Unseen Academicals

‘No law against that!’ Glenda said. ‘Anyway, she was here, cleaning the ovens.’ It was clumsy, but she hated people like him, who lived for the exercise of third-hand authority and loved every little bit of power they could grab. He’d seen more than he’d told her, that was certain, and wanted her to wriggle. And out of the corner of her mind, she could feel him looking at their coats. Their wet coats.

‘I thought you didn’t go to the football, Mister Ottomy?’

‘Ah, well, there you have it. The pointies wanted to go and watch a game, and me and Mister Nobbs had to go with them in case they got breathed on by ordinary people. Blimey, you wouldn’t believe it! Tutting and complaining and taking notes, like they owned the street. They’re up to something, you mark my words.’

Glenda didn’t like the word ‘pointies’, although it was a good description. Coming from Ottomy, though, it was an invitation to greasy conspiracy. But however you baked it, wizards were nobs, people who mattered, the movers and the shakers: and when people like that got interested in the doings of people who by definition did not matter, little people were about to be shaken, and shook.

‘Vetinari doesn’t like football,’ she said.

‘Well, o’course, they’re all in it together,’ said Ottomy, tapping his nose. This caused a small lump of dried matter to shoot from his other nostril into his tea. Glenda had a brief struggle with her conscience over whether to point this out, but won.

‘I thought you should know this, on account of how people up in the Sisters look up to you,’ said Ottomy. ‘I remember your mum. She was a saint, that woman. Always had a helping hand for everyone.’ Yes, and didn’t they grab, said Glenda to herself. She was lucky to die with all her fingers.

Ottomy drained his mug and plonked it on the table with a sigh. ‘Can’t stand around here all day, eh?’

‘Yes, I’m sure you’ve got lots of other places to stand.’

Ottomy paused at the entrance arch, and turned to grin at Juliet.

‘A girl the spit and image of you, I’d swear it. With a Dimmer boy. Amazing. You must have one of those double gangers. Well, it’ll have to remain a mystery, as the man said when he found something that would have to remain a mystery. Toodle-oo—’

He stopped dead rather than walk into the silvery knife that Glenda was holding in a not totally threatening way quite close to his throat. She had the satisfaction of seeing his Adam’s apple pop back up and down again like a sick yoyo.

‘Sorry about that,’ she said, lowering it. ‘I’ve always got a knife in my hand these days. We’ve been doing the pork. Very much like human flesh, pork, or so they say.’ She put her spare hand across his shoulders and said, ‘Probably not a good idea, spreading silly rumours, Mister Ottomy. You know how people can be so funny about that sort of thing. Nice of you to drop by and if you happen to be going past tomorrow I’ll see that you get a pie. Do excuse us. I have a lot of chopping up to do.’

He left at speed. Glenda, her heart pounding, looked at Juliet; her mouth made a perfect O.

‘What? What?’

‘I fort you was goin’ to stab ’im!’

‘I just happened to be holding a knife. You are holding a knife. We hold knives. This is a kitchen.’

‘D’you fink he’s goin’ to tell?’

‘He doesn’t really know anything.’ Eight inches, she thought. That’s as big as you can make a pie without a dish. How many pies could I make out of a weasel like Ottomy? The big mincer would make it easy. Ribcages and skulls must be a problem, though. Probably better, on the whole, to stick to pork.

But the thought blazed away at the back of her mind, never to become action but unfamiliar, exciting and oddly liberating.

What were the wizards doing at the game? Making notes about what? A puzzle to think about.

In the meantime, they were in a world of pies. Juliet could work quite well at repetitive jobs when she put her mind to it, and she had a meticulousness often found in people who were not very clever. Occasionally she sniffed, not a good thing when you are making pie filling. She was probably thinking about Trev, and pasting him, in her beautiful and not very overcrowded head, into one of those glittery dreams sold by Bu-bubble and other junk, where all you had to do to be famous was just ‘be yourself’. Ha! While Glenda had always known what she wanted. She worked long, poorly paid hours to get it, and here it was: her own kitchen, and power, more or less… over pies! A moment ago you were daydreaming of turning a man into pies!

Why are you so angry all the time? What went wrong? I’ll tell you what went wrong! When you got there, there was no there there. You wanted to see Quirm from an open carriage while a nice young man drank champagne out of your slipper, but you never did, because they were a funny lot in Quirm, and you couldn’t trust the water, and how did that champagne thing work, anyway? Didn’t it drip out? What would happen if your toe trouble played up again… ? So you never did. Never will.