Stopping for a Spell Read online

  “What are you doing, dear?”

  “Playing oil sheiks,” said Erg. He went out into the garden and rolled in a flower bed.

  Granny Four was not in the living room when he came back. To Erg’s horror, she met him outside the bathroom, carrying the teddy. “You forgot teddy-weddy, dear.”

  It was awful how the grannies kept getting out of control. Erg locked the door and took off the raiment. He put on the next things: Emily’s tartan skirt and a frilly blouse. This time he took the teddy with him and wedged the bathroom door shut.

  “What are you doing now, dear?” asked Granny Four.

  “Playing North Sea oil,” Erg explained. “The teddy is my sporran.” He went and rolled in the flower bed again.

  This time he got safely back to the bathroom. But he did not dare leave the teddy behind when he set out again in the next set of clothes, which were his own striped pajamas.

  “I’m playing going to bed,” he told Granny Four before she could ask, and went and rolled in the flower bed once more.

  While he was rolling, Granny Two and Granny Three came into the garden with a basket of washing to hang on the clothesline. They were struggling to hold a ballooning skirt and a kicking pair of jeans in what seemed a very strong wind. Erg lay in the earth and watched. The skirt made a strong dive and almost got away. Both grannies caught it. It took them some time to get it pegged, and the dress they took up next seemed to be blowing even harder. Erg licked one finger and thoughtfully held it up. There was almost no wind. Yet the row of things on the line was flapping and struggling and kicking as if there were half a gale.

  Interesting. But where was Granny One? Erg got up and went through the back door into the kitchen to check on Granny One. She was not there. But while Erg was looking around to make sure, the pile of wet washing on the draining board rolled heavily over and went flap, down onto the kitchen floor. Erg could see it oozing and trickling and spreading over the floor. He watched with interest. The washing was definitely working its way over toward the nearest heap of potatoes to get itself nice and dirty again.

  Erg was delighted. The prayer machine worked! He went upstairs in his earthy pajamas, convinced that the chopstick really must be some kind of magic wand. He only needed to get the blue water working, and he could turn Emily back again.

  But Granny One was outside the bathroom door, knocking and rattling at it. She turned and looked at Erg. He had rarely seen her look so grim.

  “Take those pajamas off at once! What are you and Emily—?”

  “The washing,” Erg said hastily, “has fallen on the kitchen floor.”

  To his relief, Granny One pushed past him and went rushing downstairs to rescue the washing. Erg locked himself in the bathroom again and put the teddy back in the bath. He was beginning to feel that four grannies were too much for any boy to control. There was another annoying thing, too. There were no more of his own clothes left to wear. He had got them all dirty. He stayed in his pajamas and got down to work on the salt cellar at last.

  He had the salt cellar nicely filled with blue water when he was interrupted again, by quivering shouts from the garden. Erg could not resist opening the bathroom window to look. There was washing all over the garden. Some of it was blowing and kicking in the gooseberry bushes. The rest of it was whirling around and around the lawn with all four grannies chasing it. Satisfied, Erg shut the window. He was determined to finish his invention.

  It was much trickier than he had thought. The hole in the lid of the salt cellar was not big enough to get a straw through. Erg had to enlarge it with the skewer. And when he had got the straw to go through, he could not get the salt cellar to stand properly upside down on top of the machine. He had to bend open the blades of the electric mixer to hold it. And when he had done that, he still could not get the blue water to go plotterta-plotterta. It simply ran down through the straw and into the inside of the biscuit tin. When Erg wound the handle of the egg-beater, the water came out of the holes in the tin in blue showers.

  “Bother!” said Erg.

  As he put more blue water into the salt cellar, he began to feel that everything was getting out of hand. The machine would not work. The earthy front of his pajamas was blue and soaking, and so was most of the bathroom. And to crown it all, there was a new outcry from the grannies, from the kitchen this time. This was followed by feet on the stairs.

  Next moment all four grannies were outside the bathroom door.

  “Come out of there at once!” snapped Granny One.

  “We’re so worried, dear,” hushed Granny Two.

  “It was very unkind of you, dear,” quavered Granny Four, “to fill the sugar bowl with salt.”

  But it was Granny Three who really alarmed Erg. “You know,” she said, “that child has done something with Emily. I’ve not set eyes on her all the time I’ve been here.”

  Erg’s eyes went guiltily to the sad face of the teddy in the bath.

  Outside the door, Granny Two said, “I shall phone the fire brigade to get him out.”

  “And spank him when he is,” Granny One agreed.

  Erg listened to no more. He rammed the salt cellar and the straw back in place and wound the eggbeater. Pray pray pray praypraypray. Blue water squirted. The works of the clock sploshed. Around and around went the chopstick, the mixer blades, the salt cellar, the skewer, the sardine opener, the mincer cutters, the straw, and the clip off the vacuum cleaner.

  “Only one granny,” prayed Erg, winding desperately. “I can’t manage more than one—please!”

  7

  Supergranny

  There was a sudden silence outside the bathroom door. It’s worked! Erg thought.

  “Erg,” said a large, quavery voice outside. “Erg, open this door.”

  “In a minute,” Erg called.

  The words were hardly out of his mouth when the bathroom door leaped and crashed open against the wall. The one granny Erg had asked for came in. Only one. But Erg stared at her in horror. She was six feet tall and huge all over. Her hair was the baby pink of Granny Three’s. Her face was the stern face of Granny One, except that it wore the worried look of Granny Two. Her voice was the quavery voice of Granny Four, but it was four times as loud. Erg knew at a glance that what he had here was all four grannies in one. They had blended into Supergranny. He jumped up to run.

  Supergranny swept toward Erg. With one hand she caught Erg’s arm in a grip of steel. At the same time she was keenly scanning the rest of the bathroom.

  “What is this mess?” she quavered menacingly. “And where is Emily?”

  Erg dared not tell the truth. He avoided the teddy’s accusing stare. “Emily went to play in the park,” he said.

  “Very well,” said Supergranny. “We shall go and get her. Come along, dear.”

  “I can’t go like this!” Erg protested, looking down at his earthy, blue, wet pajamas.

  All the grannies were a little deaf when it suited them. Supergranny was superdeaf. “Come along, dear,” she said. She plucked the teddy out of the bath and planted it in Erg’s arms. “Don’t forget teddy-weddy the fairies brought you.” And she pulled Erg toward the door.

  All Erg could think of was to spare one hand from the teddy and snatch up his invention from the washbasin as he was pulled away. Blue water from it trickled down his legs as Supergranny towed him downstairs, but Erg hung on to it grimly. As soon as he got a chance, he was going to wind the eggbeater again and get Supergranny sent to Mars—which was surely where she belonged.

  But in the hall Supergranny’s piercing eye fell on the prayer machine. “You can’t take that nasty thing, dear,” she said. She dragged it away from Erg and dropped it on the floor. Miserably Erg tried dropping the teddy, too. But Supergranny picked it up again and once more planted it in Erg’s arms. “Come along, dear.”

  Erg found himself in the street outside the house, in wet blue pajamas, with one hand clutching a huge teddy and the other in the iron grip of Supergranny. Behind him
the front door crashed shut. Erg could tell by the noise that it had locked itself. “Have you got a key?” he said hopelessly.

  All the grannies were a little vague at times, when it suited them. Supergranny was supervague. “I don’t know, dear. Come along.”

  Erg knew he was locked out of the house and the prayer machine locked in. As a last hope, he tried lingering beside Granny Three’s snake green car. “Can we drive to the park?”

  But three of the grannies did not know how to drive, and that canceled out the one who did. “I don’t know how to drive, dear,” said Supergranny.

  So Erg was forced to trot along the pavement beside Supergranny. They kept passing people Erg knew. Not one of these people spared a glance for Supergranny. It was as if they saw pink-haired superwomen every day. But every single person stared at Erg, and Erg’s pajamas, and the huge teddy bear. Erg tried to keep an expression on his face of a boy playing woad-stained Ancient British convicts who had just slain a fierce teddy bear. But either that was too hard an idea for one face to express, or Erg did not express it very well. Almost everybody laughed.

  Erg was glad when they reached the park and found it nearly empty, except for some girls on the swings.

  Here Supergranny seemed to forget they had come to look for Emily. But that did not help Erg. Supergranny led him over to the slide and the swings. “You play, dear. Slide down the slide, while I rest my poor feet.” She sat heavily on the nearest park bench.

  Erg tried to defy her. “What if I don’t slide down the slide?” he asked.

  “Awful things happen to little boys who disobey,” Supergranny quavered placidly.

  Erg looked her in the steely eye and believed it. He leaned the teddy against the steps of the slide and began bitterly to climb up. He knew that when he got to the top, the girls on the swings would see him and laugh, too.

  But when he got to the top of the slide, everyone had left the swings except one big girl. She was such a big girl that she had to swing with her legs stuck straight out in front of her. Erg sat at the top of the slide and stared.

  That big girl was Emily!

  Unbelievingly, Erg craned to look over his shoulder. The big yellow teddy bear was still leaning against the steps of the slide. Had the invention perhaps not been a prayer machine after all? Erg looked hopefully over at the park bench. Supergranny still sat there. Her pink head was nodding in a superdoze.

  Erg flung himself on the slide and shot down it. He shot off the bottom and raced across to the swings.

  “Emily!” he panted. “What happened? Where did you go?”

  Emily gave Erg an unfriendly look. “To have lunch with my friend Josephine,” she said. “Dear brother,” she added, and stood up against the swing ready to shoot forward on it and kick Erg in the stomach.

  “Oh, be nice, please!” Erg begged her. “Why did you go?”

  “Because you were so horrid to me,” said Emily. “And then when I opened the front door, Granny Three was outside heaving a teddy out of her car, and I couldn’t face her. I hate Granny Three. So I hid behind the door while she went to give you the teddy, and then I ran around to Josephine’s.”

  So the teddy had come from Granny Three. It was all a terrible mistake. It was a natural mistake, perhaps, because Granny Three had never been known to give anyone anything before, but a mistake all the same. And to make matters worse, Supergranny had noticed Erg was not sliding. She sprang up and came scouring across to the swings, calling for Erg in a long, quavering hoot, like a magnified owl. It was such a noise, that people were running from the other end of the park to see what was the matter.

  Erg watched her coming, feeling like a drowning man whose life is passing before him in a flash. The prayer machine had been working all along, he knew now. He had not asked it to turn Emily into a teddy bear, but he had asked it to send her away, and it did. It had not needed blue water. It had made the washing keep the grannies busy without. It did not even need to be a machine. It was the chopstick that did things. And, like all such things, Erg saw wretchedly, as Supergranny pounded toward him, it gave you three wishes, and he had used all three. He had no way of getting rid of Supergranny at all.

  Emily stared at the vast, running Supergranny. “Whoever is that?”

  “Supergranny,” said Erg. “She’s all of them, and she’s after me. Please help me. I’ll never be horrible to you again.”

  “Don’t make promises you can’t keep,” said Emily, but she let go of the swing and stood up.

  Supergranny pounded up. “There you are, Emily!” she hooted. “I’ve been so worried!”

  “I was only in the park,” Emily said. “I think we’ll go home now.” She was, Erg was interested to see, nearly as large as Supergranny.

  “Yes, dear,” Supergranny said, almost meekly. And when Emily picked up the teddy and gave it to her, Supergranny took it without complaining.

  They set off home. “How are we going to get in?” Erg whispered to Emily. “She’s locked us out.”

  “No problem. I took the key,” Emily said.

  Halfway home, Supergranny’s feet began superkilling her. She came over superfaint and had to lean on Erg and Emily. Erg had to stand staggering under her huge weight on his own while Emily fetched out her key and opened the front door.

  “Good Lord!” said Emily.

  The hall was full of dirty clothes. Dry dirty clothes were now galloping and billowing downstairs. Wet dirty clothes were crawling soggily through from the kitchen. Emily shot a horrified look at Supergranny and went charging indoors to catch the nearest pair of dirty jeans. She tripped over the invention in the middle of the floor. She fell flat on her face. Crunch. Crack. The eggbeater rolled out from one side in two pieces. The chopstick rolled the other way, snapped in half.

  “Ow!” said Emily.

  The clothes flopped down and lay where they fell. Supergranny’s mighty arm seemed to disentangle itself between Erg’s hands. It was suddenly four arms. Erg let go, and found himself surrounded by the four grannies, all staring into the hall, too.

  “Get up, Emily!” snapped Granny One.

  “Oh, Erg!” said Granny Two. “Out of doors in pajamas! You are growing up peculiar!”

  “I shall take your teddy away again,” said Granny Three. “Look at this mess! You don’t deserve nice toys!”

  “Let’s have a nice cup of tea,” quavered Granny Four. A thought struck her. She turned pale. “We can do without sugar,” she said faintly. “It’s better for us.”

  Erg looked from one to the other. He was very relieved and very grateful to Emily. But he knew he was not going to enjoy the next three days.

  Who Got Rid

  of Angus Flint?

  1

  Angus Flint Arrives

  The day my sister, Cora, went away for a fortnight, a friend of Dad’s called Angus Flint rang up out of the blue. He said his wife had just left him, so could he come and see us to cheer himself up? I don’t know how my father came to have a friend like Angus Flint. They met at college. One of them must have been different.

  Trust my awful little brother to ruin this paper, when Angus Flint stole all the rest. Pip’s never recovered from Cora once rashly telling him he was a genius, and he thinks he was the one who got rid of Angus Flint. And I’m not awful. Things just happened to me.

  Anyway, Dad was pleased Angus Flint had not forgotten him, so he said, “Yes,” and then told Mum. Mum said, “Oh,” in the blank sort of way I do when I find my brothers have pinched all my chocolate. Then she said, “I suppose he can have Cora’s room.” Imagine the way an Ancient Roman might say, “I suppose the lions can have my best friend,” and you’ll know how she said it.

  That ought to have been a warning because Mum can like people no sane person can stand, but I was doing my piano practice, so I didn’t attend. Miss Hawksmoore had given me an all-time big hit to work on called “Elfin Dance,” and I was grinding my teeth at it. It sounds like two very glum medium-sized elephants trying to wal
tz. And the next number in my book is a top pop called “Fairy Rondeau.” I only carry on because I like our piano so much. It’s a great black grand piano that Mum bought for £10, cheap at £1,000 to our minds.

  Pip can’t decide what he’s a genius at, but a little while ago he thought he might be a genius at playing the piano. He was doing his practice when Angus Flint arrived. But before that Pip and Tony—Tony’s the brother between me and Pip—had been so glad that Cora was not around to henpeck them that they had celebrated by eating—Well, they wouldn’t say what they had eaten, but Tony had come out in spots and been sick. Tony has the art of looking bland and vague when any misdeed happens. Mum thought he really was ill. When Angus Flint breezed in, Tony was in a chair in the sitting room with a bowl on his knees, and Mum was fussing.

  Now this shows you what Angus Flint was like. Mum went to shake hands, saying she was sorry we were at sixes and sevens. And she explained that Tony had been taken ill.

  Angus Flint said, “Then open the window. I don’t want to get it.” Those were his first words. He was square and stumpy, and he had a blank sort of face with a pout to it. His voice was loud and jolly.

  Mum looked rather taken aback, but she slid the big window open a little and told Tony to go to bed. Dad asked Angus Flint to sit down. Angus Flint looked critically at the chairs and then sat in the best one. Dad had just begun to ask him where he was living these days when he bounced up again.

  “This is a horribly uncomfortable chair. It’s not fit to sit in,” he said.

  We hadn’t done anything to it—though I wish we had now—it was just that the chair is one of Mum’s bargains. All our furniture is bargains. But Pip looked at me meaningly and grinned, because I was shuddering. I can’t bear anyone to insult a piece of furniture to its face. No matter how ugly or uncomfortable a chair or a table is, I don’t think it should be told. It can’t help it, poor thing. I know most of our furniture is hideous, and most of the chairs hurt you sooner or later, but there’s no need to say so. But I don’t think furniture can read, so I don’t mind writing it.