Hogfather (22 page)

“What’s that?”

“She said she gets given the names every week.”

“What, of the children who’re 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 gray 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 okay. 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 flr 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 long, 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 lives 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 closed 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 secondhand 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 ill 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 good-bye Charlie I’m off to be a waitress in the warm. And then there’s Ernie. 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? I’ll 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 mustache. 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’ly I run Bulk Collection and Dispatch—”

“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 GV19 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.

“W
HAT CART ARE WE TALKING ABOUT HERE
, C
HARLIE
?” The oh god jolted away. The man in the brown coat shot backward and splayed against the corridor wall as Susan advanced.

“Comes Tuesdays,” he panted. “’ere, what—”

“A
ND 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’ Ernie’s gorn, too,” said Charlie, continuing more or less on autopilot. “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 stern 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 toward 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. “’n’ 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 such like, 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.

W
HAT’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.

W
HAT DO YOU THINK YOU ARE DOING
, S
IRE
?

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—”

N
O, IT’S NOT
.

“What? How dare you—”

W
ERE YOU HERE LAST MONTH
? W
ILL YOU BE HERE NEXT WEEK
? N
O
. B
UT TONIGHT YOU WANTED TO FEEL ALL WARM INSIDE
. T
ONIGHT YOU WILL WANT THEM TO SAY
: W
HAT 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—”