Someone was. A corpse lay in the snow.
It was dear that the man had only just died. Albert squinted up at the sky.
'There's nowhere to fall from and there's no footprints in the snow,' he said, as Death swung his scythe. 'So where did he come from? Looks like someone's personal guard. Been stabbed to death. Nasty knife wound there, see?'
'It's not good,' agreed the spirit of the man, looking down at himself.
Then he stared from himself to Albert to Death and his phantom expression went from shock to concern.
'They got the teeth! All of them! They just walked in ... and ... they ... no, wait...
He faded and was gone.
'Well, what was that all about?' said Albert.
I HAVE MY SUSPICIONS.
'See that badge on his shirt? Looks like a drawing of a tooth.'
YES. IT DOES.
'Where's that come from?'
A PLACE I CANNOT GO.
Albert looked down at the mysterious corpse and then back up at Deaths impassive skull.
'I keep thinking it was a funny thing, us bumping into your grand-daughter like that,' he said.
YES.
Albert put his head on one side. 'Given the large number of chimneys and kids in the world, ekcetra.'
INDEED...
'Amazing coincidence, really.'
IT JUST GOES TO SHOW.
'Hard to believe, you might say.'
LIFE CERTAINLY SPRINGS A FEW SURPRISES.
'Not just life, I reckon,' said Albert. 'And she got real worked up, didn't she? Flew right off the ole handle. Wouldn't be surprised if she started asking questions.'
THAT'S PEOPLE FOR YOU.
'But Rat is hanging around, ain't he? He'll probably keep an eye socket on her. Guide her path, prob'ly.'
HE IS A LITTLE SCAMP, ISN'T HE?
Albert knew he couldn't win. Death had the ultimate poker face.
I'M SURE SHE'LL ACT SENSIBLY.
'Oh, yeah,' said Albert, as they walked back to the sleigh. 'It runs in the family, acting sensibly.'
Like many barmen, Igor kept a club under the bar to deal with those little upsets that occurred around closing time, although in fact Biers never closed and no one could ever remember not seeing Igor behind the bar. Nevertheless, things sometimes got out of hand. Or paw. Or talon.
Igor's weapon of choice was a little different. It was tipped with silver (for werewolves), hung with garlic (for vampires) and wrapped around with a strip of blanket (for bogeymen). For everyone else the fact that it was two feet of solid bog-oak usually sufficed.
He'd been watching the window. The frost was creeping across it. For some reason the creeping fingers were forming into a pattern of three little dogs looking out of a boot.
Then someone had tapped him on the shoulder. He spun around, club already in his hand, and relaxed.
'Oh ... it's you, miss. I didn't hear the door.'
There hadn't been the door. Susan was in a hurry.
'Have you seen Violet lately, Igor?'
'The tooth girl?' Igor's one eyebrow writhed in concentration. 'Nah, haven't seen her for a week or two.`
The eyebrow furrowed into a V of annoyance as he spotted the raven, which tried to shuffle behind a halfempty display card of beer nuts.
'You can get that out of here, miss,' he said. 'You know the rule 'bout pets and familiars. If it can't turn back into human on demand, it's out.'
'Yeah, well, some of us have more brain cells than fingers,' muttered a voice from behind the beer nuts.
'Where does she live?'
'Now, miss, you know I never answers questions like that ... '
'WHERE DOES SHE LIVE, IGOR?'
'Shamlegger Street, next to the picture framers,' said Igor automatically. The eyebrow knotted in anger as he realized what he'd said.
'Now, miss, you know the rules! I don't get bitten, I don't get me froat torn out and no one hides behind me door! And you don't try your granddad's voice on me! I could ban you for messin' me about like that!'
'Sorry, it's important,' said Susan. Out of the corner of her eye she could see that the raven had crept on to the shelves and was pecking the top off a jar.
'Yeah, well, suppose one of the vampires decides it's important he's missed his tea?' grumbled Igor, putting the club away.
There was a plink from the direction of thee pickled egg jar. Susan tried hard not to look.
' Can we go?' said the oh god. 'All this alcohol makes me nervous.'
Susan nodded and hurried out.
Igor grunted. Then he went back to watching the frost, because Igor never demanded much out of life. After a while he heard a muffled voice say:
'I 'ot 'un! I 'ot 'un!'
It was indistinct because the raven had speared a pickled egg with its beak.
Igor sighed, and picked up his club. And it would have gone very hard for the raven if the Death of Rats hadn't chosen that moment to bite Igor on the ear.
DOWN THERE, said Death.
The reins were hauled so sharply so quickly that the hogs ended up facing the other way.
Albert fought his way out of a drift of teddy bears, where he'd been dozing.
'What's up? What's up? Did we hit something?' he said.
Death pointed downwards. An endless white snowfield lay below, only the occasional glow of a window candle or a half-covered hut indicating the presence on this world of brief mortality.
Albert squinted, and then saw what Death had spotted.
' 's some old bugger trudging through the snow,' he said. 'Been gathering wood, by the look of it. A bad night to be out,' he said. 'And I'm out in it too, come to that. Look, master, I'm sure you've done enough now to make sure ...'
SOMETHING'S HAPPENING DOWN THERE. HO. HO. HO.
'Look, he's all right,' said Albert, hanging on as the sleigh tumbled downwards. There was a brief wedge of light below as the wood-gatherer opened the door of a snow-drifted hovel. 'See, over there, there's a couple of blokes catching him up, look they're weighed down with parcels and stuff, see? He's going to have a decent Hogswatch after all, no problem there. Now can we go ...'
Death's glowing eye sockets took in the scene in minute detail.
IT'S WRONG.
'Oh, no ... here we go again.'
The oh god hesitated.
'What do you mean, you can't walk through the door?' said Susan. 'You walked through the door in the bar.'
'That was different. I have certain god-like powers in the presence of alcohol. Anyway, we've knocked and she hasn't answered and whatever happened to Mr Manners?'
Susan shrugged, and walked through the cheap woodwork. She knew she probably shouldn't. Every time she did something like this she used up a certain amount of, well, normal. And sooner or later she'd forget what doorknobs were for, just like Grandfather.
Come to think of it, he'd never found out what doorknobs were for.
She opened the door from the inside. The oh god stepped in and looked around. This did not take long. It was not a large room. It had been subdivided from a room that itself hadn't been all that big to start with.
'This is where the Tooth fairy lives?' Bilious said. 'It's a bit ... poky, isn't it? Stuff all over the floor ... What're these things hanging from this line?'
'They're . . . women's clothes,' said Susan, rummaging through the paperwork on a small rickety table.
'They're not very big,' said the oh god. 'And a bit thin ...'
'Tell me,' said Susan, without looking up. 'These memories you arrived here with ... They weren't very complicated, were they ... ? Ah...'
He looked over her shoulder as she opened a small red notebook.
'I've only talked to Violet a few times,' she said. 'I think she delivers the teeth somewhere and gets a percentage of the money. It's not a highly paid line of work. You know, they say you can Earn $$$ in Your Spare Time but she says really she could earn more money waiting on tables — All, this looks right
'What's that?'
'She said she gets given the names every week.'
'What, of the children where going to lose teeth?'
'Yes. Names and addresses,' said Susan, flicking through the pages.
'That doesn't sound very likely.'
`Pardon me, but are you the God of Hangovers? Oh, look here's Twyla's tooth last month.' She smiled at the neat grey writing. 'She practically hammered it out because she needed the half-dollar.'
'Do you like children?' said the oh god.
She gave him a look. 'Not raw,' she said. `Other people's are OK. Hold on ...'
She flicked some pages back and forth.
'There's just blank days,' she said. 'Look, the last few days, all unticked. No names. But if you go back a week or two, look they're all properly marked off and the money added up at the bottom of the page, see? And ... this can't be right, can it?'
There were only five names entered on the first unticked night, for the previous week. Most children instinctively knew when to push their luck and only the greedy or dentally improvident called out the Tooth Fairy around Hogswatch.
'Read the names,' said Susan.
'William Wittles, a.k.a. Willy (home), Tosser (school),
2nd flr bck bdrm, 68 Kicklebury Street;
Sophie Langtree, a.k.a. Daddy's Princess, attic bdrm,
5 The Hippo;
The Hon. Jeffrey Bibbleton, a.k.a. Trouble in Trousers
(home), Foureyes (school), 1st fir bck, Scrote
Manor, Park Lane...'
He stopped. 'I say, this is a bit intrusive, isn't it?'
' It's a whole new world,' said Susan. 'You haven't got there yet. Keep going.'
'Nuhakme Icta, a.k.a. Little Jewel, basement, The Laughing Falafel, Klatchistan Take-Away and All
Nite Grocery, cnr. Soake and Dimwell;
Reginald Lilywhite, a.k.a. Banjo, The Park Lane Bully,
Have You Seen This Man? , The Goose Gate
Grabber, The Nap Hill Lurker, Rm 17, YMPA.
'YMPA?'
'It's what we generally call the Young-Men's-Reformed-Cultists-of-the-Ichor-God-Bel-Shamharoth-Association,' said Susan.
'Does that sound to you like someone who'd expect a visit from a tooth fairy?'
'No.'
'Me neither. He sounds like someone who'd expect a visit from the Watch.'
Susan looked around. It really was a crummy room, the sort rented by someone who probably took it never intending to stay Iong, the sort where walking across the floor in the middle of the night would be accompanied by the crack of cockroaches in a death flamenco. It was amazing how many people spent their whole fives in places where they never intended to stay.
Cheap, narrow bed, crumbling plaster, tiny window
She opened the window and fished around below the ledge, and felt satisfied when her questing fingers dosed on a piece of string which was attached to an oilcloth bag. She hauled it in.
'What's that?' said the oh god, as she opened it on the table.
'Oh, you see them a lot,' said Susan, taking out some packages wrapped in second-hand waxed paper. 'You live alone, mice and roaches eat everything, there's nowhere to store food — but outside the window it's cold and safe. More or less safe. It's an old trick. Now ... look at this. Leathery bacon, a green loaf and a bit of cheese you could shave. She hasn't been back home for some time, believe me.'
'Oh dear. What now?'
'Where would she take the teeth?' said Susan, to the world in general but mainly to herself. 'What the hell does the Tooth Fairy do with ...'
There was a knock at the door. Susan opened it.
Outside was a small bald man in a long brown coat. He was holding a clipboard and blinked nervously at the sight of her.
'Er...' he began.
'Can I help you?' said Susan.
'Er, I saw the light, see. I thought Violet was in,' said the little man. He twiddled the pencil that was attached to his clipboard by a piece of string. 'Only she's a bit behind with the teeth and there's a bit of money owing and Ernie's cart ain't come back and it's got to go in my report and I come round in case ... in case she was W or something, it not being nice being alone and ill at Hogswatch ...'
'She's not here,' said Susan.
The man gave her a worried look and shook his head sadly.
'There's nearly thirteen dollars in pillow money, see. I'll have to report it.'
'Who to?'
'It has to go higher up, see. I just hope it's not going to be like that business in Quirm where the girl started robbing houses. We never heard the end of that one ...'
'Report to who?'
'And there's the ladder and the pliers,' the man went on, in a litany against a world that had no understanding of what it meant to have to fill in an AF17 report in triplicate. 'How can I keep track of stocktaking if people go around taking stock?' He shook his head. 'I dunno, they get the job, they think it's all nice sunny nights, they get a bit of sharp weather and suddenly it's goodbye Charlie I'm off to be a waitress in the warm. And then there's Emie. I know him. It's a nip to keep out the cold, and then another one to keep it company, and then a third in case the other two get lost ... It's all going to have to go down in my report, you know, and who's going to get the blame? M tell you ...'
'It's going to be you, isn't it?' said Susan. She was almost hypnotized. The man even had a fringe of worried hair and a small, worried moustache. And the voice suggested exactly that here was a man who, at the end of the world, would worry that it would be blamed on him.
'That's right,' he said, but in a slightly grudging voice. He was not about to allow a bit of understanding to lighten his day. 'And the girls all go on about the job but I tell them they've got it easy, it's just basic'ly ladder work, they don't have to spend their evenings knee-deep in paper and making shortfalls good out of their own money, I might add ...'
'You employ the tooth fairies?' said Susan quickly. The oh god was still vertical but his eyes had glazed over.
The little man preened slightly. 'Sort of,' he said. 'Basic'Iy I run Bulk Collection and Despatch...'
'Where to?'
He stared at her. Sharp, direct questions weren't his forte.
'I just sees to it they gets on the cart,' he mumbled. 'When they're on the cart and Ernie's signed the CV19 for 'em, that's it done and finished, only like I said he ain't turned up this week and ...'
'A whole cart for a handful of teeth?'
'Well, there's the food for the guards, and ...'
'ere, who are you, anyway? What're you doing here?'
Susan straightened up. 'I don't have to put up with this,' she said sweetly, to no one in particular. She leaned forward again.
WHAT CART ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE, CHARLIE?' The oh god jolted away. The man m the brown coat shot backwards and splayed against the corridor wall as Susan advanced.
'Comes Tuesdays,' he panted. "ere, what ...'
' AND WHERE DOES IT GO?'
'Dunno! Like I said, when he's ...'
'Signed the GV19 for them it's you done and finished,' said Susan, in her normal voice. 'Yes. You said. What's Violet's full name? She never mentioned it.'
The man hesitated.
' I SAID...'
'Violet Bottler!'
'Thank you.'
'An' Emie's gorn too,' said Charlie, continuing more or less on auto-pilot. 'I call that suspicious. I mean, he's got a wife and everything. Won't be the first man to get his head turned by thirteen dollars and a pretty ankle and, o' course, no one thinks about muggins who has to carry the can, I mean, supposing we was all to get it in our heads to run off with young wimmin?'
He gave Susan the stem look of one who, if it was not for the fact that the world needed him, would even now be tiring of painting naked young ladies on some tropical island somewhere.
' What happens to the teeth?' said Susan.
He blinked at her. A bully, thought Susan. A very small, weak, very dull bully, who doesn't manage any real bullying because there's hardly anyone smaller and weaker than him, so he just makes everyone's lives just that little bit more difficult ...
'What sort of question is that?' he managed, in the face of her stare.
'You never wondered?' said Susan, and added to herself, I didn't. Did anyone?
'Well, 's not my job, I just-'
'Oh, yes. You said,' said Susan. 'Thank you. You've been very helpful. Thank you very much.'
The man stared at her, and then turned and ran down the stairs.
'Drat,' said Susan.
'That's a very unusual swearword,' said the oh god nervously.
'It's so easy,' said Susan. 'If I want to, I can find anybody. It's a family trait.'
'Oh. Good.'
'No. Have you any idea how hard it is to be normal? The things you have to remember? How to go to sleep? How to forget things? What doorknobs are for?'
Why ask him, she thought, as she looked at his shocked face. All that's normal for him is remembering to throw up what someone else drank.
'Oh, come on,' she said, and hurried towards the stairs.
It was so easy to slip into immortality, to ride the horse, to know everything. And every time you did, it brought closer the day when you could never get off and never forget.
Death was hereditary.
You got it from your ancestors.
'Where are we going now?' said the oh god.
'Down to the YMPA,' said Susan.
The old man in the hovel looked uncertainly at the feast spread in front of him. He sat on his stool as curled up on himself as a spider in a flame.
'I'd got a bit of a mess of beans cooking,' he mumbled, looking at his visitors through filmy eyes.
'Good heavens, you can't eat beans at Hogswatch,', said the king, smiling hugely. 'That's terribly unlucky, eating beans at Hogswatch. My word, yes!'
'Di'nt know that,' the old man said, looking down desperately at his lap.
'We've brought you this magnificent spread. Don't you think so?'
'I bet you're incredibly grateful for it, too,' said the page, sharply.
'Yes, well, o' course, it's very kind of you gennelmen,' said the old man, in a voice the size of a mouse. He blinked, uncertain of what to do next.
'The turkey's hardly been touched, still plenty of meat on it,' said the king. 'And do have some
of this cracking good widgeon stuffed with swan's liver.'
'...only I'm partial to a bowl of beans and I've never been beholden to no one nor nobody,' the old man said, still staring at his lap.
'Good heavens, man, you don't need to worry about that,' said the king heartily. 'It's Hogswatch! I was only just now looking out of the window and I saw you plodding through the snow and I said to young Jermain here, I said, `Who's that chappie?" and he said, "Oh, he's some peasant fellow who lives up by the forest," and I said, "Well, I couldn't eat another thing and it's Hogswatch, after all," and so we just bundled everything up and here we are!'
'And I expect you're pathetically thankful,' said the page. 'I expect we've brought a ray of light into your dark tunnel of a life, hmm?'
' ...yes, well, o' course, only I'd been savin' 'em for weeks, see, and there's some bakin' potatoes under the fire, I found 'em in the cellar 'n' the mice'd hardly touched 'em.' The old man never raised his eyes from knee level. 'W our dad brought me up never to ask for ...'
'Listen,' said the king, raising his voice a little, 'I've walked miles tonight and I bet you've never seen food like this in your whole life, eh?'
Tears of humiliated embarrassment were rolling down the old man's face.
' ...well, I'm sure it's very kind of you fine gennelmen but I ain't sure I knows how to eat swans and suchlike, but if you want a bit o' my beans you've only got to say ...'
'Let me make myself absolutely clear,' said the king sharply. 'This is some genuine Hogswatch charity, d'you understand? And we're going to sit here and watch the smile on your grubby but honest face, is that understood?'
'And what do you say to the good king?' the page prompted.
The peasant hung his head.
' 'nk you.'
'Right,' said the king, sitting back. 'Now, pick up your fork ...'
The door burst open. An indistinct figure strode into the room, snow swirling around it in a cloud.
WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?
The page started to stand up, drawing his sword. He never worked out how the other figure could have got behind him, but there it was, pressing him gently down again.
'Hello, son, my name is Albert,' said a voice by his ear. 'Why don't you put that sword back very slowly? People might get hurt.'
A finger prodded the king, who had been too shocked to move.
WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, SIRE?
The king tried to focus on the figure. There was an impression of red and white, but black, too.
To Albert's secret amazement, the man managed to get to his feet and draw himself up as regally as he could.
'What is going on here, whoever you are, is some fine old Hogswatch charity! And who ...'
NO, IT'S NOT.
'What? How dare you ...'
WERE YOU HERE LAST MONTH? WILL YOU BE HERE NEXT WEEK? NO. BUT TONIGHT YOU WANTED TO FEEL ALL WARM INSIDE. TONIGHT YOU WILL WANT THEM TO SAY: WHAT A GOOD KING HE IS.
'Oh, no, he's going too far again...' muttered Albert under his breath. He pushed the page down again. "No, you stay still, sonny. Else you'll just be a paragraph.'
'Whatever it is, it's more than he's got!' snapped the king. 'And all we've had from him is ingratitude ...'
YES, THAT DOES SPOIL IT, DOESN'T IT? Death leaned forward. GO AWAY.
To the kings's own surprise his body took over and marched him out of the door.
Albert patted the page on the shoulder. 'And you can run along too,' he said.
'... I didn't mean to go upsetting anyone, its just that I never asked no one for nothing ...' mumbled the old man, in a small humble world of his own, his hands tangling themselves together out of nervousness.
'Best if you leave this one to me, master, if you don't mind,' said Albert. 'I'll be back in just a tick.' Loose ends, he thought, that's my job. Tying up loose ends. The master never thinks things through.
He caught up with the king outside.
'Ah, there you are, your sire,' he said. 'Just before you go, won't keep you a minute, just a minor point ...' Albert leaned dose to the stunned monarch. 'If anyone was thinking about making a mistake, you know, like maybe sending the guards down here tomorrow, tipping the old man out of his hovel, chuckin' him in prison, anything like that ... werrlll ... that's the kind of mistake he ought to treasure on account of it being the last mistake he'll ever make. A word to the wise men, right?' He tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. 'Happy Hogswatch.'
Then he hurried back into the hovel.
The feast had vanished. The old man was looking blearily at the bare table.
HALF-EATEN LEAVINGS, said Death. WE COULD CERTAINLY DO BETTER THAN THIS. He reached into the sack.
Albert grabbed his arm before he could withdraw his hand.
'Mind taking a bit of advice, master? I was brung up in a place like this.'
DOES IT BRING TEARS TO YOUR EYES?
'A box of matches to me hand, more like. Listen
The old man was only dimly aware of some whispering. He sat hunched up, staring at nothing.
WELL, IF YOU ARE SURE ...
'Been there, done that, chewed the bones,' said Albert. 'Charity ain't giving people what you wants to give, it's giving people what they need to get.'
VERY WELL.
Death reached into the sack again.
HAPPY HOGSWATCH. HO. HO. HO.
There was a string of sausages. There was a side of bacon. And a small tub of salt pork. And a mass of chitterlings wrapped up in greased paper. There was a black pudding. There were several other tubs of disgusting yet savoury porkadjacent items highly prized in any pig-based economy. And, laid on the table with a soft thump, there was...
'A pig's head,' breathed the old man. 'A whole one! Ain't had brawn in years! And a basin of pig knuckles! And a bowl of pork dripping!'
HO. HO. HO.
'Amazing,' said Albert. 'How did you get the head's expression to look like the king?'
I THINK THAT'S ACCIDENTAL.
Albert patted the old man on the back.
'Have yourself a ball,' he said. 'In fact, have two. Now I think we ought to be going, master.'
They left the old man staring at the laden board.
WASN'T THAT NICE? said Death, as the hogs accelerated.
'Oh, yes,' said Albert, shaking his head. 'Poor old devil. Beans at Hogswatch? Unlucky, that. Not a night for a man to find a bean in his bowl.'
I FEEL I WAS CUT OUT FOR THIS SORT OF THING, YOU KNOW.
'Really, master?'
IT'S NICE TO DO A JOB WHERE PEOPLE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU.
'Ah,' said Albert glumly.
THEY DON'T NORMALLY LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING ME.
'Yes, I expect so.'
EXCEPT IN SPECIAL AND RATHER UNFORTUNATE CIRCUMSTANCES.
'Right, right.'
AND THEY SELDOM LEAVE A GLASS OF SHERRY OUT.
'I expect they don't, no.'
I COULD GET INTO THE HABIT OF DOING THIS, IN FACT.
'But you won't need to, will you, master?' said Albert hurriedly, with the horrible prospect of being a permanent Pixie Albert looming in his mind again. 'Because we'll get the Hogfather back.. right? That's what you said we were going to do, right? And young Susan's probably bustling around ...
YES. OF COURSE.
'Not that you asked her to, of course.'
Albert's jittery ears didn't detect any enthusiasm.
Oh dear, he thought.
I HAVE ALWAYS CHOSEN THE PATH OF DUTY.
'Right, master.'
The sleigh sped on.
I AM THOROUGHLY IN CONTROL AND FIRM OF PURPOSE.
'No problem there, then, master.' said Albert.
NO NEED TO WORRY AT ALL.
'Pleased to hear it, master.'
IF I HAD A FIRST NAME, 'DUTY' WOULD BE MY MIDDLE NAME.
'Good.'
NEVERTHELESS ...
Albert strained his ears and thought he heard, just on the edge of hearing, a voice whisper sadly.
HO. HO. HO.
There was a party going on. It seemed to occupy the entire building.
'Certainly very energetic young men,' said the oh god carefully, stepping over a wet towel. 'Are women allowed in here?'
'No,' said Susan. She stepped through a wall into the superintendent's office.
A group of young men went past, manhandling a barrel of beer.
'You'll feel bad about it in the morning,' said Bilious. 'Strong drink is a mocker, you know.'
They set it up on a table and knocked out the bung.
'Someone's going to have to be sick after all that,' he said, raising his voice above the hubbub. 'I hope you realize that. You think it's clever, do you, reducing yourself to the level of the beasts of the field ... er ... or the level they'd sink to if they drank, I mean.'
They moved away, leaving one mug of beer by the barrel.
The oh god glanced at it, and picked it up and sniffed at it.
'Ugh.'
Susan stepped out of the wall.
'He hasn't been back for— What're you doing?'
'I thought Id see what beer tastes like,' said the oh god guiltily.
'You don't know what beer tastes like?'
'Not on the way down, no. It's ... quite different by the time it gets to me,' he said sourly. He took another sip, and then a longer one. 'I can't see what all the fuss is about,' he added.
He tipped up the empty pot.
'I suppose it comes out of this tap here,' he said. 'You know, for once in my existence I'd like to get drunk.'
'Aren't you always?' said Susan, who wasn't really paying attention.
'No. I've always been drunk. I'm sure I explained.'
'He's been gone a couple of days,' said Susan. 'That's odd. And he didn't say where he was going. The last night he was here was the night he was on Violet's list. But he paid for his room for the week, and I've got the number.'
'And the key?' said the oh god.
'What a strange idea.'
Mr Lilywhite's room was small. That wasn't surprising. What was surprising was how neat it was, how carefully the little bed had been made, how well the floor had been swept. It was hard to imagine anyone living in it, but there were a few signs. On the simple table by the bed was a small, rather crude portrait of a bulldog in a wig, although on closer inspection it might have been a woman. This tentative hypothesis was borne out by the inscription 'To a Good Boy, from his Mother' on the back.
A book lay next to it. Susan wondered what kind of reading someone with Mr Banjo's background would buy.
It turned out to be a book of six pages, one of those that were supposed to enthral children with the magic of the printed word by pointing out that they could See Spot Run.
There were no more than ten words on each page and yet, carefully placed between pages four and five, was a bookmark.
She turned back to the cover. The book was called Happy Tales. There was a blue sky and trees and a couple of impossibly pink children playing with a jollylooking dog.
It looked as though it had been read frequently, if slowly.
And that was it.
A dead end.
No. Perhaps not ...
On the floor by the bed, as if it had been accidentally dropped, was a small, silvery halfdollar piece.
Susan picked it up and tossed it idly. She looked the oh god up and down. He was swilling a mouthful of beer from cheek to cheek and looking thoughtfully at the ceiling.
She wondered about his likelihood of survival incarnate in Ankh-Morpork at Hogswatch, especially if the cure wore off. After all, the only purpose of his existence was to have a headache and throw up. There were not a great many postgraduate jobs for which these were the main qualifications.
'Tell me,' she said. 'Have you ever ridden a horse?'
'I don't know. What's a horse?'
In the depths of the library of Death, a squeaking noise.
It was not loud, but it appeared louder than mere decibels would suggest in the furtive, scribbling hush of the books.
Everyone, it is said, has a book inside them. In this library, everyone was inside a book.
The squeaking got louder. It had a rhythmical, circular quality.
Book on book, shelf on shelf ... and in every one, at the page of the ever-moving now, a scribble of handwriting following the narrative of every life ...
The squeaking came round the corner.
It was issuing from what looked like a very rickety edifice, several storeys high. It looked rather like a siege tower, open at the sides. At the base, between the wheels, was a pair of geared treadles which moved the whole thing.
Susan dung to the railing of the topmost platform.
'Can't you hurry up?' she said. 'We're only at the Bi's at the moment.'
'I've been pedalling for ages!' panted the oh god.
'Well, "A" is a very popular letter.'
Susan stared up at the shelves. A was for Anon, among other things. All those people who, for one reason or another, never officially got a name.
They tended to be short books.
'M ... Bo ... Bod ... Bog ... turn left . .
The library tower squeaked ponderously around the next corner.
'Ah, Bo ... blast, the Bots are at least twenty shelves up.'
'Oh, how nice,' said the oh god grimly.
He heaved on the lever that moved the drive chain from one sprocket to another, and started to pedal again.
Very ponderously, the creaking tower began to telescope upwards.
'Right, we're there,' Susan shouted down, after a few minutes of slow rise. 'Here's ... let's see ... Aabana Bottler. . .'
'I expect Violet will be a lot further,' said the oh god, trying out irony.
'Onwards!'
Swaying a little, the tower headed down the Bs until.
'Stop!'
It rocked as the oh god kicked the brake block against a wheel.
'I think this is her,' said a voice from above. 'OK, you can lower away.'
A big wheel with ponderous lead weights on it spun slowly as the tower concertina'd back, creaking and grinding. Susan climbed down the last few feet.
'Everyone's in here?' said the oh god, as she thumbed through the pages.
'Yes.'
'Even gods?'
'Anything that's alive and self-aware,' said Susan, not looking up. 'This is ... odd. It looks as though she's in some sort of ... prison. Who'd want to lock up a tooth fairy?'
'Someone with very sensitive teeth?'
Susan flicked back a few pages. 'It's all ... hoods over her head and people carrying her and so on. But . . .' she turned a page '... it says the last job she did was on Banjo and ... yes, she got the tooth ... and then she felt as though someone was behind her and ... there's a ride on a cart ... and the hood's come off ... and there's a causeway ... and. . .'
'All that's in a book?'
'The autobiography. Everyone has one. It writes down your life as you go along.'
'I've got one?'
'I expect so.'
'Oh, dear. "Got up, was sick, wanted to die." Not a gripping read, really.'
Susan turned the page.
'A tower,' she said. 'She's in a tower. From what she saw, it was tall and white inside ... but not outside? It didn't look real. There were apple trees around it, but the trees, the trees didn't look right. And a river, but that wasn't right either. There were goldfish in it ... but they were on top of the water.'
'Ah. Pollution,' said the oh god.
'I don't think so. It says here she saw them swimming!
'Swimming on top of the water?'
'That's how she thinks she saw it.'
'Really? You don't think she'd been eating any of that mouldy cheese, do you?'
'And there was blue sky but ... she must have got this wrong ... it says here there was only blue sky above ...'
'Yep. Best place for the sky,' said the oh god. 'Sky underneath you, that probably means trouble.'
Susan flicked a page back and forth. 'She means ... sky overhead but not around the edges, I think No sky on the horizon.'
'Excuse me,' said the oh god. 'I'm not long in this world, I appreciate that, but I think you have, to have sky on the horizon. That's how you can tell it's the horizon.'
A sense of familiarity was creeping up on Susan, but surreptitiously, dodging behind things whenever she tried to concentrate on it.
'I've seen this place,' she said, tapping the page. 'If only she'd looked harder at the trees ... She says they've got brown trunks and green leaves and it says here she thought they were odd. And ... She concentrated on the next paragraph. 'Flowers. Growing in the grass. With big round petals.'
She stared unseeing at the oh god again.
'This isn't a proper landscape,' she said.
'It doesn't sound too unreal to me,' said the oh god. 'Sky. Trees. Flowers. Dead fish.'
'Brown tree trunks? Really they're mostly a sort of greyish mossy colour. You only ever see brown tree trunks in one place,' said Susan. 'And it's the same place where the sky is only ever overhead. The blue never comes down to the ground.'
She looked up. At the far end of the corridor was one of the very tall, very thin windows. It looked out on to the black gardens. Black bushes, black grass, black trees. Skeletal fish cruising 'm the black waters of a pool, under black water lilies.
There was colour, in a sense, but it was the kind of colour you'd get if you could shine a beam of black through a prism. There were hints of tints, here and there a black you might persuade yourself was a very deep purple or a midnight blue. But it was basically black, under a black sky, because this was the world belonging to Death and that was all there was to it.
The shape of Death was the shape people had created for him, over the centuries. Why bony? Because bones were associated with death. He'd got a scythe because agricultural people could spot a decent metaphor. And he lived in a sombre land because the human imagination would be rather stretched to let him live somewhere nice with flowers.
People like Death lived in the human imagination, and got their shape there, too. He wasn't the only one ...
... but he didn't like the script, did he? He'd started to take an interest in people. Was that a thought, or just a memory of something that hadn't happened yet?
The oh god followed her gaze.
'Can we go after her?' said the oh god. 'I say we, I think I've just got drafted in because I was in the wrong place.'
'She's alive. That means she is mortal,' said Susan. 'That means I can find her, too.' She turned and started to walk out of the library.
'If she says the sky is just blue overhead, what's between it and the horizon?' said the oh god, running to keep up.
'You don't have to come,' said Susan. 'It's not your problem.'
'Yes, but given that my problem is that my whole purpose in life is to feel rotten, anything's an improvement.'
'It could be dangerous. I don't think she's there of her own free will. Would you be any good in a fight?'
'Yes. I could be sick on people.'
It was a shack, somewhere out on the outskirts of the Plains town of Scrote. Scrote had a lot of outskirts, spread so widely — a busted cart here, a dead dog there that often people went through it without even knowing it was there, and really it only appeared on the maps because cartographers get embarrassed about big empty spaces.
Hogswatch came after the excitement of the cabbage harvest when it was pretty quiet in Scrote and there was nothing much to look forward to until the fun of the sprout festival.
This shack had an iron stove, with a pipe that went up through the thick cabbage-leaf thatch.
Voices echoed faintly within the pipe.
THIS IS REALLY, REALLY STUPID.
'I think the tradition got started when everyone had them big chimneys, master.' This voice sounded as though it was coming from someone standing on the roof and shouting down the pipe.
INDEED? IT'S ONLY A MERCY IT'S UNLIT.
There was some muffled scratching and banging, and then a thump from within the pot belly of the stove.
DAMN.
'What's up, master?'
THE DOOR HAS NO HANDLE ON THE INSIDE. I CALL THAT INCONSIDERATE.
There were some more bumps, and then a scrape as the stove lid was lifted up and pushed sideways. An arm came out and felt around the front of the stove until it found the handle.
It played with it for a while, but it was obvious that the hand did not belong to a person used to opening things.
In short, Death came out of the stove. Exactly how would be difficult to describe without folding the page. Time and space were, from Death's point of view, merely things that he'd heard described. When it came to Death, they ticked the box marked Not Applicable. It might help to think of the universe as a rubber sheet, or perhaps not.
'Let us in, master,' a pitiful voice echoed down from the roof. 'It's brass monkeys out here.'
Death went over to the door. Snow was blowing underneath it. He peered nervously at the woodwork. There was a thump outside and Albert's voice sounded a lot closer.
'What's up, master?'
Death stuck his head through the wood of the door.
THERE'S THESE METAL THINGS
'Bolts, master. You slide them,' said Albert, sticking his hands under his armpits to keep them warm.
AH.
Death's head disappeared. Albert stamped his feet and watched his breath cloud in the air while he listened to the pathetic scrabbling on the other side of the door.
Death's head appeared again.
ER ...
'It's the latch, master,' said Albert wearily.
RIGHT. RIGHT.
'You put your thumb on it and push it down.'
RIGHT.
The head disappeared. Albert jumped up and down a bit, and waited.
The head appeared.
ER ... I WAS WITH YOU UP TO THE THUMB...
Albert sighed. 'And then you press down and pull, master.'
AH. RIGHT. GOT YOU.
The head disappeared.
Oh dear, thought Albert. He just can't get the hang of them, can he ...?
The door jerked open. Death stood behind it, beaming proudly, as Albert staggered in, snow blowing in with him.
'Blimey, it's getting really parky,' said Albert. 'Any sherry?' he added hopefully.
IT APPEARS NOT.
Death looked at the sock hooked on to the side of the stove. It had a hole in it.
A letter, in erratic handwriting, was attached to it. Death picked it up.
THE BOY WANTS A PAIR OF TROUSERS THAT HE DOESN'T HAVE TO SHARE, A HUGE MEAT PIE, A SUGAR MOUSE, 'A LOT OF TOYS' AND A PUPPY CALLED SCRUFF.
'Ah, sweet,' said Albert. 'I shall wipe away a tear, 'cos what he's gettin', see, is this little wooden toy and an apple.' He held them out.
BUT THE LETTER CLEARLY
'Yes, well, it's socio-economic factors again,
right?' said Albert 'The world'd be in a right mess if everyone got what they asked for, eh?'
I GAVE THEM WHAT THEY WANTED IN THE STORE . . .
'Yeah, and that's gonna cause a lot of trouble, master. All them "toy pigs that really work". I didn't say nothing 'cos it was getting the job done but you can't go on like that. What good's a god who gives you everything you want?'
YOU HAVE ME THERE.
'It's the hope that's important. Big part of belief, hope. Give people jam today and they'll just sit and eat it. jam tomorrow, now — that'll keep them going for ever.'
AND YOU MEAN THAT BECAUSE OF THIS THE POOR GET POOR THINGS AND THE RICH GET RICH THINGS?
' 's right,' said Albert. 'That's the meaning of Hogswatch.'
Death nearly wailed.
BUT I'M THE HOGFATHER! He looked embarrassed. AT THE MOMENT, I MEAN.
'Makes no difference,' said Albert, shrugging. 'I remember when I was a nipper, one Hogswatch I had my heart set on this huge model horse they had in the shop ...' His face creased for a moment in a grim smile of recollection. 'I remember I spent hours one day, cold as charity the weather was, I spent hours with my nose pressed up against the window ... until they heard me callin', and unfroze me. I saw them take it out of the window, someone was in there buying it, and, y'know, just for a second I thought it really was going to be for me ... Oh. I dreamed of that toy horse. It were red and white with a real saddle and everything. And rockers. I'd've killed for that horse.' He shrugged again. 'Not a chance, of course, 'cos we didn't have a pot to piss in and we even `ad to spit on the bread to make it soft enough to eat ...'
PLEASE ENLIGHTEN ME. WHAT IS SO IMPORTANT ABOUT HAVING A POT TO PISS IN?
'It's ... it's more like a figure of speech, master. It means you're as poor as a church mouse.'
ARE THEY POOR?
'Well ... yeah.'
BUT SURELY NOT MORE POOR THAN ANY OTHER MOUSE? AND, AFTER ALL, THERE TEND TO BE LOTS OF CANDLES AND THINGS THEY COULD EAT.
'Figure of speech again, master. It doesn't have to make sense.'
OH. I SEE. DO CARRY ON.
'O' course, I still hung up my stocking on Hogswatch Eve, and in the morning, you know, you know what? Our dad had put in this little horse he'd carved his very own self ...'
AH, said Death. AND THAT WAS WORTH MORE THAN ALL THE EXPENSIVE TOY HORSES IN THE WORLD,EH?
Albert gave him a beady look. 'No!' he said. 'It weren't. All I could think of was it wasnt the big horse in the window.'
Death looked shocked.
BUT HOW MUCH BETTER TO HAVE A TOY CARVED WITH...
'No. Only grown-ups think like that,' said
It was dear that the man had only just died. Albert squinted up at the sky.
'There's nowhere to fall from and there's no footprints in the snow,' he said, as Death swung his scythe. 'So where did he come from? Looks like someone's personal guard. Been stabbed to death. Nasty knife wound there, see?'
'It's not good,' agreed the spirit of the man, looking down at himself.
Then he stared from himself to Albert to Death and his phantom expression went from shock to concern.
'They got the teeth! All of them! They just walked in ... and ... they ... no, wait...
He faded and was gone.
'Well, what was that all about?' said Albert.
I HAVE MY SUSPICIONS.
'See that badge on his shirt? Looks like a drawing of a tooth.'
YES. IT DOES.
'Where's that come from?'
A PLACE I CANNOT GO.
Albert looked down at the mysterious corpse and then back up at Deaths impassive skull.
'I keep thinking it was a funny thing, us bumping into your grand-daughter like that,' he said.
YES.
Albert put his head on one side. 'Given the large number of chimneys and kids in the world, ekcetra.'
INDEED...
'Amazing coincidence, really.'
IT JUST GOES TO SHOW.
'Hard to believe, you might say.'
LIFE CERTAINLY SPRINGS A FEW SURPRISES.
'Not just life, I reckon,' said Albert. 'And she got real worked up, didn't she? Flew right off the ole handle. Wouldn't be surprised if she started asking questions.'
THAT'S PEOPLE FOR YOU.
'But Rat is hanging around, ain't he? He'll probably keep an eye socket on her. Guide her path, prob'ly.'
HE IS A LITTLE SCAMP, ISN'T HE?
Albert knew he couldn't win. Death had the ultimate poker face.
I'M SURE SHE'LL ACT SENSIBLY.
'Oh, yeah,' said Albert, as they walked back to the sleigh. 'It runs in the family, acting sensibly.'
Like many barmen, Igor kept a club under the bar to deal with those little upsets that occurred around closing time, although in fact Biers never closed and no one could ever remember not seeing Igor behind the bar. Nevertheless, things sometimes got out of hand. Or paw. Or talon.
Igor's weapon of choice was a little different. It was tipped with silver (for werewolves), hung with garlic (for vampires) and wrapped around with a strip of blanket (for bogeymen). For everyone else the fact that it was two feet of solid bog-oak usually sufficed.
He'd been watching the window. The frost was creeping across it. For some reason the creeping fingers were forming into a pattern of three little dogs looking out of a boot.
Then someone had tapped him on the shoulder. He spun around, club already in his hand, and relaxed.
'Oh ... it's you, miss. I didn't hear the door.'
There hadn't been the door. Susan was in a hurry.
'Have you seen Violet lately, Igor?'
'The tooth girl?' Igor's one eyebrow writhed in concentration. 'Nah, haven't seen her for a week or two.`
The eyebrow furrowed into a V of annoyance as he spotted the raven, which tried to shuffle behind a halfempty display card of beer nuts.
'You can get that out of here, miss,' he said. 'You know the rule 'bout pets and familiars. If it can't turn back into human on demand, it's out.'
'Yeah, well, some of us have more brain cells than fingers,' muttered a voice from behind the beer nuts.
'Where does she live?'
'Now, miss, you know I never answers questions like that ... '
'WHERE DOES SHE LIVE, IGOR?'
'Shamlegger Street, next to the picture framers,' said Igor automatically. The eyebrow knotted in anger as he realized what he'd said.
'Now, miss, you know the rules! I don't get bitten, I don't get me froat torn out and no one hides behind me door! And you don't try your granddad's voice on me! I could ban you for messin' me about like that!'
'Sorry, it's important,' said Susan. Out of the corner of her eye she could see that the raven had crept on to the shelves and was pecking the top off a jar.
'Yeah, well, suppose one of the vampires decides it's important he's missed his tea?' grumbled Igor, putting the club away.
There was a plink from the direction of thee pickled egg jar. Susan tried hard not to look.
' Can we go?' said the oh god. 'All this alcohol makes me nervous.'
Susan nodded and hurried out.
Igor grunted. Then he went back to watching the frost, because Igor never demanded much out of life. After a while he heard a muffled voice say:
'I 'ot 'un! I 'ot 'un!'
It was indistinct because the raven had speared a pickled egg with its beak.
Igor sighed, and picked up his club. And it would have gone very hard for the raven if the Death of Rats hadn't chosen that moment to bite Igor on the ear.
DOWN THERE, said Death.
The reins were hauled so sharply so quickly that the hogs ended up facing the other way.
Albert fought his way out of a drift of teddy bears, where he'd been dozing.
'What's up? What's up? Did we hit something?' he said.
Death pointed downwards. An endless white snowfield lay below, only the occasional glow of a window candle or a half-covered hut indicating the presence on this world of brief mortality.
Albert squinted, and then saw what Death had spotted.
' 's some old bugger trudging through the snow,' he said. 'Been gathering wood, by the look of it. A bad night to be out,' he said. 'And I'm out in it too, come to that. Look, master, I'm sure you've done enough now to make sure ...'
SOMETHING'S HAPPENING DOWN THERE. HO. HO. HO.
'Look, he's all right,' said Albert, hanging on as the sleigh tumbled downwards. There was a brief wedge of light below as the wood-gatherer opened the door of a snow-drifted hovel. 'See, over there, there's a couple of blokes catching him up, look they're weighed down with parcels and stuff, see? He's going to have a decent Hogswatch after all, no problem there. Now can we go ...'
Death's glowing eye sockets took in the scene in minute detail.
IT'S WRONG.
'Oh, no ... here we go again.'
The oh god hesitated.
'What do you mean, you can't walk through the door?' said Susan. 'You walked through the door in the bar.'
'That was different. I have certain god-like powers in the presence of alcohol. Anyway, we've knocked and she hasn't answered and whatever happened to Mr Manners?'
Susan shrugged, and walked through the cheap woodwork. She knew she probably shouldn't. Every time she did something like this she used up a certain amount of, well, normal. And sooner or later she'd forget what doorknobs were for, just like Grandfather.
Come to think of it, he'd never found out what doorknobs were for.
She opened the door from the inside. The oh god stepped in and looked around. This did not take long. It was not a large room. It had been subdivided from a room that itself hadn't been all that big to start with.
'This is where the Tooth fairy lives?' Bilious said. 'It's a bit ... poky, isn't it? Stuff all over the floor ... What're these things hanging from this line?'
'They're . . . women's clothes,' said Susan, rummaging through the paperwork on a small rickety table.
'They're not very big,' said the oh god. 'And a bit thin ...'
'Tell me,' said Susan, without looking up. 'These memories you arrived here with ... They weren't very complicated, were they ... ? Ah...'
He looked over her shoulder as she opened a small red notebook.
'I've only talked to Violet a few times,' she said. 'I think she delivers the teeth somewhere and gets a percentage of the money. It's not a highly paid line of work. You know, they say you can Earn $$$ in Your Spare Time but she says really she could earn more money waiting on tables — All, this looks right
'What's that?'
'She said she gets given the names every week.'
'What, of the children where going to lose teeth?'
'Yes. Names and addresses,' said Susan, flicking through the pages.
'That doesn't sound very likely.'
`Pardon me, but are you the God of Hangovers? Oh, look here's Twyla's tooth last month.' She smiled at the neat grey writing. 'She practically hammered it out because she needed the half-dollar.'
'Do you like children?' said the oh god.
She gave him a look. 'Not raw,' she said. `Other people's are OK. Hold on ...'
She flicked some pages back and forth.
'There's just blank days,' she said. 'Look, the last few days, all unticked. No names. But if you go back a week or two, look they're all properly marked off and the money added up at the bottom of the page, see? And ... this can't be right, can it?'
There were only five names entered on the first unticked night, for the previous week. Most children instinctively knew when to push their luck and only the greedy or dentally improvident called out the Tooth Fairy around Hogswatch.
'Read the names,' said Susan.
'William Wittles, a.k.a. Willy (home), Tosser (school),
2nd flr bck bdrm, 68 Kicklebury Street;
Sophie Langtree, a.k.a. Daddy's Princess, attic bdrm,
5 The Hippo;
The Hon. Jeffrey Bibbleton, a.k.a. Trouble in Trousers
(home), Foureyes (school), 1st fir bck, Scrote
Manor, Park Lane...'
He stopped. 'I say, this is a bit intrusive, isn't it?'
' It's a whole new world,' said Susan. 'You haven't got there yet. Keep going.'
'Nuhakme Icta, a.k.a. Little Jewel, basement, The Laughing Falafel, Klatchistan Take-Away and All
Nite Grocery, cnr. Soake and Dimwell;
Reginald Lilywhite, a.k.a. Banjo, The Park Lane Bully,
Have You Seen This Man? , The Goose Gate
Grabber, The Nap Hill Lurker, Rm 17, YMPA.
'YMPA?'
'It's what we generally call the Young-Men's-Reformed-Cultists-of-the-Ichor-God-Bel-Shamharoth-Association,' said Susan.
'Does that sound to you like someone who'd expect a visit from a tooth fairy?'
'No.'
'Me neither. He sounds like someone who'd expect a visit from the Watch.'
Susan looked around. It really was a crummy room, the sort rented by someone who probably took it never intending to stay Iong, the sort where walking across the floor in the middle of the night would be accompanied by the crack of cockroaches in a death flamenco. It was amazing how many people spent their whole fives in places where they never intended to stay.
Cheap, narrow bed, crumbling plaster, tiny window
She opened the window and fished around below the ledge, and felt satisfied when her questing fingers dosed on a piece of string which was attached to an oilcloth bag. She hauled it in.
'What's that?' said the oh god, as she opened it on the table.
'Oh, you see them a lot,' said Susan, taking out some packages wrapped in second-hand waxed paper. 'You live alone, mice and roaches eat everything, there's nowhere to store food — but outside the window it's cold and safe. More or less safe. It's an old trick. Now ... look at this. Leathery bacon, a green loaf and a bit of cheese you could shave. She hasn't been back home for some time, believe me.'
'Oh dear. What now?'
'Where would she take the teeth?' said Susan, to the world in general but mainly to herself. 'What the hell does the Tooth Fairy do with ...'
There was a knock at the door. Susan opened it.
Outside was a small bald man in a long brown coat. He was holding a clipboard and blinked nervously at the sight of her.
'Er...' he began.
'Can I help you?' said Susan.
'Er, I saw the light, see. I thought Violet was in,' said the little man. He twiddled the pencil that was attached to his clipboard by a piece of string. 'Only she's a bit behind with the teeth and there's a bit of money owing and Ernie's cart ain't come back and it's got to go in my report and I come round in case ... in case she was W or something, it not being nice being alone and ill at Hogswatch ...'
'She's not here,' said Susan.
The man gave her a worried look and shook his head sadly.
'There's nearly thirteen dollars in pillow money, see. I'll have to report it.'
'Who to?'
'It has to go higher up, see. I just hope it's not going to be like that business in Quirm where the girl started robbing houses. We never heard the end of that one ...'
'Report to who?'
'And there's the ladder and the pliers,' the man went on, in a litany against a world that had no understanding of what it meant to have to fill in an AF17 report in triplicate. 'How can I keep track of stocktaking if people go around taking stock?' He shook his head. 'I dunno, they get the job, they think it's all nice sunny nights, they get a bit of sharp weather and suddenly it's goodbye Charlie I'm off to be a waitress in the warm. And then there's Emie. I know him. It's a nip to keep out the cold, and then another one to keep it company, and then a third in case the other two get lost ... It's all going to have to go down in my report, you know, and who's going to get the blame? M tell you ...'
'It's going to be you, isn't it?' said Susan. She was almost hypnotized. The man even had a fringe of worried hair and a small, worried moustache. And the voice suggested exactly that here was a man who, at the end of the world, would worry that it would be blamed on him.
'That's right,' he said, but in a slightly grudging voice. He was not about to allow a bit of understanding to lighten his day. 'And the girls all go on about the job but I tell them they've got it easy, it's just basic'ly ladder work, they don't have to spend their evenings knee-deep in paper and making shortfalls good out of their own money, I might add ...'
'You employ the tooth fairies?' said Susan quickly. The oh god was still vertical but his eyes had glazed over.
The little man preened slightly. 'Sort of,' he said. 'Basic'Iy I run Bulk Collection and Despatch...'
'Where to?'
He stared at her. Sharp, direct questions weren't his forte.
'I just sees to it they gets on the cart,' he mumbled. 'When they're on the cart and Ernie's signed the CV19 for 'em, that's it done and finished, only like I said he ain't turned up this week and ...'
'A whole cart for a handful of teeth?'
'Well, there's the food for the guards, and ...'
'ere, who are you, anyway? What're you doing here?'
Susan straightened up. 'I don't have to put up with this,' she said sweetly, to no one in particular. She leaned forward again.
WHAT CART ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE, CHARLIE?' The oh god jolted away. The man m the brown coat shot backwards and splayed against the corridor wall as Susan advanced.
'Comes Tuesdays,' he panted. "ere, what ...'
' AND WHERE DOES IT GO?'
'Dunno! Like I said, when he's ...'
'Signed the GV19 for them it's you done and finished,' said Susan, in her normal voice. 'Yes. You said. What's Violet's full name? She never mentioned it.'
The man hesitated.
' I SAID...'
'Violet Bottler!'
'Thank you.'
'An' Emie's gorn too,' said Charlie, continuing more or less on auto-pilot. 'I call that suspicious. I mean, he's got a wife and everything. Won't be the first man to get his head turned by thirteen dollars and a pretty ankle and, o' course, no one thinks about muggins who has to carry the can, I mean, supposing we was all to get it in our heads to run off with young wimmin?'
He gave Susan the stem look of one who, if it was not for the fact that the world needed him, would even now be tiring of painting naked young ladies on some tropical island somewhere.
' What happens to the teeth?' said Susan.
He blinked at her. A bully, thought Susan. A very small, weak, very dull bully, who doesn't manage any real bullying because there's hardly anyone smaller and weaker than him, so he just makes everyone's lives just that little bit more difficult ...
'What sort of question is that?' he managed, in the face of her stare.
'You never wondered?' said Susan, and added to herself, I didn't. Did anyone?
'Well, 's not my job, I just-'
'Oh, yes. You said,' said Susan. 'Thank you. You've been very helpful. Thank you very much.'
The man stared at her, and then turned and ran down the stairs.
'Drat,' said Susan.
'That's a very unusual swearword,' said the oh god nervously.
'It's so easy,' said Susan. 'If I want to, I can find anybody. It's a family trait.'
'Oh. Good.'
'No. Have you any idea how hard it is to be normal? The things you have to remember? How to go to sleep? How to forget things? What doorknobs are for?'
Why ask him, she thought, as she looked at his shocked face. All that's normal for him is remembering to throw up what someone else drank.
'Oh, come on,' she said, and hurried towards the stairs.
It was so easy to slip into immortality, to ride the horse, to know everything. And every time you did, it brought closer the day when you could never get off and never forget.
Death was hereditary.
You got it from your ancestors.
'Where are we going now?' said the oh god.
'Down to the YMPA,' said Susan.
The old man in the hovel looked uncertainly at the feast spread in front of him. He sat on his stool as curled up on himself as a spider in a flame.
'I'd got a bit of a mess of beans cooking,' he mumbled, looking at his visitors through filmy eyes.
'Good heavens, you can't eat beans at Hogswatch,', said the king, smiling hugely. 'That's terribly unlucky, eating beans at Hogswatch. My word, yes!'
'Di'nt know that,' the old man said, looking down desperately at his lap.
'We've brought you this magnificent spread. Don't you think so?'
'I bet you're incredibly grateful for it, too,' said the page, sharply.
'Yes, well, o' course, it's very kind of you gennelmen,' said the old man, in a voice the size of a mouse. He blinked, uncertain of what to do next.
'The turkey's hardly been touched, still plenty of meat on it,' said the king. 'And do have some
of this cracking good widgeon stuffed with swan's liver.'
'...only I'm partial to a bowl of beans and I've never been beholden to no one nor nobody,' the old man said, still staring at his lap.
'Good heavens, man, you don't need to worry about that,' said the king heartily. 'It's Hogswatch! I was only just now looking out of the window and I saw you plodding through the snow and I said to young Jermain here, I said, `Who's that chappie?" and he said, "Oh, he's some peasant fellow who lives up by the forest," and I said, "Well, I couldn't eat another thing and it's Hogswatch, after all," and so we just bundled everything up and here we are!'
'And I expect you're pathetically thankful,' said the page. 'I expect we've brought a ray of light into your dark tunnel of a life, hmm?'
' ...yes, well, o' course, only I'd been savin' 'em for weeks, see, and there's some bakin' potatoes under the fire, I found 'em in the cellar 'n' the mice'd hardly touched 'em.' The old man never raised his eyes from knee level. 'W our dad brought me up never to ask for ...'
'Listen,' said the king, raising his voice a little, 'I've walked miles tonight and I bet you've never seen food like this in your whole life, eh?'
Tears of humiliated embarrassment were rolling down the old man's face.
' ...well, I'm sure it's very kind of you fine gennelmen but I ain't sure I knows how to eat swans and suchlike, but if you want a bit o' my beans you've only got to say ...'
'Let me make myself absolutely clear,' said the king sharply. 'This is some genuine Hogswatch charity, d'you understand? And we're going to sit here and watch the smile on your grubby but honest face, is that understood?'
'And what do you say to the good king?' the page prompted.
The peasant hung his head.
' 'nk you.'
'Right,' said the king, sitting back. 'Now, pick up your fork ...'
The door burst open. An indistinct figure strode into the room, snow swirling around it in a cloud.
WHAT'S GOING ON HERE?
The page started to stand up, drawing his sword. He never worked out how the other figure could have got behind him, but there it was, pressing him gently down again.
'Hello, son, my name is Albert,' said a voice by his ear. 'Why don't you put that sword back very slowly? People might get hurt.'
A finger prodded the king, who had been too shocked to move.
WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING, SIRE?
The king tried to focus on the figure. There was an impression of red and white, but black, too.
To Albert's secret amazement, the man managed to get to his feet and draw himself up as regally as he could.
'What is going on here, whoever you are, is some fine old Hogswatch charity! And who ...'
NO, IT'S NOT.
'What? How dare you ...'
WERE YOU HERE LAST MONTH? WILL YOU BE HERE NEXT WEEK? NO. BUT TONIGHT YOU WANTED TO FEEL ALL WARM INSIDE. TONIGHT YOU WILL WANT THEM TO SAY: WHAT A GOOD KING HE IS.
'Oh, no, he's going too far again...' muttered Albert under his breath. He pushed the page down again. "No, you stay still, sonny. Else you'll just be a paragraph.'
'Whatever it is, it's more than he's got!' snapped the king. 'And all we've had from him is ingratitude ...'
YES, THAT DOES SPOIL IT, DOESN'T IT? Death leaned forward. GO AWAY.
To the kings's own surprise his body took over and marched him out of the door.
Albert patted the page on the shoulder. 'And you can run along too,' he said.
'... I didn't mean to go upsetting anyone, its just that I never asked no one for nothing ...' mumbled the old man, in a small humble world of his own, his hands tangling themselves together out of nervousness.
'Best if you leave this one to me, master, if you don't mind,' said Albert. 'I'll be back in just a tick.' Loose ends, he thought, that's my job. Tying up loose ends. The master never thinks things through.
He caught up with the king outside.
'Ah, there you are, your sire,' he said. 'Just before you go, won't keep you a minute, just a minor point ...' Albert leaned dose to the stunned monarch. 'If anyone was thinking about making a mistake, you know, like maybe sending the guards down here tomorrow, tipping the old man out of his hovel, chuckin' him in prison, anything like that ... werrlll ... that's the kind of mistake he ought to treasure on account of it being the last mistake he'll ever make. A word to the wise men, right?' He tapped the side of his nose conspiratorially. 'Happy Hogswatch.'
Then he hurried back into the hovel.
The feast had vanished. The old man was looking blearily at the bare table.
HALF-EATEN LEAVINGS, said Death. WE COULD CERTAINLY DO BETTER THAN THIS. He reached into the sack.
Albert grabbed his arm before he could withdraw his hand.
'Mind taking a bit of advice, master? I was brung up in a place like this.'
DOES IT BRING TEARS TO YOUR EYES?
'A box of matches to me hand, more like. Listen
The old man was only dimly aware of some whispering. He sat hunched up, staring at nothing.
WELL, IF YOU ARE SURE ...
'Been there, done that, chewed the bones,' said Albert. 'Charity ain't giving people what you wants to give, it's giving people what they need to get.'
VERY WELL.
Death reached into the sack again.
HAPPY HOGSWATCH. HO. HO. HO.
There was a string of sausages. There was a side of bacon. And a small tub of salt pork. And a mass of chitterlings wrapped up in greased paper. There was a black pudding. There were several other tubs of disgusting yet savoury porkadjacent items highly prized in any pig-based economy. And, laid on the table with a soft thump, there was...
'A pig's head,' breathed the old man. 'A whole one! Ain't had brawn in years! And a basin of pig knuckles! And a bowl of pork dripping!'
HO. HO. HO.
'Amazing,' said Albert. 'How did you get the head's expression to look like the king?'
I THINK THAT'S ACCIDENTAL.
Albert patted the old man on the back.
'Have yourself a ball,' he said. 'In fact, have two. Now I think we ought to be going, master.'
They left the old man staring at the laden board.
WASN'T THAT NICE? said Death, as the hogs accelerated.
'Oh, yes,' said Albert, shaking his head. 'Poor old devil. Beans at Hogswatch? Unlucky, that. Not a night for a man to find a bean in his bowl.'
I FEEL I WAS CUT OUT FOR THIS SORT OF THING, YOU KNOW.
'Really, master?'
IT'S NICE TO DO A JOB WHERE PEOPLE LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING YOU.
'Ah,' said Albert glumly.
THEY DON'T NORMALLY LOOK FORWARD TO SEEING ME.
'Yes, I expect so.'
EXCEPT IN SPECIAL AND RATHER UNFORTUNATE CIRCUMSTANCES.
'Right, right.'
AND THEY SELDOM LEAVE A GLASS OF SHERRY OUT.
'I expect they don't, no.'
I COULD GET INTO THE HABIT OF DOING THIS, IN FACT.
'But you won't need to, will you, master?' said Albert hurriedly, with the horrible prospect of being a permanent Pixie Albert looming in his mind again. 'Because we'll get the Hogfather back.. right? That's what you said we were going to do, right? And young Susan's probably bustling around ...
YES. OF COURSE.
'Not that you asked her to, of course.'
Albert's jittery ears didn't detect any enthusiasm.
Oh dear, he thought.
I HAVE ALWAYS CHOSEN THE PATH OF DUTY.
'Right, master.'
The sleigh sped on.
I AM THOROUGHLY IN CONTROL AND FIRM OF PURPOSE.
'No problem there, then, master.' said Albert.
NO NEED TO WORRY AT ALL.
'Pleased to hear it, master.'
IF I HAD A FIRST NAME, 'DUTY' WOULD BE MY MIDDLE NAME.
'Good.'
NEVERTHELESS ...
Albert strained his ears and thought he heard, just on the edge of hearing, a voice whisper sadly.
HO. HO. HO.
There was a party going on. It seemed to occupy the entire building.
'Certainly very energetic young men,' said the oh god carefully, stepping over a wet towel. 'Are women allowed in here?'
'No,' said Susan. She stepped through a wall into the superintendent's office.
A group of young men went past, manhandling a barrel of beer.
'You'll feel bad about it in the morning,' said Bilious. 'Strong drink is a mocker, you know.'
They set it up on a table and knocked out the bung.
'Someone's going to have to be sick after all that,' he said, raising his voice above the hubbub. 'I hope you realize that. You think it's clever, do you, reducing yourself to the level of the beasts of the field ... er ... or the level they'd sink to if they drank, I mean.'
They moved away, leaving one mug of beer by the barrel.
The oh god glanced at it, and picked it up and sniffed at it.
'Ugh.'
Susan stepped out of the wall.
'He hasn't been back for— What're you doing?'
'I thought Id see what beer tastes like,' said the oh god guiltily.
'You don't know what beer tastes like?'
'Not on the way down, no. It's ... quite different by the time it gets to me,' he said sourly. He took another sip, and then a longer one. 'I can't see what all the fuss is about,' he added.
He tipped up the empty pot.
'I suppose it comes out of this tap here,' he said. 'You know, for once in my existence I'd like to get drunk.'
'Aren't you always?' said Susan, who wasn't really paying attention.
'No. I've always been drunk. I'm sure I explained.'
'He's been gone a couple of days,' said Susan. 'That's odd. And he didn't say where he was going. The last night he was here was the night he was on Violet's list. But he paid for his room for the week, and I've got the number.'
'And the key?' said the oh god.
'What a strange idea.'
Mr Lilywhite's room was small. That wasn't surprising. What was surprising was how neat it was, how carefully the little bed had been made, how well the floor had been swept. It was hard to imagine anyone living in it, but there were a few signs. On the simple table by the bed was a small, rather crude portrait of a bulldog in a wig, although on closer inspection it might have been a woman. This tentative hypothesis was borne out by the inscription 'To a Good Boy, from his Mother' on the back.
A book lay next to it. Susan wondered what kind of reading someone with Mr Banjo's background would buy.
It turned out to be a book of six pages, one of those that were supposed to enthral children with the magic of the printed word by pointing out that they could See Spot Run.
There were no more than ten words on each page and yet, carefully placed between pages four and five, was a bookmark.
She turned back to the cover. The book was called Happy Tales. There was a blue sky and trees and a couple of impossibly pink children playing with a jollylooking dog.
It looked as though it had been read frequently, if slowly.
And that was it.
A dead end.
No. Perhaps not ...
On the floor by the bed, as if it had been accidentally dropped, was a small, silvery halfdollar piece.
Susan picked it up and tossed it idly. She looked the oh god up and down. He was swilling a mouthful of beer from cheek to cheek and looking thoughtfully at the ceiling.
She wondered about his likelihood of survival incarnate in Ankh-Morpork at Hogswatch, especially if the cure wore off. After all, the only purpose of his existence was to have a headache and throw up. There were not a great many postgraduate jobs for which these were the main qualifications.
'Tell me,' she said. 'Have you ever ridden a horse?'
'I don't know. What's a horse?'
In the depths of the library of Death, a squeaking noise.
It was not loud, but it appeared louder than mere decibels would suggest in the furtive, scribbling hush of the books.
Everyone, it is said, has a book inside them. In this library, everyone was inside a book.
The squeaking got louder. It had a rhythmical, circular quality.
Book on book, shelf on shelf ... and in every one, at the page of the ever-moving now, a scribble of handwriting following the narrative of every life ...
The squeaking came round the corner.
It was issuing from what looked like a very rickety edifice, several storeys high. It looked rather like a siege tower, open at the sides. At the base, between the wheels, was a pair of geared treadles which moved the whole thing.
Susan dung to the railing of the topmost platform.
'Can't you hurry up?' she said. 'We're only at the Bi's at the moment.'
'I've been pedalling for ages!' panted the oh god.
'Well, "A" is a very popular letter.'
Susan stared up at the shelves. A was for Anon, among other things. All those people who, for one reason or another, never officially got a name.
They tended to be short books.
'M ... Bo ... Bod ... Bog ... turn left . .
The library tower squeaked ponderously around the next corner.
'Ah, Bo ... blast, the Bots are at least twenty shelves up.'
'Oh, how nice,' said the oh god grimly.
He heaved on the lever that moved the drive chain from one sprocket to another, and started to pedal again.
Very ponderously, the creaking tower began to telescope upwards.
'Right, we're there,' Susan shouted down, after a few minutes of slow rise. 'Here's ... let's see ... Aabana Bottler. . .'
'I expect Violet will be a lot further,' said the oh god, trying out irony.
'Onwards!'
Swaying a little, the tower headed down the Bs until.
'Stop!'
It rocked as the oh god kicked the brake block against a wheel.
'I think this is her,' said a voice from above. 'OK, you can lower away.'
A big wheel with ponderous lead weights on it spun slowly as the tower concertina'd back, creaking and grinding. Susan climbed down the last few feet.
'Everyone's in here?' said the oh god, as she thumbed through the pages.
'Yes.'
'Even gods?'
'Anything that's alive and self-aware,' said Susan, not looking up. 'This is ... odd. It looks as though she's in some sort of ... prison. Who'd want to lock up a tooth fairy?'
'Someone with very sensitive teeth?'
Susan flicked back a few pages. 'It's all ... hoods over her head and people carrying her and so on. But . . .' she turned a page '... it says the last job she did was on Banjo and ... yes, she got the tooth ... and then she felt as though someone was behind her and ... there's a ride on a cart ... and the hood's come off ... and there's a causeway ... and. . .'
'All that's in a book?'
'The autobiography. Everyone has one. It writes down your life as you go along.'
'I've got one?'
'I expect so.'
'Oh, dear. "Got up, was sick, wanted to die." Not a gripping read, really.'
Susan turned the page.
'A tower,' she said. 'She's in a tower. From what she saw, it was tall and white inside ... but not outside? It didn't look real. There were apple trees around it, but the trees, the trees didn't look right. And a river, but that wasn't right either. There were goldfish in it ... but they were on top of the water.'
'Ah. Pollution,' said the oh god.
'I don't think so. It says here she saw them swimming!
'Swimming on top of the water?'
'That's how she thinks she saw it.'
'Really? You don't think she'd been eating any of that mouldy cheese, do you?'
'And there was blue sky but ... she must have got this wrong ... it says here there was only blue sky above ...'
'Yep. Best place for the sky,' said the oh god. 'Sky underneath you, that probably means trouble.'
Susan flicked a page back and forth. 'She means ... sky overhead but not around the edges, I think No sky on the horizon.'
'Excuse me,' said the oh god. 'I'm not long in this world, I appreciate that, but I think you have, to have sky on the horizon. That's how you can tell it's the horizon.'
A sense of familiarity was creeping up on Susan, but surreptitiously, dodging behind things whenever she tried to concentrate on it.
'I've seen this place,' she said, tapping the page. 'If only she'd looked harder at the trees ... She says they've got brown trunks and green leaves and it says here she thought they were odd. And ... She concentrated on the next paragraph. 'Flowers. Growing in the grass. With big round petals.'
She stared unseeing at the oh god again.
'This isn't a proper landscape,' she said.
'It doesn't sound too unreal to me,' said the oh god. 'Sky. Trees. Flowers. Dead fish.'
'Brown tree trunks? Really they're mostly a sort of greyish mossy colour. You only ever see brown tree trunks in one place,' said Susan. 'And it's the same place where the sky is only ever overhead. The blue never comes down to the ground.'
She looked up. At the far end of the corridor was one of the very tall, very thin windows. It looked out on to the black gardens. Black bushes, black grass, black trees. Skeletal fish cruising 'm the black waters of a pool, under black water lilies.
There was colour, in a sense, but it was the kind of colour you'd get if you could shine a beam of black through a prism. There were hints of tints, here and there a black you might persuade yourself was a very deep purple or a midnight blue. But it was basically black, under a black sky, because this was the world belonging to Death and that was all there was to it.
The shape of Death was the shape people had created for him, over the centuries. Why bony? Because bones were associated with death. He'd got a scythe because agricultural people could spot a decent metaphor. And he lived in a sombre land because the human imagination would be rather stretched to let him live somewhere nice with flowers.
People like Death lived in the human imagination, and got their shape there, too. He wasn't the only one ...
... but he didn't like the script, did he? He'd started to take an interest in people. Was that a thought, or just a memory of something that hadn't happened yet?
The oh god followed her gaze.
'Can we go after her?' said the oh god. 'I say we, I think I've just got drafted in because I was in the wrong place.'
'She's alive. That means she is mortal,' said Susan. 'That means I can find her, too.' She turned and started to walk out of the library.
'If she says the sky is just blue overhead, what's between it and the horizon?' said the oh god, running to keep up.
'You don't have to come,' said Susan. 'It's not your problem.'
'Yes, but given that my problem is that my whole purpose in life is to feel rotten, anything's an improvement.'
'It could be dangerous. I don't think she's there of her own free will. Would you be any good in a fight?'
'Yes. I could be sick on people.'
It was a shack, somewhere out on the outskirts of the Plains town of Scrote. Scrote had a lot of outskirts, spread so widely — a busted cart here, a dead dog there that often people went through it without even knowing it was there, and really it only appeared on the maps because cartographers get embarrassed about big empty spaces.
Hogswatch came after the excitement of the cabbage harvest when it was pretty quiet in Scrote and there was nothing much to look forward to until the fun of the sprout festival.
This shack had an iron stove, with a pipe that went up through the thick cabbage-leaf thatch.
Voices echoed faintly within the pipe.
THIS IS REALLY, REALLY STUPID.
'I think the tradition got started when everyone had them big chimneys, master.' This voice sounded as though it was coming from someone standing on the roof and shouting down the pipe.
INDEED? IT'S ONLY A MERCY IT'S UNLIT.
There was some muffled scratching and banging, and then a thump from within the pot belly of the stove.
DAMN.
'What's up, master?'
THE DOOR HAS NO HANDLE ON THE INSIDE. I CALL THAT INCONSIDERATE.
There were some more bumps, and then a scrape as the stove lid was lifted up and pushed sideways. An arm came out and felt around the front of the stove until it found the handle.
It played with it for a while, but it was obvious that the hand did not belong to a person used to opening things.
In short, Death came out of the stove. Exactly how would be difficult to describe without folding the page. Time and space were, from Death's point of view, merely things that he'd heard described. When it came to Death, they ticked the box marked Not Applicable. It might help to think of the universe as a rubber sheet, or perhaps not.
'Let us in, master,' a pitiful voice echoed down from the roof. 'It's brass monkeys out here.'
Death went over to the door. Snow was blowing underneath it. He peered nervously at the woodwork. There was a thump outside and Albert's voice sounded a lot closer.
'What's up, master?'
Death stuck his head through the wood of the door.
THERE'S THESE METAL THINGS
'Bolts, master. You slide them,' said Albert, sticking his hands under his armpits to keep them warm.
AH.
Death's head disappeared. Albert stamped his feet and watched his breath cloud in the air while he listened to the pathetic scrabbling on the other side of the door.
Death's head appeared again.
ER ...
'It's the latch, master,' said Albert wearily.
RIGHT. RIGHT.
'You put your thumb on it and push it down.'
RIGHT.
The head disappeared. Albert jumped up and down a bit, and waited.
The head appeared.
ER ... I WAS WITH YOU UP TO THE THUMB...
Albert sighed. 'And then you press down and pull, master.'
AH. RIGHT. GOT YOU.
The head disappeared.
Oh dear, thought Albert. He just can't get the hang of them, can he ...?
The door jerked open. Death stood behind it, beaming proudly, as Albert staggered in, snow blowing in with him.
'Blimey, it's getting really parky,' said Albert. 'Any sherry?' he added hopefully.
IT APPEARS NOT.
Death looked at the sock hooked on to the side of the stove. It had a hole in it.
A letter, in erratic handwriting, was attached to it. Death picked it up.
THE BOY WANTS A PAIR OF TROUSERS THAT HE DOESN'T HAVE TO SHARE, A HUGE MEAT PIE, A SUGAR MOUSE, 'A LOT OF TOYS' AND A PUPPY CALLED SCRUFF.
'Ah, sweet,' said Albert. 'I shall wipe away a tear, 'cos what he's gettin', see, is this little wooden toy and an apple.' He held them out.
BUT THE LETTER CLEARLY
'Yes, well, it's socio-economic factors again,
right?' said Albert 'The world'd be in a right mess if everyone got what they asked for, eh?'
I GAVE THEM WHAT THEY WANTED IN THE STORE . . .
'Yeah, and that's gonna cause a lot of trouble, master. All them "toy pigs that really work". I didn't say nothing 'cos it was getting the job done but you can't go on like that. What good's a god who gives you everything you want?'
YOU HAVE ME THERE.
'It's the hope that's important. Big part of belief, hope. Give people jam today and they'll just sit and eat it. jam tomorrow, now — that'll keep them going for ever.'
AND YOU MEAN THAT BECAUSE OF THIS THE POOR GET POOR THINGS AND THE RICH GET RICH THINGS?
' 's right,' said Albert. 'That's the meaning of Hogswatch.'
Death nearly wailed.
BUT I'M THE HOGFATHER! He looked embarrassed. AT THE MOMENT, I MEAN.
'Makes no difference,' said Albert, shrugging. 'I remember when I was a nipper, one Hogswatch I had my heart set on this huge model horse they had in the shop ...' His face creased for a moment in a grim smile of recollection. 'I remember I spent hours one day, cold as charity the weather was, I spent hours with my nose pressed up against the window ... until they heard me callin', and unfroze me. I saw them take it out of the window, someone was in there buying it, and, y'know, just for a second I thought it really was going to be for me ... Oh. I dreamed of that toy horse. It were red and white with a real saddle and everything. And rockers. I'd've killed for that horse.' He shrugged again. 'Not a chance, of course, 'cos we didn't have a pot to piss in and we even `ad to spit on the bread to make it soft enough to eat ...'
PLEASE ENLIGHTEN ME. WHAT IS SO IMPORTANT ABOUT HAVING A POT TO PISS IN?
'It's ... it's more like a figure of speech, master. It means you're as poor as a church mouse.'
ARE THEY POOR?
'Well ... yeah.'
BUT SURELY NOT MORE POOR THAN ANY OTHER MOUSE? AND, AFTER ALL, THERE TEND TO BE LOTS OF CANDLES AND THINGS THEY COULD EAT.
'Figure of speech again, master. It doesn't have to make sense.'
OH. I SEE. DO CARRY ON.
'O' course, I still hung up my stocking on Hogswatch Eve, and in the morning, you know, you know what? Our dad had put in this little horse he'd carved his very own self ...'
AH, said Death. AND THAT WAS WORTH MORE THAN ALL THE EXPENSIVE TOY HORSES IN THE WORLD,EH?
Albert gave him a beady look. 'No!' he said. 'It weren't. All I could think of was it wasnt the big horse in the window.'
Death looked shocked.
BUT HOW MUCH BETTER TO HAVE A TOY CARVED WITH...
'No. Only grown-ups think like that,' said