Moving Pictures

‘Does she?’ said Victor. Dibbler was talking to a couple of apprentice alchemists now. What was that. A twenty-reeler? But no-one had ever dreamed of going above five!

‘Yeah, a-diggin’ away to rouse them from their ancient slumber to reek havoc, style of fing,’ said Gaspode. ‘Prob’ly aided by cats, you mark my—’

‘Look, just shut up a minute, will you?’ said Victor, irritably. ‘I’m trying to hear what they’re saying.’

‘Well, ‘scuse me. I was jus’ tryin’ to save the world,’ muttered Gaspode. ‘if gharstely creatures from Before the Dawna Time starts wavin’ at you from under your bed, jus’ you don’t come complain’ to me.’

‘What are you going on about?’ said Victor.

‘Oh, nothin’. Nothin’.’

Dibbler looked up, caught sight of Victor’s craning face, and waved at it.

‘You, lad! Come here! Have I got a part for you!’

‘Have you?’ said Victor, pushing his way through the crowd.

‘That’s what I said!’

‘No, you asked if—’ Victor began, and gave up.

‘And where’s Miss Ginger, may I ask?’ said Dibbler. ‘Late again?’

‘…prob’ly sleepin’ in …’ grumbled a sullen and totally ignored voice from down below in the sea of legs, ‘ … prob’ly takes it out of you, messin’ with the occult …’

‘Soll, send someone to fetch her here—’

‘Yes, Uncle.’

‘… wot can you expect, huh, people who like cats’re capable of anythin’, you can’t trust ’em…’

‘And find someone to transcribe the bed.’

‘Yes, Uncle.’

‘… but do they listen! Not them. Bet if I had a glossy coat an’ ran aroun’ yappin’ they’d listen all right…’

Dibbler opened his mouth to speak, and then frowned and raised a hand.

‘Where’s that muttering coming from?’ he said.

‘… prob’ly saved the whole world for ’em, by rights I’d get a statchoo put up to me nose but no, oh no, not for you Mr Gaspode, on account of you not bein’ the right kinda person, so …’

The whine stopped. The crowd shuffled aside, revealing a small bow-legged grey dog, which looked up impassively at Dibbler.

‘Bark?’ it said, innocently.

Events always moved fast in Holy Wood, but the work on Blown Away sped forward like a comet. The other Fruitbat clicks were halted. So were most of the others in the town, because Dibbler was hiring actors and handlemen at twice what anyone else would pay.

And a sort of Ankh-Morpork rose among the dunes. It would have been cheaper, Soll complained, to have risked the wrath of the wizards, sneaked some filming in Ankh-Morpork itself, and then slipped someone a fistful of dollars to put a match to the place.

Dibbler disagreed.

‘Apart from anything else,’ he declared, ‘it wouldn’t look right.’

‘But it’s the real Ankh-Morpork, Uncle,’ said Soll. ‘It’s got to look exactly right. How can it not look right?’

‘Ankh-Morpork doesn’t look all that genuine, you know,’ said Dibbler thoughtfully.

‘Of course it’s bloody genuine!’ snapped Soll, the bonds of kinship stretching to snapping point. ‘It’s really there! It’s really itself! You can’t make it any more genuine! It’s as genuine as it can get!’

Dibbler took his cigar out of his mouth.

‘No, it isn’t,’ he said. ‘You’ll see.’

Ginger turned up around lunchtime, looking so pale that even Dibbler didn’t shout at her. She kept glaring at Gaspode, who tried to stay out of her way.

Dibbler was preoccupied, anyway. He was in his office, explaining The Plot.

It was basically quite simple, running on the familiar lines of Boy Meets Girl, Girl Meets Another Boy, Boy Loses Girl, except that on this occasion there was a civil war in the middle of it …