Hogfather (12 page)

Y
ES, OF COURSE
. A
HEM
. Y
OU’RE SUPPOSED TO SAY THANK YOU
.

“’nk you.”

A
ND BE GOOD
. T
HIS IS PART OF THE ARRANGEMENT
.

“’es.”

T
HEN WE HAVE A CONTRACT
. The Hogfather reached into his sack and produced—

—a very large model castle with, as correctly interpreted, pointy blue cone roofs on turrets suitable for princesses to be locked in—

—a box of several hundred assorted knights and warriors—

—and a sword. It was four feet long and glinted along the blade.

The mother took a deep breath.

“You can’t give her that!” she screamed. “It’s not safe!”

I
T’S A SWORD
, said the Hogfather. T
HEY’RE NOT
MEANT
TO BE SAFE
.

“She’s a child!” shouted Crumley.

I
T’S EDUCATIONAL
.

“What if she cuts herself?”

T
HAT WILL BE AN IMPORTANT LESSON
.

Uncle Heavy whispered urgently.

R
EALLY
? O
H, WELL. IT’S NOT FOR ME TO ARGUE
, I
SUPPOSE
.

The blade went wooden.

“And she doesn’t want all that other stuff!” said Doreen’s mother, in the face of previous testimony. “She’s a girl! Anyway, I can’t afford big posh stuff like that!”

I
THOUGHT
I
GAVE IT AWAY
, said the Hogfather, sounding bewildered.

“You do?” said the mother.

“You
do
?” said Crumley, who’d been listening in horror. “You
don’t
! That’s our Merchandise! You can’t give it away! Hogswatch isn’t about giving it all away! I mean…yes, of course, of
course
things are given away,” he corrected himself, aware that people were watching, “but first they have to be bought, d’you see, I mean…haha.” He laughed nervously, increasingly aware of the strangeness around him and the rangy look of Uncle Heavy. “It’s not as though the toys are made by little elves at the Hub, ahaha…”

“Damn right,” said Uncle Heavy sagely. “You’d have to be a maniac even to think of giving an elf a chisel, less’n you want their initials carved on your forehead.”

“You mean this is all free?” said Doreen’s mother sharply, not to be budged from what she saw as the central point.

Mr. Crumley looked helplessly at the toys. They certainly didn’t look like any of his stock.

Then he tried to look hard at the new Hogfather. Every cell in his brain was telling him that here was a fat jolly man in a red and white suit.

Well…nearly every cell. A few of the sparkier ones were saying that his eyes were reporting something else, but they couldn’t agree on what. A couple had shut down completely.

The words escaped through his teeth.

“It…seems to be,” he said.

Although it was Hogswatch the University buildings were bustling. Wizards didn’t go to bed early in any case,
*
and of course there was the Hogswatchnight Feast to look forward to at midnight.

It would give some idea of the scale of the Hogswatchnight Feast that a light snack at UU consisted of a mere three or four courses, not counting the cheese and nuts.

Some of the wizards had been practicing for weeks. The Dean in particular could now lift a twenty-pound turkey on one fork. Having to wait until midnight merely put a healthy edge on appetites already professionally honed.

There was a general air of pleasant expectancy about the place, a general sizzling of salivary glands, a general careful assembling of the pills and powders against the time, many hours ahead, when eighteen courses would gang up somewhere below the rib cage and mount a counterattack.

Ridcully stepped out into the snow and turned up his collar. The lights were all on in the High Energy Magic Building.

“I don’t know, I don’t know,” he muttered. “Hogswatchnight and they’re
still
working. It’s just not natural. When
I
was a student I’d have been sick twice by now—”

In fact Ponder Stibbons and his group of research students
had
made a concession to Hogswatchnight. They’d draped holly over Hex and put a paper hat on the big glass dome containing the main ant heap.

Every time he came in here, it seemed to Ridcully, something more had been done to the…engine, or thinking machine, or whatever it was. Sometimes stuff turned up overnight. Occasionally, according to Stibbons, Hex hims—
itself
would draw plans for extra bits that he—
it
needed. It all gave Ridcully the willies, and an additional willy was engendered right now when he saw the Bursar sitting in front of the thing. For a moment, he forgot all about verrucas.

“What’re you doing here, old chap?” he said. “You should be inside, jumping up and down to make more room for tonight.”

“Hooray for the pink, gray and green,” said the Bursar.

“Er…we thought Hex might be of…you know…help, sir,” said Ponder Stibbons, who liked to think of himself as the University’s token sane person. “With the Bursar’s problem. We thought it might be a nice Hogswatch present for him.”

“Ye gods, Bursar’s got no problems,” said Ridcully, and patted the aimlessly smiling man on the head while mouthing the words “mad as a spoon.” “Mind just wanders a bit, that’s all. I said MIND WANDERS A BIT, eh? Only to be expected, spends far too much time addin’ up numbers. Doesn’t get out in the fresh air. I said, YOU DON’T GET OUT IN THE FRESH AIR, OLD CHAP!”

“We thought, er, he might like someone to talk to,” said Ponder.

“What? What? But I talk to him all the time! I’m always trying to take him out of himself,” said Ridcully. “It’s important to stop him mopin’ around the place.”

“Er…yes…certainly,” said Ponder diplomatically. He recalled the Bursar as a man whose idea of an exciting time had once been a soft-boiled egg. “So…er…well, let’s give it another try, shall we? Are you ready, Mr. Dinwiddie?”

“Yes, thank you, a green one with cinnamon if it’s not too much trouble.”

“Can’t see how he can talk to a machine,” said Ridcully, in a sullen voice. “The thing’s got no damn ears.”

“Ah, well, in fact we made it
one
ear,” said Ponder. “Er…”

He pointed to a large drum in a maze of tubes.

“Isn’t that old Windle Poons’s ear trumpet sticking out of the end?” said Ridcully suspiciously.

“Yes, Archchancellor.” Ponder cleared his throat. “Sound, you see, comes in waves—”

He stopped. Wizardly premonitions rose in his mind. He just
knew
Ridcully was going to assume he was talking about the sea. There was going to be one of those huge bottomless misunderstandings that always occurred whenever anyone tried to explain anything to the Archchancellor. Words like “surf,” and probably “ice cream” and “sand” were just…

“It’s all done by magic, Archchancellor,” he said, giving up.

“Ah. Right,” said Ridcully. He sounded a little disappointed. “None of that complicated business with springs and cogwheels and tubes and stuff, then.”

“That’s right, sir,” said Ponder. “Just magic. Sufficiently
advanced
magic.”

“Fair enough. What’s it do?”

“Hex can hear what you say.”

“Interesting. Saves all that punching holes in bits of cards and hitting keys you lads are forever doing, then—”

“Watch this, sir,” said Ponder. “All right, Adrian, initialize the GBL.”

“How do you do that, then?” said Ridcully, behind him.

“It…it means pull the great big lever,” Ponder said, reluctantly.

“Ah. Takes less time to say.”

Ponder sighed. “Yes, that’s right, Archchancellor.”

He nodded to one of the students, who pulled a large red lever marked “Do Not Pull.” Gears spun, somewhere inside Hex. Little trapdoors opened in the ant farms and millions of ants began to scurry along the networks of glass tubing. Ponder tapped at the huge wooden keyboard.

“Beats me how you fellows remember how to do all this stuff,” said Ridcully, still watching him with what Ponder considered to be amused interest.

“Oh, it’s largely intuitive, Archchancellor,” said Ponder. “Obviously you have to spend a lot of time learning it first, though. Now, then, Bursar,” he added. “If you’d just like to say something…”

“He says, SAY SOMETHING, BURSAAAR!” yelled Ridcully helpfully, into the Bursar’s ear.

“Corkscrew? It’s a tickler, that’s what Nanny says,” said the Bursar.

Things started to spin inside Hex. At the back of the room a huge converted waterwheel covered with sheep skulls began to turn, ponderously.

And the quill pen in its network of springs and guiding arms started to write:

+++ Why Do You Think You Are A Tickler? +++

For a moment the Bursar hesitated. Then he said, “I’ve got a spoon of my own, you know.”

+++ Tell Me About Your Spoon +++

“Er…it’s a little spoon…”

+++ Does Your Spoon Worry You? +++

The Bursar frowned. Then he seemed to rally. “Whoops, here comes Mr. Jelly,” he said, but he didn’t sound as though his heart was in it.

+++ How Long Have You Been Mr. Jelly? +++

The Bursar glared. “Are you making
fun
of me?” he said.

“Amazin’!” said Ridcully. “It’s got him stumped! ’s better than dried frog pills! How did you work it out?”

“Er…” said Ponder. “It sort of just happened…”

“Amazin’,” said Ridcully. He knocked the ashes out of his pipe on Hex’s “Anthill Inside” sticker, causing Ponder to wince. “This thing’s a kind of big artificial brain, then?”

“You
could
think of it like that,” said Ponder, carefully. “Of course, Hex doesn’t actually think. Not as such. It just
appears
to be thinking.”

“Ah. Like the Dean,” said Ridcully. “Any chance of fitting a brain like this into the Dean’s head?”

“It does weigh ten tons, Archchancellor.”

“Ah. Really? Oh. Quite a large crowbar would be in order, then.” He paused, and then reached into his pocket. “I knew I’d come here for something,” he added. “This here chappie is the Verruca Gnome—”

“Hello,” said the Verruca Gnome shyly.

“—who seems to have popped into existence to be with us here tonight. And, you know, I thought: this is a bit odd. Of course, there’s always something a
bit
unreal about Hogswatchnight,” said Ridcully. “Last night of the year and so on. The Hogfather whizzin’ around and so forth. Time of the darkest shadows and so on. All the old year’s occult rubbish pilin’ up. Anythin’ could happen. I just thought you fellows might check up on this. Probably nothing to worry about.”

“A
Verruca
Gnome?” said Ponder.

The gnome clutched his sack protectively.

“Makes about as much sense as a lot of things, I suppose,” said Ridcully. “After all, there’s a Tooth Fairy, ain’ there? You might as well wonder why we have a God of Wine and not a God of Hangovers—”

He stopped.

“Anyone else hear that noise just then?” he said.

“Sorry, Archchancellor?”

“Sort of
glingleglingleglingle
? Like little tinkly bells?”

“Didn’t hear anything like that, sir.”

“Oh.” Ridcully shrugged. “Anyway…what was I saying…yes…no one’s ever
heard
of a Verruca Gnome until tonight.”

“That’s right,” said the gnome. “Even
I’ve
never heard of me until tonight, and I’m
me
.”

“We’ll see what we can find out, Archchancellor,” said Ponder diplomatically.

“Good man.” Ridcully put the gnome back in his pocket and looked up at Hex.

“Amazin’,” he said again. “He just
looks
as though he’s thinking, right?”

“Er…yes.”

“But he’s not actually thinking?”

“Er…no.”

“So…he just gives the
impression
of thinking but really it’s just a show?”

“Er…yes.”

“Just like everyone else, then, really,” said Ridcully.

The boy gave the Hogfather an appraising stare as he sat down on the official knee.

“Let’s be absolutely clear. I know you’re just someone dressed up,” he said. “The Hogfather is a biological and temporal impossibility. I hope we understand one another.”

A
H. SO
I
DON’T EXIST
?

“Correct. This is just a bit of seasonal frippery and, I may say, rampantly commercial. My mother’s already bought my presents. I instructed her as to the right ones, of course. She often gets things wrong.”

The Hogfather glanced briefly at the smiling, worried image of maternal ineffectiveness hovering nearby.

H
OW OLD ARE YOU, BOY
?

The child rolled his eyes. “You’re not supposed to say that,” he said. “I
have
done this before, you know. You have to start by asking me my name.”

A
ARON
F
IDGET
, “T
HE
P
INES
,” E
DGEWAY
R
OAD
, A
NKH
-M
ORPORK
.

“I expect someone told you,” said Aaron. “I expect these people dressed up as pixies get the information from the mothers.”

A
ND YOU ARE EIGHT, GOING ON…OH, ABOUT FORTY-FIVE
, said the Hogfather.

“There’s forms to fill in when they pay, I expect,” said Aaron.

A
ND YOU WANT
W
ALNUT’S
I
NOFFENSIVE
R
EPTILES OF THE
S
TO
P
LAINS, A DISPLAY CABINET, A COLLECTOR’S ALBUM, A KILLING JAR AND A LIZARD PRESS
. W
HAT IS A LIZARD PRESS
?

“You can’t glue them in when they’re still fat, or didn’t you know that? I expect she told you about them when I was momentarily distracted by the display of pencils. Look, shall we end this charade? Just give me my orange and we’ll say no more about it.”

I
CAN GIVE FAR MORE THAN ORANGES
.