you let me in, dear?” Granny Four called back. “I’d like a little wash before I go for my rest.”

  “You can’t rest!” Erg called. He was horrified. Next thing he knew, they would all be up here, fussing about with cups of tea and hot-water bottles and things.

  “Why not, dear?” quavered Granny Four.

  Erg cast about for a reason. His eye fell on the washing basket. “There’s all the washing to do,” he shouted. “I’ll bring it downstairs for you, shall I?”

  “I’d better go and tell them,” quavered Granny Four, and tottered away.

  But when Erg looked in the washing basket, it was empty. Nothing daunted, Erg took off the clothes he was wearing and put them in the basket. Grannies always said clothes were dirty when you had hardly worn them anyway. Then he went to Emily’s room and his own and collected all the clothes he could find there. Erg unfolded them and scrunched them up in his hands and rammed them into the basket. Then he put on clean clothes and staggered downstairs with the basket.

  “Here you are,” he said, emptying the crumpled heap on the kitchen floor.

  The four grannies were gathered there eating chocolates out of the box Granny Three had brought. They gave the heap various looks of suffering and dismay. Granny Four turned pale. Granny Two sprang up, saying she would fill the sink with nice hot water.

  “You’re allowed to use the washing machine,” Erg said.

  “Oh, no, dear,” said Granny Two. “Electricity doesn’t mix with water. It gets into the clothes, you know.”

  On reflection Erg thought that washing in the sink would keep them busier. He took the basket back to the bathroom. Then he undid the toilet cistern and took out the blue block in it to make the blue water that was to go plotterta-plotterta. Then he thought he had better check to see how busy the grannies were.

  He peeped around the kitchen door to find them quite out of control again. Granny Three was standing in th
e heap of clothes sorting them out. She took up a shirt, shook it fiercely, and passed it to Granny One. “This is clean, too,” she said. “I think someone has been making work for us.”

  “Quite right,” said Granny One, holding the shirt up to the light. “Clean and ironed.” She passed the shirt to Granny Two, who smoothed it out and folded it carefully and passed it to Granny Four. Granny Four turned to put the shirt on a large heap of others and saw Erg watching.

  “Will you take these back upstairs, dear?” she said.

  “All right,” said Erg. “And then I’ll bring down the rest of the washing, shall I?”

  “Is there more?” Granny Three asked, transferring her angry look from the next shirt to Erg.

  “Oh, yes,” said Erg. There was going to be, if it killed him.

  He went upstairs with the pile of clothes and locked himself in the bathroom again. At least, Erg thought, he had kept the grannies too busy to think of Emily for some time. But at the rate they were going, they would be asking about her any minute now.

  Erg took the plate of lunch out of the bath and used it to dirty ten of the shirts in the pile. But though he spread the lunch very thinly and carefully with his toothbrush, it would not go around more than ten shirts. He found himself looking longingly at his invention where it sat in the washbasin. Even without the blue water, it had already worked quite well. Erg decided to give it another try.

  He wound the eggbeater—pray pray pray pray-pray-pray. The tin crunched in and out. The mixer blades, the skewer, and the sardine opener grated and revolved. The vacuum cleaner clip, the mincer cutters, and the chopstick wobbled and twirled. “Make the washing keep them busy,” Erg said, winding away.

  6

  Erg’s Invention Works

  Erg’s clean clothes had become quite well covered with lunch and the blue from the toilet block. He took them off and put them in the basket with the ten shirts. In their place, he put on the first clothes left in the heap: Emily’s nightdress, his own jeans, and Emily’s school shirt. Dressed in this flowing raiment, he went down to the living room to roll in the dust there. But Granny Four was there, feebly flicking with a duster.