Ogg Read online

  During the following days, Ogg had visited her frequently. It got so that if a day passed without at least a fleeting Ogg conversation she felt a little let-down. He always stimulated her imagination with difficult questions she never seemed able to quite answer. She learned a lot about Ogg, and about the differences between ordinary humans and Great Beings, which is what she had decided Ogg was. They were strange conversations, for often Ogg would use his superhuman powers to reach into her thoughts and respond to them without her even having to say anything. It was both disconcerting and annoying for Antonia, because it made her feel a bit useless, and on one occasion she had mentioned it to Ogg. But he had reminded her that while he could read her mind, she couldn’t read his, so she needed to hear what he said so that she could react to it.

  “But, if you like,” he had told her, “I can be here, and talk to you, and you don’t have to see me, or even hear me.”

  “What, like inside my mind, you mean? I’m not at all sure I’d like that. How could I tell when it was you speaking and when it was just me thinking?”

  “Ah! That is a G.P.Q.!”

  “G.P.Q.?”

  “Great Philosophical Question. It’s a question that almost no one understands, no one knows the answer to, and lots of great and learned men spend years and years thinking about.”

  “What’s the point of it, then?” Antonia asked.

  “That,” Ogg told her, triumphantly, “is another G.P.Q.”

  “Aah!” she had said, looking puzzled but obviously thinking. And, when the Great Problem arose, it was this response, above all, that confirmed Ogg had been right to choose her to help him.