Hogfather

     And she was, to her mild horror, naturally good with them. She wondered suspiciously if this was a  family trait. And  if, to judge by  the way  her hair so readily knotted  itself into a prim bun, she  was  destined for jobs like this for the rest of her life.

     It was her parents' fault.  They hadn't meant it to turn out like this. At least, she hoped charitably that they hadn't.

     They'd wanted to protect her, to keep her away  from the worlds outside this one, from what people thought of as the occult, from ... well, from her grandfather, to  put  it bluntly.  This  had, she felt,  left  her a  little twisted up.

     Of course, to be  fair, that was a parent's  job. The world was so full of  sharp  bends that  if they didn't put a  few twists in you, you wouldn't stand a chance  of fitting in.  And they'd been conscientious  and  kind and given her a good home and even an education.

     It had been  a good  education, too. But it had only been later on that she'd realized that it had  been  an education in, well, education. It meant that if ever  anyone  needed  to calculate the volume of a cone,  then  they could  confidently call on Susan Sto-Helit.  Anyone at a loss to  recall the campaigns of General Tacticus  or the square root of 27.4 would not find her wanting. If  you  needed someone who could  talk  about household  items and things to buy in  the shops in five languages, then Susan was at the head of the queue. Education had been easy.

     Learning things had been harder.

     Getting an education was  a bit  like a communicable sexual disease. It made you unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge  to pass  it on.

     She'd become a governess. It was one of the few jobs a known lady could do. And she'd taken to it well. She'd sworn that if she did indeed ever find herself  dancing on rooftops with chimney sweeps she'd beat herself to death with her own umbrella.

     After tea she read them a story. They liked her stories. The one in the book was pretty  awful,  but  the  Susan  version  was  well  received.  She translated as she read.

     '... and  then  Jack  chopped  down  the beanstalk, adding  murder  and ecological vandalism to the  theft, enticement and  trespass charges already mentioned, but he  got away with  it and lived happily ever after without so much as a guilty twinge about what he had done. Which proves that you can be excused  just  about  anything  if  you're  a  hero,  because  no  one  asks inconvenient questions. And now,'  she closed the  book with  a  snap, 'it's time for bed.'

     The previous governess had taught them a prayer which included the hope that some god or other  would take their soul if they died  while they  were asleep and, if  Susan was any judge,  had the underlying message  that  this would be a good thing.

     One day, Susan averred, she'd hunt that woman down.

     'Susan,' said Twyla, from somewhere under the blankets.

     'Yes?'

     'You know last week we wrote letters to the Hogfather?'

     'Yes?'

     'Only ... in the park Rachel says he doesn't exist and it's your father really. And everyone else said she was right.'

     There  was a rustle from the other bed. Twyla's brother had turned over and was listening surreptitiously.

     Oh  dear, thought Susan. She  had hoped she  could avoid this.  It  was going to be like that business with the Soul Cake Duck all over again.

     'Does  it matter  if you get the  presents anyway?' she said, making  a direct appeal to greed.

     ' ' es.'

     Oh dear, oh  dear. Susan sat down on the bed, wondering how the hell to get through this. She patted the one visible hand.

     'Look  at it  this way, then,' she said, and took a deep mental breath. 'Wherever people are  obtuse and absurd ... and wherever they have,  by even the  most  generous standards, the attention  span of a  small  chicken in a hurricane and  the investigative  ability of a  one-legged cockroach ... and wherever  people  are  inanely  credulous,  Pathetically   attached  to  the certainties of the nursery and, in general, have as much grasp of the  realities  of  the   physical  universe  as  an   oyster   has  of mountaineering ... yes, Twyla: there is a Hogfather.'

     There was silence from  under the  bedclothes,  but she sensed that the tone  of  voice had  worked.  The  words had  meant nothing.  That,  as  her grandfather might have said, was humanity all over.

     'G' night.'

     'Good night,' said Susan.

     It wasn't even a bar. It was just a  room where people drank while they waited for  other people with whom they  had  business. The business usually involved the transfer of ownership of  something from one person to another, but then, what business doesn't?

     Five businessmen sat round a table, lit by  a candle stuck in a saucer. There was an open bottle between them. They were taking some care to keep it away from the candle flame.

     ' ' s gone six,' said  one, a  huge man with dreadlocks and a beard you could keep goats in. 'The clocks struck ages ago. He ain't coming. Let's go.