Unseen Academicals

Glenda realized that right now she would not have minded if there had been hanky panky or even spanky. There were things that were important and things that weren’t, and times when you knew the difference.

‘So, how did Mister Nutt get on, then?’

Trev and Juliet looked at one another. ‘We don’t know. He wasn’t there,’ said Trev.

‘We kind of thought ’e might be with you,’ said Juliet, handing her a cup of what you get when you ask for a cup of tea from someone who tends to confuse the recipe even at the best of times.

‘He wasn’t in the Great Hall?’ said Glenda.

‘No, ’e wasn’t there— Wait one moment.’ Trev ran down the steps and after a few seconds they heard his footsteps coming back. ‘His toolbox ’as gone,’ said Trev. ‘I mean, it wasn’t much. He made it outta bits he found in the cellars, but as far as I know it’s all ’e owned.’

I knew it, thought Glenda. Of course I knew it. ‘Where could he be? He’s got nowhere else to go but here,’ she said.

‘Well, there is that place up in Uberwald he talks about quite a lot,’ said Trev.

‘That’s getting on for about a thousand miles away,’ said Glenda.

‘Well, I suppose he thinks he might as well be there as here,’ said Juliet innocently. ‘I mean, Orc, I’d want to run away from a name like that if I was me.’

‘Look, I’m sure he’s just wandered off somewhere in the building,’ Glenda said, believing absolutely that he hadn’t. But if I believe he’s going to be around the next corner or has just nipped off to … powder his nose, or has just wandered away for half an hour — which, of course, is his right; perhaps he needs to go and buy a pair of socks? — if I keep believing he’ll turn up any minute, he might, even though I know he won’t.

She put down the cup. ‘Half an hour,’ she said. ‘Juliet, you go and check around the Great Hall. Trev, you go down the tunnels that way. I’ll go down the tunnels this way. If you find anyone you can trust, ask ’em.’

A little more than half an hour later, Glenda was the last to turn up back in the Night Kitchen. She very nearly half expected that he would be there and knew that he wouldn’t. ‘Would he know about getting on a coach?’ she said.

‘I doubt ’e’s ever seen one,’ said Trev. ‘You know what I would do if I was ’im? I’d just run. It was like when Dad died, I spent all night walkin’ around the city. I wasn’t bothered where I went. Just went. Wanted to run away from bein’ me.’

‘How fast can an orc run?’ said Glenda.

‘Much faster than a man, I bet,’ said Trev. ‘An’ for a long time, too.’

‘Listen.’ This was Juliet. ‘Can’t you ’ear it?’

‘Hear what?’ said Glenda.

‘Nothing,’ said Juliet.

‘Well?’

‘What happened to Awk! Awk!?’

‘I think we’ll find them where we find him,’ said Trev.

‘Well, he can’t run all the way back to Uberwald,’ said Glenda. ‘You couldn’t.’

At last Glenda said it: ‘I think we should go after him.’

‘I’ll come,’ said Trev.

‘Then I’m goin’ to come, too,’ insisted Juliet. ‘Besides, I’ve still got the money and you’re goin’ to need it.’

‘Your money’s in the bank,’ said Glenda, ‘and the bank is shut. But I think I’ve got a few dollars in my purse.’

‘Then, excuse me,’ said Trev, ‘I won’t be a moment. I think there’s somethin’ we ought to take …’

***

The driver of the horse bus to Sto Lat looked down and said, ‘Two dollars fifty pence each.’

‘But you only go to Sto Lat,’ said Glenda.

‘Yes,’ said the man calmly. ‘That’s why it says Sto Lat on the front.’

‘We might ’ave to go a lot further,’ said Trev.

‘Just about every coach in this part of the world goes through Sto Lat,’ he said.

‘How long will it take to get there?’

‘Well, this is the late-night bus, okay? It’s for people who’ve got to be in Sto Lat early and haven’t got much money, and there’s the rub, see? The less the money, the slower the travel. We get there in the end. Somewhere around about dawn, in fact.’

‘All night? I think I could walk it faster.’

The man had the quiet, friendly air about him of someone who had found the best way to get through life was never to give much of a stuff about anything. ‘Be my guest,’ he said. ‘I’ll wave to you as we go past.’

Glenda looked down the length of the coach. It was half full of the kind of people who took the overnight bus because it wasn’t very expensive; the kind of people, in fact, who had brought their own dinner in a paper bag, and probably not a new paper bag at that.

The three of them huddled. ‘It’s the only one we can afford,’ said Trev. ‘I don’t think we can even afford travel for one on the mail coaches.’

‘Can’t we try and bargain with him?’ said Glenda.

‘Good idea,’ said Trev. He walked back to the coach.

‘Hello again,’ said the driver.

‘When are you gonna leave?’ said Trev.

‘In about five minutes.’

‘So everyone who’s gonna be riding is on the coach.’

Glenda glanced past the driver. The passenger behind him was very meticulously peeling a hardboiled egg.

‘Could be,’ said the driver.

‘Then why not leave right now,’ said Trev, ‘and go faster? It’s very important.’

‘Late-night,’ said the driver. ‘That’s what I said.’