“Oh, bother!” she shouted, and threw the felt tips across the room.
Tibby by now knew all about Anne in this mood. She jumped off Anne’s bed and galloped for the door. Mrs. Harvey came in with Anne’s lunch just then. Tibby slipped around Mrs. Harvey and ran away.
“Here you are, dear,” Mrs. Harvey said, puffing rather. She put a tray down on Anne’s knees. “I’ve done you macaroni cheese and some nice stewed apple. You can eat that, can’t you?”
Anne knew Mrs. Harvey was being very kind. She smiled, in spite of her crossness, and said, “Yes, thank you.”
“I should think you’d be well enough to go downstairs a bit now,” Mrs. Harvey said, a little reproachfully. “The stairs are hard work.” She went away, saying, “Tell your dad to pop the dishes back tonight. I’m out till then.”
Anne sighed and looked back at the bedspread. To her surprise, Enna Hittims had killed the hermit during the interruption. Anne had meant the hermit to stay alive and guide the heroes to the dragon. She stared at Enna Hittims coolly wiping her enchanted sword clean on a handy tuft of cloth. “Sorry if I lost my temper,” Enna Hittims was saying, “but I don’t think the old fool knew a thing about that dragon.”
Anne was rather shocked. She had not known that Enna Hittims was that unfeeling.
“You did quite right,” said Spike. “You know, I’m beginning to wonder if that dragon exists at all.”
“Me, too,” answered Enna Hittims. She hitched her sword to her belt rather grimly. “And if someone’s having us on—”
“Enna,” Marlene interrupted, “the landscape’s changed again. Over there.”
The three heroes swung around and shaded their eyes with their hands to look at the tray across Anne’s lap. “So it has!” said Enna Hittims. “Well done, Marlene! What is it up there?”
“A tableland,” said Spike. “There are two white mountains, and one’s steaming. Do you think it could be the dragon?”
“Probably only a new volcano,” said Enna Hittims. “Let’s go and see.”
The three heroes set off along the top of Anne’s right leg, walking swiftly in single file, and Anne watched them in some alarm. She did not want them climbing over her lunch while she tried to eat it.
“Go back,” she said. “The dragon’s going to be down by my right knee.”
“What was that?” Marlene whispered nervously as she followed the other two up the slant of Anne’s thigh.
“Just thunder. We’re always hearing it,” said Enna Hittims. “Don’t whinge, Marlene.”
The three heroes stood in a row with their chins on the edge of the lunch tray.
“Well, how about that!” said Enna Hittims. She pointed to the plate of macaroni cheese. “That hill of hot pipes—do you think it’s an installation of some kind?”
“There could be a baby dragon in each pipe,” Marlene suggested.
“What are those shiny things?” Spike wondered, pointing at the knife, fork, and spoon.
“Silver bars,” Enna Hittims said. “We’ll have to find an elephant and tow them away. This must be the dragon’s lair. But what’s that?”
The three heroes stared at the bowl of stewed apple.
“Pale yellow slush,” said Spike, “with a sour smell. Dragon sick?”
“It could be some kind of gold mulch,” Marlene said doubtfully. She looked carefully across the tray, searching for some clue. Her eyes went on, up the hill of Anne’s body beyond. She jumped and clutched Spike’s sleeve. “Look!” she whispered. “Up there!”
Spike looked. He turned quietly to Enna Hittims. “Look up, but don’t be too obvious about it,” he murmured. “Isn’t that a giant face up there?”
Enna Hittims glanced up. She nodded. “Right. Very big and purple, with little, piggy eyes. It’s some kind of giant. We’ll have to kill it.”
“Now look here—” Anne called out.
But the three heroes took her voice for thunder, just as they always did. Enna Hittims went on briskly laying her plans. “Marlene and Spike, you go around the tableland, one on each side, and climb up its hair. Swing over when you’re above the nose and stab an eye each. I’ll go in over the middle and see if I can cut its fat throat.” Spike and Marlene nodded and raced away around the edges of the tray.
Anne did not wait to see if the plan worked. She picked up the tray and pushed it on top of her bedside cupboard. Then she scrambled out of bed as fast as she could go. This of course changed the landscape completely, toppling all three heroes over and burying them under mountains of sheet and blanket. Anne hoped that had done for them. It ought to have done, since they were only part of her imagination.
To give them time to smother, or vanish, or something, Anne went down to the kitchen and got herself a glass of milk. She looked for Tibby to give her some milk, too, but Tibby seemed to have gone out through her cat flap. She went back to her bedroom, hoping the heroes had gone.
They were still there. Spike was up on her pillow, whirling his spike around his head on the end of a rope. He let it fly just as Anne came in, and it stuck firmly into the edge of the tray. It was a tin tray, but the spike was magic, of course, and would stick into anything Spike wanted it to. Spike, Enna Hittims, and Marlene all took hold of the rope and heaved. The tray slid. It tipped.
“No, stop!” Anne said weakly. She had not balanced the tray properly in her hurry.
One end of the tray came down into the bed. Down slid the macaroni cheese, and down slid the stewed apple after it. The heroes saw it coming. They leaped expertly for safety up on the pillows. They were used to this kind of thing. While Anne was still staring at macaroni and apple soaking into her sheets, Spike was dashing down and rescuing his spike.
Enna Hittims walked around the marsh of stewed apple and sliced at a macaroni tube with her sword. “It’s not alive,” she said. “Don’t just stand there, Marlene. We’re going up that ramp to find that giant and finish him off. It’s obviously the giant that’s been changing the landscape all the time. No giant’s going to do that to me!”
They started scrambling up the sloping tray. Anne hoped it would be too slippery for them. But no. Spike used his spike to help him scramble up. Enna Hittims used her sword one-handed to hack footholds and walked up backward, dragging Marlene with her other hand and snapping, “Do come on, Marlene!”
Even before they were halfway up to the bedside cupboard, Anne knew that the only sensible thing to do was to pick the tray up and tip them back into the stewed apple. And then put the tray on top of them and press. But she could not bring herself to do anything so nasty. She stood and watched them climb on top of the cupboard. Enna Hittims stood with her hands on her hips, surveying the bedroom.
“We’re in the giant’s house now,” she said confidently.
“And he’ll be a mountain of cat food before long,” said Spike. Marlene laughed with pleasure.
Anne ran out of the bedroom and shut the door with a slam. She ran down to the living room and stood with her hands together and her eyes shut. “Go away, all three of you!” she prayed. “Go. Disappear. Vanish. You’re only made up!”
Then she went back upstairs to see if the prayer had worked. Her bedroom door was still shut, but there was some kind of purple tube sticking out from under the door. As Anne bent down to see what it was, she heard Enna Hittims’s voice from behind the door. “Well, what is out there, Marlene?”
“A huge passage,” Marlene’s voice replied. The tube was the mauve felt tip with its inside taken out. It swung sideways as Anne looked. “Oh!” said Marlene. “There’s a giant out there now! I can see its toes.”
“Great!” said Enna Hittims. “Let’s get after it.” There was a burring, splintering noise. The tip of Enna Hittims’s enchanted sword, together with a lot of sawdust, made a neat half circle in the bottom of the bedroom door.