Hogfather
By Terry Pratchett
Everything starts somewhere, although many physicists disagree.
But people have always been dimly aware of the problem with the start of things.
They wonder aloud how the snowplough driver gets to work, or how the makers of
dictionaries look up the spel ing of the words. Yet there is the constant desire to find
some point in the twisting, knotting, ravel ing nets of space-time on which a
metaphorical finger can be put to indicate that here, here, is the point where it al
began…
Something began when the Guild of Assassins enrol ed Mister Teatime, who saw
things differently from other people, and one of the ways that he saw things differently
from other people was in seeing other people as things (later, Lord Downey of the
Guild said, ‘We took pity on him because he’d lost both parents at an early age. I think
that, on reflection, we should have wondered a bit more about that.’)
But it was much earlier even than that when most people forgot that the very oldest
stories are, sooner or later, about blood. Later on they took the blood out to make the
stories more acceptable to children, or at least to the people who had to read them to
children rather than the children themselves (who, on the whole, are quite keen on
blood provided it’s being shed by the deserving1), and then wondered where the
stories went.
And earlier stil when something in the darkness of the deepest caves and gloomiest
forests thought: what are they, these creatures? I wil observe them.
And much, much earlier than that, when the Discworld was formed, drifting onwards
through space atop four elephants on the shel of the giant turtle, Great A’Tuin.
Possibly, as it moves, it gets tangled like a blind man in a cobwebbed house in those
highly specialized little spacetime strands that try to breed in every history they
encounter, stretching them and breaking them and tugging them into new shapes.
Or possibly not, of course. The philosopher Didactylos has summed up an alternative
hypothesis as ‘Things just happen. What the hel .’
The senior wizards of Unseen University stood and looked at the door.
There was no doubt that whoever had shut it wanted it to stay shut. Dozens of nails
secured it to the door frame. Planks had been nailed right across. And final y it had, up
until this morning, been hidden by a bookcase that had been put in front of it.
‘And there’s the sign, Ridcul y,’ said the Dean. ‘You have read it, I assume. You
know? The sign which says “Do not, under any circumstances, open this door”?’
‘Of course I’ve read it,’ said Ridcul y. ‘Why d’yer think I want it opened?’
‘Er … why?’ said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
‘To see why they wanted it shut, of course.`2
He gestured to Modo, the University’s gardener and oddjob dwarf, who was standing
by with a crowbar.
‘Go to it, lad.’
The gardener saluted. ‘Right you are, sir.’
Against a background of splintering timber, Ridcul y went on: ‘It says on the plans
that this was a bathroom. There’s nothing frightening about a bathroom, for gods’ sake.
I want a bathroom. I’m fed up with sluicing down with you fel ows. It’s unhygienic. You
1 That is to say, those who deserve to shed blood. Or possibly not. You never quite know with some kids.
2 This exchange contains almost all you need to know about human civilization. At least, those bits of it that are now under the sea, fenced off or still smoking.
can catch stuff. My father told me that. Where you get lots of people bathing together, the Verruca Gnome is running around with his little sack.’
‘Is that like the Tooth Fairy?’ said the Dean sarcastical y.
‘I’m in charge here and I want a bathroom of my own,’ said Ridcul y firmly. ‘And that’s
al there is to it, al right? I want a bathroom in time for Hogswatchnight, understand?’
And that’s a problem with beginnings, of course. Sometimes, when you’re dealing
with occult realms that have quite a different attitude to time, you get the effect a little
way before the cause.
From somewhere on the edge of hearing came a glingleglingleglingle noise, like little
silver bel s.
At about the same time as the Archchancel or was laying down the law, Susan Sto-
Helit was sitting up in bed, reading by candlelight.
Frost patterns curled across the windows.
She enjoyed these early evenings. Once she had put the children to bed she was
more or less left to herself. Mrs Gaiter was pathetical y scared of giving her any
instructions even though she paid Susan’s wages.
Not that the wages were important, of course. What was important was that she was
being her Own Person and holding down a Real job. And being a governess was a real
job. The only tricky bit had been the embarrassment when her employer found out that
she was a duchess, because in Mrs Gaiter’s book, which was a rather short book with
big handwriting, the upper crust wasn’t supposed to work. It was supposed to loaf
around. It was al Susan could do to stop her curtseying when they met.
A flicker made her turn her head.
The candle flame was streaming out horizontal y, as though in a howling wind.
She looked up. The curtains bil owed away from the window, which-
-flung itself open with a clatter.
But there was no wind.
At least, no wind in this world.
Images formed in her mind. A red bal … The sharp smel of snow… And then they
were gone, and instead there were…
‘Teeth?’ said Susan, aloud. ‘Teeth, again?’
She blinked. When she opened her eyes the window was, as she knew it would be,
firmly shut. The curtain hung demurely. The candle flame was innocently upright. Oh,
no, not again. Not after al this time. Everything had been going so wel
‘Thusan?’
She looked around. Her door had been pushed open and a smal figure stood there,
barefoot in a nightdress.
She sighed. ‘Yes, Twyla?’
‘I’m afwaid of the monster in the cel ar, Thusan. It’s going to eat me up.’
Susan shut her book firmly and raised a warning finger.
‘What have I told you about trying to sound ingratiatingly cute, Twyla?’ she said.
The little girl said, ‘You said I mustn’t. You said that exaggerated lisping is a hanging
offence and I only do it to get attention.’
‘Good. Do you know what monster it is this time?’
‘It’s the big hairy one wif-‘
Susan raised the finger. ‘Uh?’ she warned.
‘- with eight arms,’ Twyla corrected herself.
‘What, again? Oh, al right.’
She got out of bed and put on her dressing gown, trying to stay quite calm while the
child watched her. So they were coming back. Oh, not the monster in the cel ar. That
was al in a day’s work. But it looked as if she was going to start remembering the
future again.
She shook her head. However far you ran away, you always caught yourself up.
But monsters were easy, at least. She’d learned how to deal with monsters. She
picked up the poker from the nursery fender and went down the back stairs, with Twyla
fol owing her.
The Gaiters were having a dinner party. Muffled voices came from the direction of
the dining room.
Then, as she crept past, a door opened and yel ow light spil ed out and a voice said,
‘Ye gawds, there’s a gel in a nightshirt out here with a poker!’
She saw figures silhouetted in the light and made out the worried face of Mrs Gaiter.
‘Susan? Er … what are you doing?’
Susan looked at the poker and then back at the woman. ‘Twyla said she’s afraid of a
monster in the cel ar, Mrs Gaiter.’
‘And yer going to attack it with a poker, eh?’ said one of the guests. There was a
strong atmosphere of brandy and cigars.
‘Yes,’ said Susan simply.
‘Susan’s our governess,’ said Mrs Gaiter. ‘Er … I told you about her.’
There was a change in the expression on the faces peering out from the dining room.
It became a sort of amused respect.
‘She beats up monsters with a poker?’ said someone.
‘Actual y, that’s a very clever idea,’ said someone else. ‘Little gel gets it into her head
there’s a monster in the cel ar, you go in with the poker and make a few bashing
noises while the child listens, and then everything’s al right. Good thinkin’, that girl.
Ver’ sensible. Ver’ modem.’
‘Is that what you’re doing Susan?’ said Mrs Gaiter anxiously.
‘Yes, Mrs Gaiter,’ said Susan obediently.
‘This I’ve got to watch, by Io! It’s not every day you see monsters beaten up by a gel,’
said the man behind her. There was a swish of silk and a cloud of cigar smoke as the