Unseen Academicals

In UU, Ponder Stibbons was that busy man. He had come to enjoy it. For one thing, most of the jobs he was asked to do did not need doing, and most of the senior wizards did not care if they were not done, provided they were not not done by themselves. Besides, Ponder was very good at thinking up efficient little systems to save time, and was, in particular, very proud of his system for writing the minutes of meetings, which he had devised with the help of Hex, the university’s increasingly useful thinking engine. A detailed analysis of past minutes, coupled with Hex’s enormous predictive abilities, meant that for a simple range of easily accessible givens, such as the agenda (which Ponder controlled in any case), the committee members, the time since breakfast, the time to dinner, and so on, in most cases the minutes could be written beforehand.

All in all, he considered that he was doing his bit in maintaining UU in its self-chosen course of amiable, dynamic stagnation. It was always a rewarding effort, knowing the alternative, to keep things that way.

But a page that turns itself was, to Ponder, an anomaly. Now, while the sound of the pre-breakfast supper grew around him, he smoothed out the page and read, carefully.

Glenda would have cheerfully broken a plate over Juliet’s sweet, empty head when the girl finally turned up in the Night Kitchen. At least, she would cheerfully have thought about it, in quite a deliberate way, but there was no point in losing her temper, because its target was not really much good at noticing what other people were thinking. There wasn’t a nasty bone in Juliet’s body, it’s just that she had a great deal of trouble homing in on the idea that someone was trying to be unpleasant to her.

So Glenda made do with ‘Where have you been? I told Mrs Whitlow you’d gone home ill. Your dad’ll be worried sick! And it looks bad to the other girls.’

Juliet slumped into a chair, with a movement so graceful that it seemed to sing.

‘Went to the football, didn’t I. You know, we were playing those buggers in Dimwell.’

‘Until three in the morning?’

‘That’s the rules, innit? Play until full time, first dead man or first score.’

‘Who won?’

‘Dunno.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘When we left it was being decided on head wounds. Anyway, I went with Rotten Johnny, didn’t I.’

‘I thought you’d broken up with him.’

‘He bought me supper, didn’t ’e.’

‘You shouldn’t have gone. That’s not the sort of thing you should do.’

‘Like you know?’ said Juliet, who sometimes thought that questions were answers.

‘Just do the washing-up, will you?’ said Glenda. And I’ll have to do it again after you, she thought, as her best friend drifted over to the line of big stone sinks. Juliet didn’t exactly wash dishes, she gave them a light baptism. Wizards weren’t the type of people who noticed yesterday’s dried egg on the plate, but Mrs Whitlow could see it from two rooms away.

Glenda liked Juliet, she really did, although sometimes she wondered why. Of course, they’d grown up together, but it had always amazed her that Juliet, who was so beautiful that boys went nervous and occasionally fainted as she passed, could be so, well, dumb about everything. In fact it was Glenda who had grown up. She wasn’t sure about Juliet; sometimes it seemed to Glenda that she had done the growing up for both of them.

‘Look, you just have to scrub a bit, that’s all,’ she snapped after a few seconds of listless dipping, and took the brush out of Juliet’s perfect hand, and then, as the grease was sent down the drain, she thought: I’ve done it again. Actually, I’ve done it again again. How many times is that? I even used to play with her dolls for her!

Plate after plate sparkled under Glenda’s hands. Nothing cleans stubborn stains like suppressed anger.

Rotten Johnny, she thought. Ye gods, he smells of cat wee! He’s the only boy stupid enough to think he’s got a chance. Good grief, she’s got a figure like that and all she ever dates are total knobheads! What would she do without me?

After this brief excitement, the Night Kitchen settled into its routine and those who had been referred to as ‘the other girls’ got on with their familiar tasks. It has to be said that girlhood for most of them had ended a long time previously, but they were good workers and Glenda was proud of them. Mrs Hedges ran the cheeseboards like a champion. Mildred and Rachel, known officially on the payroll as the vegetable women, were good and reliable, and indeed it was Mildred who had come up with the famous recipe for beetroot and cream cheese sandwiches.

Everybody knew their job. Everybody did their job. The Night Kitchen was reliable and Glenda liked reliable.

She had a home to go to and made sure she went to it at least once a day, but the Night Kitchen was where she lived. It was her fortress.

***