The Ogre of Oglefort by Eva Ibbotson Page A

she said. “Mothers are like that.”
    The wizard sighed. “I’m afraid I’m a disappointment to her.” He looked down at the contents of the bowl, which he was stirring absently. “You can’t blame her for being worried. I mean, it doesn’t look much like a magic potion, does it?” he said sadly.
    The Hag looked. She looked again. She fetched a bottle of olive oil from the larder and a bottle of vinegar. She fetched a fork. . . .
    Her face was shining. “No,” she said. “You’re right. You haven’t made a magic potion, Brian, but you have made something much, much better. You have made a salad!”
    And from that day, the wizard did more and more of the cooking. He learned to make excellent soup from the vegetables in the garden—because after all soup is not so different from a magic potion; it is all about stirring and mixing—and sometimes a little muttering—and he tried out other recipes. He took great pride in the job and was happy for the first time in his life, and Mrs. Brainsweller stopped appearing to him because the kind spiders always blotted her out with their webs, and gradually she gave up and left her son alone.
    So the wizard was happy and so was the troll—and the Hag was in a state of bliss because she knew that the Dribble was
there
even on days when she couldn’t get to it.
    As for the children, they couldn’t imagine a better life than the one they now had.

CHAPTER
15
THE OGRE BATH

    W hen they had been at the castle for nearly three weeks they saw a man in a jerkin come over the drawbridge carrying a large churn of frothy milk, which he wanted to sell them. His name was Brod and he kept a cow and some chickens in a small farm on the other side of the ogre’s land. He used to supply the ogre with milk and eggs in the old days but the ogre’s servants had cheated him so badly that he’d stopped coming.
    â€œBut I saw them skiving off,” he said. “So if you give me a fair price I’ll do business with you.”
    The Hag was delighted but worried, too. “I don’t think we have any money,” she said.
    Brod stared at her. “The ogre’s got a pile of gold pieces. Keeps them in his sock. You go and ask him and tell him it’s Brod. He knows me.”
    The ogre was not at all pleased to be interrupted, but he admitted that he knew Brod and said that they could look in his sock drawer for the gold pieces.
    The drawer was not a pleasant place, but after a long search they found the gold coins and took one down to Brod.
    â€œI’ll supply you for six months for that,” he said when he had bitten it to make sure it was genuine.
    So now they had milk and eggs, and the larder was filling with blackberries and dried mushrooms, and they picked blackberries and rose hips in the hedgerows.
    â€œWhat an idiot I was wanting to be a bird up in the cold sky,” said Mirella. “No trees, no grass, no water, no work to do—just empty space.”
    But the ogre was beginning to be a worry. At first they simply waited for him to give up the idea of dying, but he wouldn’t. And if you get an idea like that into your head, you can seriously make yourself weaker and weaker. He was also getting not just ordinarily disgusting, but very disgusting indeed, and there came a morning when they all stood around his bed and told him that he had to have a bath.
    â€œOgres don’t have baths, I’ve told you,” he said. “I never had one when Germania was alive.”
    But Ulf said if he wanted them to go on looking after him, a bath was essential, otherwise he was on his own. “And anyway your aunts are coming. And Clarence.”
    â€œAh yes, Clarence.”
    They waited for the ogre to tell them more about Clarence, but he just sighed as he always did when he mentioned his name—and the moment passed.
    â€œAnd you must change your