Hogfather

     'Puzzling, that,' said Ridcully. 'My dad used to say the Verruca  Gnome turned up if you walked around in bare feet but  I never knew you existed. I thought he just  made it  up. I mean, tooth  fairies,  yes,  and them little buggers that live in flowers, used to collect 'em myself as a lad, but can't recall  anything  about  verrucas.' He  drank thoughtfully. 'Cot  a  distant cousin  called Verruca, as a matter of fact.  It's quite a nice sound,  when you come to think of it.'

     He looked at the gnome over the top of his glass.

     You didn't become Archchancellor without a feeling for subtle wrongness in a situation. Well,  that  wasn't quite true. It was  more accurate to say that you didn't remain Archchancellor for very long.

     'Good job, is it?' he said thoughtfully.

     'Dandruff'd  be better,'  said the gnome. 'At  least I'd  be out in the fresh air.'

     'I think we'd better check  up on  this,' said Ridcully. 'Of course, it might be nothing.'

     'Oh, thank you,' said the Verruca Gnome, gloomily.

     It was a magnificent Grotto this year, Vernon Crumley told himself. The staff  had  worked really hard. The Hogfather's sleigh was a work of art  in itself, and the pigs looked really real and a wonderful shade of pink.

     The Grotto took up nearly all of the first floor. One of the pixies had been  Disciplined for smoking  behind  the  Magic Tinkling Waterfall and the clockwork Dolls of All Nations showing how We Could All Get Along were a bit jerky and giving trouble but all in all, he  told himself, it was a  display to Delight the Hearts of Kiddies everywhere.

     The  kiddies  were queueing up  with  their  parents  and watching  the display owlishly.

     And the money was coming in. Oh, how the money was coming in.

     So  that  the staff would  not be  Tempted, Mr Crumley  had  set  up an arrangement  of  overhead  wires  across  the ceilings of the  store. In the middle of each floor  was a cashier in a little cage. Staff took money  from customers, put it in a little clockwork cable car, sent it whizzing overhead to the cashier,  who'd make change and  start  it rattling back  again. Thus there  was  no possibility  of Temptation,  and  the  little  trolleys  were shooting back and forth like fireworks.

     Mr Crumley loved Hogswatch. It was for. the Kiddies, after all.

     He tucked his fingers in the pockets of his waistcoat and beamed.

     'Everything going well, Miss Harding?'

     'Yes, Mr Crumley,' said the cashier, meekly.

     'Jolly good.' He looked at the pile of coins.

     A bright little  zig-zag  crackled off them and earthed  itself on  the metal grille.

     Mr Crumley blinked. In front of him sparks  flashed  off the steel rims of Miss Harding's spectacles.

     The  Grotto display changed. For just a fraction of a second Mr Crumley had the sensation of speed, as though what appeared had screeched to a halt. Which was ridiculous.

     The four pink papier-mache pigs exploded. A cardboard snout bounced off Mr Crumley's head.

     There, sweating and grunting  in the place where the little piggies had been, were ...  well, he  assumed  they were pigs, because hippopotamuses didn't have pointy ears  and rings  through their noses.  But  the creatures were huge and grey and bristly and a cloud of acrid mist hung over each one.

     And they didn't look sweet. There  was nothing charming about them. One turned to look at  him with small, red eyes, and didn't go 'oink', which was the  sound  that  Mr Crumley,  born  and  raised  in  the  city, had  always associated with pigs.

     It went 'Ghnaaarrrwnnkh?'

     The sleigh had changed, too.  He'd been very pleased  with that sleigh. It had delicate  silver  curly  bits on it.  He'd personally supervised  the gluing on  of  every  twinkling star. But the splendour of it  was  lying in glittering shards around a sledge that looked as though it had been built of crudely  sawn tree trunks  laid on two  massive  wooden  runners.  It looked ancient and there were  faces carved on the wood, nasty crude grinning faces that looked quite out of place.

     Parents were  yelling and trying to  pull their children away, but they weren't having  much  luck. The  children were gravitating  towards  it like flies to jam.

     Mr Crumley ran towards the terrible thing, waving his hands.

     'Stop that! Stop that!' he screamed. 'You'll frighten the Kiddies!'

     He heard a small boy behind him say, 'They 've got tusks! Cool!'

     His sister  said, 'Hey, look, that  one's  doing a wee!'  A  tremendous cloud of yellow steam arose. 'Look,  it's  going all the  way to the stairs! All those who can't swim hold onto the banisters!'

     'They eat you if you're bad, you know,' said a small girl with  obvious approval. 'All up. Even the bones. They crunch them.'

     Another,  older,  child  opined: 'Don't be childish. They're not  real. They've just got a wizard in to do the magic. Or it's all done by clockwork. Everyone knows they're not really r...'

     One  of the  boars  turned to  look  at  him. The  boy moved behind his mother.