Unseen Academicals

‘Her? The Dark Lady? She can kill people with a thought!’

‘She is my friend,’ said Nutt calmly, ‘and I will help you.’

Glenda wasn’t quite sure why she tipped the troll tuppence. He was elderly and slow, but his upholstery was well kept and he had twin umbrellas and it was no fun for trolls to come this far, because the kid gangs would have graffitied them to the waist by the time they got out of there.

She felt hidden eyes on her as she walked up to her door, and it didn’t matter.

‘All right,’ she said to Juliet. ‘Have a night off, okay?’

‘I’ll go back to work with you,’ said Juliet, to her surprise. ‘We need the money and I can’t tell Dad about the fifty dollars, can I?’

There was a small collision of expectations in Glenda’s head as Juliet went on: ‘You’re right, it’s a steady job and I want to keep it an’ I’m so fick I’d prob’ly muck up the other one. I mean, it was fun and all that, but then, I thought, well, you always gave me good advice, an’ I remembered that time you kicked Greasy Damien in the goolies so hard when he was messin’ me around, he walked bent double for a week. Besides, if I go away with them it means leaving the street, and Dad and the lads. That’s really scary. An’ you said be careful about fairy stories, and you’re right, half the time it’s goblins. An’ I don’t know how I’d get on without you puttin’ me right. You are solid, you are. I can’t remember you not bein’ around, and when one of the girls sniggered about your old coat I told her you work very hard.’

Glenda thought, I used to be able to read you like a book–one with big colourful pages and not many words. And now I can’t. What’s happening? You’re agreeing with me and I ought to feel smug about it, but I don’t. I feel bad about it, and I don’t know why, and that hurts.

‘Maybe you ought to sleep on it,’ she suggested.

‘No, I’d mess it up, I know I would.’

‘Do you feel all right?’ Something inside Glenda was shouting at her.

‘I’m okay,’ said Juliet. ‘Oh, it was fun and that, but it’s for nobby girls, not me. It’s all glitter, nuffin’ you can hold. But a pie’s a pie, right? Solid! Besides, who’d look after Dad and the lads?’

No, no, no, screamed Glenda’s voice in her own head, not that! I didn’t want that. Oh, didn’t I? Then what did I think I was doing, passing on all that old toot? She looks to me, and I’ve gone and given her a good example! Why? Because I wanted to protect her. She’s so… vulnerable. Oh dear, I’ve taught her to be me, and I’ve even made a bad mess of that chore!

‘All right, then, you can head back with me.’

‘Will we see the banquet? Our dad has been fretting about the banquet. He reckons Lord Vetinari is going to have everyone murdered.’

‘Does he do that a lot?’

‘Yes, but it gets hushed up, our dad says.’

‘There’s going to be hundreds of people there. That would need a lot of hush.’ And if I don’t like what I hear, there won’t be enough hush in all the world, she thought.

Trev mooched aimlessly around the shop while Nutt and the dwarf put their heads together over the ball. For some reason there was a faint scrabbling on the roof. It sounded like claws. Just a bird, he told himself. Even Andy wouldn’t come in through the roof. There was another pressing matter. This place would have a privy, wouldn’t it? There was at least a back door and that would inevitably lead to a back alley and, well, what is a back alley for except for sleeping tramps and the call of nature? Possibly in the same place if you were feeling cruel.

Trev unbuckled his belt, faced a noisome wall and stared upwards nonchalantly, as a man does in these circumstances. However, most men don’t look up into the astonished faces of two birdlike women who were standing, no, perching on the roof. They screeched Awk! Awk! and flew up into the darkness.

Trev scuttled quickly and damply back into the shop. This city got bloody stranger every day.

After that, time flew past for Trev, and every second stank of sulphur. He’d seen Nutt dribbling candles, but that was at snail’s pace compared with the speed at which the leather was cut for the ball. But that wasn’t creepy, that was just Nutt. What was creepy was that he didn’t measure anything. Eventually, Trev couldn’t stand it any more, and stopped leaning against the wall, pointed to one of the multi-sided little leather strips and said, ‘How long is that?’

‘One and fifteen sixteenths of an inch.’

‘How can you tell without measuring?’

‘I do measure, with my eyes. It is a skill. It can be learned.’

‘An’ that makes you worthy?’

‘Yes.’

‘An’ who judges?’

‘I do.’

‘Here we are, Mister Nutt, still warm,’ said Glang, arriving from the back of the shop holding something that looked like something taken from an animal that was now, you hoped for its own sake, dead.

‘Of course, I could do a lot better with more time,’ he continued, ‘but if you blow down this little tube… ’

Trev watched in wonder, and it occurred to him that in all his life he’d made a few candles and a lot of mess. How much was he worth?

Gloing! Gloing!