night, when the child had woken up crying because of a bogeyman in the closet.
She’d sighed and gone to have a look. She’d been so angry that she’d pul ed it out,
hit it over the head with the nursery poker, dislocated its shoulder as a means of
emphasis and kicked it out of the back door.
The children refused to disbelieve in the monsters because, frankly, they knew damn
wel the things were there.
But she’d found that they could, very firmly, also believe in the poker.
Now she sat down on a bench and read a book. She made a point of taking the
children, every day, somewhere where they could meet others of the same age. If they
got the hang of the playground, she thought, adult life would hold no fears. Besides, it
was nice to hear the voices of little children at play, provided you took care to be far
enough away not to hear what they were actual y saying.
There were lessons later on. These were going a lot better now she’d got rid of the
reading books about bouncy bal s and dogs cal ed Spot. She’d got Gawain on to the
military campaigns of General Tacticus, which were suitably bloodthirsty but, more
importantly, considered too difficult for a child. As a result his vocabulary was doubling
every week and he could already use words like ‘disembowel ed’ in everyday
conversation. After al , what was the point of teaching children to be children?
They were natural y good at it.
And she was, to her mild horror, natural y good with them. She wondered
suspiciously if this was a family trait. And if, to judge by the way her hair so readily
knotted itself into a prim bun, she was destined for jobs like this for the rest of her life.
It was her parents’ fault. They hadn’t meant it to turn out like this. At least, she hoped
charitably that they hadn’t.
They’d wanted to protect her, to keep her away from the worlds outside this one,
from what people thought of as the occult, from … wel , from her grandfather, to put it
bluntly. This had, she felt, left her a little twisted up.
Of course, to be fair, that was a parent’s job. The world was so ful of sharp bends
that if they didn’t put a few twists in you, you wouldn’t stand a chance of fitting in. And
they’d been conscientious and kind and given her a good home and even an
education.
It had been a good education, too. But it had only been later on that she’d realized
that it had been an education in, wel , education. It meant that if ever anyone needed
to calculate the volume of a cone, then they could confidently cal on Susan Sto-Helit.
Anyone at a loss to recal the campaigns of General Tacticus or the square root of 27.4
would not find her wanting. If you needed someone who could talk about household
items and things to buy in the shops in five languages, then Susan was at the head of
the queue. Education had been easy.
Learning things had been harder.
Getting an education was a bit like a communicable sexual disease. It made you
unsuitable for a lot of jobs and then you had the urge to pass it on.
She’d become a governess. It was one of the few jobs a known lady could do. And
she’d taken to it wel . She’d sworn that if she did indeed ever find herself dancing on
rooftops with chimney sweeps she’d beat herself to death with her own umbrel a.
After tea she read them a story. They liked her stories. The one in the book was
pretty awful, but the Susan version was wel received. She translated as she read.
‘… and then Jack chopped down the beanstalk, adding murder and ecological
vandalism to the theft, enticement and trespass charges already mentioned, but he got
away with it and lived happily ever after without so much as a guilty twinge about what
he had done. Which proves that you can be excused just about anything if you’re a
hero, because no one asks inconvenient questions. And now,’ she closed the book
with a snap, ‘it’s time for bed.’
The previous governess had taught them a prayer which included the hope that
some god or other would take their soul if they died while they were asleep and, if
Susan was any judge, had the underlying message that this would be a good thing.
one day, Susan averred, she’d hunt that woman down.
‘Susan,’ said Twyla, from somewhere under the blankets.
‘Yes?’
‘You know last week we wrote letters to the Hogfather?’
‘Yes?’
‘Only … in the park Rachel says he doesn’t exist and it’s your father real y. And
everyone else said she was right.’
There was a rustle from the other bed. Twyla’s brother had turned over and was
listening surreptitiously.
Oh dear, thought Susan. She had hoped she could avoid this. It was going to be like
that business with the Soul Cake Duck al over again.
‘Does it matter if you get the presents anyway?’ she said, making a direct appeal to
greed.
‘ ‘ es.’
Oh dear, oh dear. Susan sat down on the bed, wondering how the hel to get through
this. She patted the one visible hand.
‘Look at it this way, then,’ she said, and took a deep mental breath. ‘Wherever people are obtuse and absurd … and wherever they have, by even the most generous
standards, the attention span of a smal chicken in a hurricane and the investigative
ability of a one-legged cockroach … and wherever people are inanely credulous,
Pathetical y attached to the certainties of the nursery and, in general, have as much
grasp of
the realities of the physical universe as an oyster has of mountaineering … yes,
Twyla: there is a Hogfather.’
There was silence from under the bedclothes, but she sensed that the tone of voice
had worked. The words had meant nothing. That, as her grandfather might have said,
was humanity al over.
‘G’ night.’
‘Good night,’ said Susan.
It wasn’t even a bar. It was just a room where people drank while they waited for
other people with whom they had business. The business usual y involved the transfer
of ownership of something from one person to another, but then, what business
doesn’t?
Five businessmen sat round a table, lit by a candle stuck in a saucer. There was an
open bottle between them. They were taking some care to keep it away from the
candle flame.
‘ ‘ s gone six,’ said one, a huge man with dreadlocks and a beard you could keep
goats in. ‘The clocks struck ages ago. He ain’t coming. Let’s go.
‘Sit down, wil you? Assassins are always late. ‘cos of style, right?’
‘This one’s mental.’
‘Eccentric.’
‘What’s the difference?’
‘A bag of cash.’
The three that hadn’t spoken yet looked at one another.
‘What’s this? You never said he was an Assassin,’ said Chickenwire. ‘He never said
the guy was an Assassin, did he, Banjo?’
There was a sound like distant thunder. It was Banjo Lilywhite clearing his throat.
‘Dat’s right,’ said a voice from the upper slopes. ‘Youse never said.’
The others waited until the rumble died away. Even Banjo’s voice hulked.
‘He’s’ – the first speaker waved his hands vaguely, trying to get across the point that
someone was a hamper of food, several folding chairs, a tablecloth, an assortment of
cooking gear and an entire colony of ants short of a picnic -‘ mental. And he’s got a
funny eye.’
‘It’s just glass, al right?’ said the one known as Catseye, signal ing a waiter for four
beers and a glass of milk. ‘And he’s paying ten thousand dol ars each. I don’t care
what kind of eye he’s got.’
‘I heard it was made of the same stuff they make them fortune-tel ing crystals out of.
You can’t tel me that’s right. And he looks at you with it,’ said the first speaker. He was known as Peachy, although no one had ever found out why4.
Catseye sighed. Certainly there was something odd about Mister Teatime, there was
no doubt about that. But there was something weird about al Assassins. And the man
paid wel . Lots of Assassins used informers and locksmiths. It was against the rules,
4 Peachy was not someone you generally asked questions of, except the sort that go like: If-if-if-if I give you all my money could you possibly not break the other leg, thank you so much?’
technical y, but standards were going down everywhere, weren’t they? Usual y they
paid you late and sparsely, as if they were doing the favour. But Teatime was OK.
True, after a few minutes talking to him your eyes began to water and you felt you