he found a good smell, he poured it carefully into a toothmug and mixed another. The savour of the room went through rotten cabbage, elderly egg, mouldy melon, gasworks and bad breath; blue smoke hung about in it. Caspar, who was lying on his bed doing history homework, coughed considerably, but he bore it in a good cause.
When Gwinny came in instead of going to bed, she was exquisitely disgusted. She sat beside Johnny in her pink nightdress, wriggling her bare toes and pretending to smoke one of the Ogre’s pipes that she had stolen. “Eeugh!” she said, and peered at Johnny’s flushed face through the gathering smoke. “We look like a witches’ convent. Caspar looks like a devil looming through the smoke.”
“Coven,” said Caspar. “Devil yourself.”
Giggling, Gwinny stuck her spiky hair out round her head and carefully tapped some of the ash out of the pipe into the toothmug. The mixture fizzed a little. “Do you think it’ll explode now?” she asked hopefully.
“Shouldn’t think so,” said Johnny. “Move, or you’ll get burnt.”
“Is it smelly enough?” asked Gwinny.
“I still haven’t found the one Malcolm got,” admitted Johnny.
“Try a dead fish or so. That should do it,” Caspar suggested. Gwinny squealed with laughter.
“Gwinny!” boomed the voice of the Ogre. “Are you in bed?”
Gwinny dropped the pipe, jumped up and fled. In her hurry, she knocked the toothmug flying and Johnny was too late to save it. Half the mixture spilt on the carpet. The rest splashed muddily on Gwinny’s legs and nightdress. Gwinny squealed again as she raced for the door. “It’s cold!” But she dared not stop to apologise. She continued racing, up the next stairs and into her little room on the top floor. She left behind her the most appalling smell. It was worlds worse than the one Malcolm had produced. It was so horrible that it awed them. They were staring at one another in silence, when Gwinny began to scream.
“Caspar! Johnny! Caspar! Oh, come quickly!”
Caspar and Johnny pelted up to Gwinny’s room regardless of noise. Johnny thought she was on fire, Caspar that she was being eaten away by acids. They burst into the room and stood staring. Gwinny did not seem to be there. Her lamp was lit, her bed was empty, her window shut, and her doll’s house and all her other things arranged around as usual, but they could not see Gwinny.
“She’s gone,” said Caspar helplessly.
“No I haven’t,” said Gwinny, her voice quivering rather. “I’m up here.” Both their heads turned upwards. Gwinny appeared to be hanging from the ceiling. Her shoulders were lodged in the corner where the roof stopped sloping and turned into flat ceiling, her bony legs were dangling straight down beneath her, and her hands were nervously clasped in front of her. She looked a bit like a puppet. “And I can’t come down,” she added.
“However did you get up?” demanded Johnny.
“I sort of floated,” said Gwinny. “I went all light after that stuff splashed on me, and while I was getting into bed I got so light that I just went straight up and stayed here.”
“Lordy!” said Johnny. “Suppose the window had been open!” It was a nasty thought. Both boys had visions of a light, leaf-like Gwinny floating out into the night and then up and up, unable to stop, like a hydrogen balloon.
“Let’s get her down,” said Caspar. “Come on.”
By standing on the bed, Caspar thought he could just reach Gwinny’s feet, if he jumped as he reached. Johnny stood in front of the bed to help catch her. Caspar got on the bed and jumped. His fingers brushed Gwinny’s feet, but he could not get a grip. To his annoyance, the slight push he had given her was enough to send Gwinny bobbing gently out into the middle of the room, quite out of reach.
“Oh dear!” said Gwinny. “Could you lasso me or something?”
Johnny took the cord off Gwinny’s dressing gown to try. But he remembered he had never been able to make a lasso that worked. “I’ll throw it,” he said. “You catch it. Both hands and carefully, mind.” He threw the cord upwards – quite a good shot. It hit Gwinny’s chest and slithered away down her legs. But Gwinny had always been hopeless at catching things. She missed the cord and went bobbing and twirling away towards the window with the movement.
“That’s no good,” said Caspar. “She’ll be all night before she gets hold of it. Gwinny, can you work yourself along the ceiling, back over the bed, and I’ll have another go at catching you.”
“I’ll try,” Gwinny said doubtfully. She put up one hand and pushed at the ceiling. The next moment, to the surprise of all three, she was swooping through the air towards the bed. Caspar raced after her, but, by the time he reached the bed, Gwinny had rebounded from the sloping roof and swooped out into the middle of the ceiling again. “Ooh!” she said, with her spiky head bobbing excitedly against the flex of the light. “That was ever such a nice feeling! I think I’ll do it again.” And, to Caspar’s exasperation, Gwinny began pushing with a hand here, then there, swooping this way and that and laughing. Johnny started to laugh too, because Gwinny looked like a gawky pink chicken with her nightdress and long bony legs.
“We must make her stop being so silly,” Caspar said. “Gwinny,” he said to the soles of Gwinny’s swooping feet, “we’ve got to get you down. Don’t you understand? Suppose the Ogre finds you like that.”
“He wouldn’t be able to catch me,” Gwinny said gaily, shooting from the window to the space above the door.
“Yes he would,” said Caspar. “Think how tall he is.”
“Yes, but Caspar.” said Johnny, “what’ll we do if we do get her down? Won’t she just shoot up again?”
“We could tie her down,” Caspar suggested.
“Oh no you won’t!” Gwinny called. She pushed off from the wall with her feet and floated on her back across the room, to the far corner. And there she lay, with her stomach and toes gently brushing the ceiling and a complacent smile on her face. “Try and catch me now,” she said.
They saw it was no use expecting her to be sensible. “Do you think we could get rid of the chemicals somehow, and get her down that way?” Caspar said.
“It might wash off,” said Johnny.
“Let’s try,” said Caspar.
They raced down two floors to the bathroom. There, Johnny seized the big mop that was used to wash the floor and Caspar seized the backbrush, and they hurried upstairs again. As they passed the door of Malcolm’s and Douglas’s room, they heard Douglas call out something about “herd of blinking elephants!” but they were too fussed to bother.
Gwinny was lying on her back near the middle of the ceiling now. Johnny raised the dripping mop and aimed it for the part of Gwinny’s legs where he thought the chemicals had splashed. But it is not easy to aim a long, top-heavy mop. He hit Gwinny plumb on the backside. She shrieked, “Stop it! It’s cold!” and went floundering and scrambling
