Promised Cheese. This place was different.
It was brightly decorated, for one thing. Ivy and mistletoe hung in bunches from the
bookshelves. Brightly coloured streamers festooned the wal s, a feature seldom found
in most holes or even quite civilized cats.
The Death of Rats took a leap onto a chair and from there on to the table and in fact
right into a glass of amber liquid, which tipped over and broke. A puddle spread around
four turnips and began to soak into a note which had been written rather awkwardly on
pink writing paper.
It read:
Dere Hogfather,
For Hogswatch I would like a drum an a dol y an a teddybear an a Gharstley
Omnian Inquisision Torchure Chamber with Wind-up Rack and Nearly Real Blud You
Can Use Again, you can get it From the toyshoppe in Short Strete, it is $5.99p. I have
been good an here is a glars of Sherre an a Pork pie for you and turnips for Gouger an
Rooter an Snot Snouter. I hop the Chimney is big enough but my friend Wil aim Says
you are your father real y.
Yrs. Virginia Prood
The Death of Rats nibbled a bit of the pork pie because when you are the
personification of the death of smal rodents you have to behave in certain ways. He
also piddled on one of the turnips for the same reason, although only metaphorical y,
because when you are a smal skeleton in a black robe there are also some things you
technical y cannot do.
Then he leapt down from the table and left sherryflavoured footprints al the way to
the tree that stood in a pot in the corner. It was real y only a bare branch of oak, but so
much shiny hol y and mistletoe had been wired onto it that it gleamed in the fight of the
candles.
There was tinsel on it, and glittering ornaments, and smal bags of chocolate money.
The Death of Rats peered at his hugely distorted reflection in a glass bal , and then
looked up at the mantelpiece.
He reached it in one jump, and ambled curiously through the cards that had been
ranged along it. His grey whiskers twitched at messages like ‘Wifhin you Joye and al
Goode Cheer at Hogswatchtime & Al Through The Yeare’. A couple of them had
pictures of a big jol y fat man carrying a sack. In one of them he was riding in a sledge
drawn by four enormous pigs.
The Death of Rats sniffed at a couple of long stockings that had been hung from the
mantelpiece, over the fireplace in which a fire had died down to a few sul en ashes.
He was aware of a subtle tension in the air, a feeling that here was a scene that was
also a stage, a round hole, as it were, waiting for a round peg
There was a scraping noise. A few lumps of soot thumped into the ashes.
The Grim Squeaker nodded to himself.
The scraping became louder, and was fol owed by a moment of silence and then a
clang as something landed in the ashes and knocked over a set of ornamental fire
irons.
The rat watched careful y as a red-robed figure pul ed itself upright and staggered
across the hearthrug, rubbing its shin where it had been caught by the toasting fork.
It reached the table and read the note. The Death of Rats thought he heard a groan.
The turnips were pocketed and so, to the Death of Rats’ annoyance, was the pork
pie. He was pretty sure it was meant to be eaten here, not taken away.
The figure scanned the dripping note for a moment, and then turned around and
approached the mantelpiece. The Death of Rats pul ed back slightly behind ‘Seafon’s
Greetings!’
A red-gloved hand took down a stocking. There was some creaking and rustling and
it was replaced, looking a lot fatter – the larger box sticking out of the top had, just
visible, the words ‘Victim Figures Not Included. 3-10 yrs’.
The Death of Rats couldn’t see much of the donor of this munificence. The big red
hood hid al the face, apart from a long white beard.
Final y, when the figure finished, it stood back and pul ed a list out of its pocket. It
held it up to the hood and appeared to be consulting it. It waved its other hand vaguely
at the fireplace, the sooty footprints, the empty sherry glass and the stocking. Then it
bent forward, as if reading some tiny print.
AH, YES, it said. ER… HO. HO. HO.
With that, it ducked down and entered the chimney. There was some scrabbling
before its boots gained a purchase, and then it was gone.
The Death of Rats realized he’d begun to knaw his little scythe’s handle in sheer
shock.
SQUEAK?
He landed in the ashes and swarmed up the sooty cave of the chimney. He emerged
so fast that he shot out with his legs stil scrabbling and landed in the snow on the roof.
There was a sledge hovering in the air by the gutter.
The red-hooded figure had just climbed in and appeared to be talking to someone
invisible behind a pile of sacks.
HERE’S ANOTHER PORK PIE.
‘Any mustard?’ said the sacks. ‘They’re a treat with mustard.’
IT DOES NOT APPEAR SO.
‘Oh, wel . Pass it over anyway.’
IT LOOKS VERY BAD.
‘Nah, ‘s just where something’s nibbled it—‘
I MEAN THE SITUATION. MOST OF THE LETTERS … THEY DON’T REALLY
BELIEVE. THEY PRETEND TO
BELIEVE, JUST IN CASE7. I FEAR IT MAY BE TOO LATE. IT HAS SPREAD SO
FAST AND BACK IN TIME, TOO.
‘Never say die, master. That’s our motto, eh?’ said the sacks, apparently with their
mouth ful .
I CAN’T SAY IT’S EVER REALLY BEEN MINE.
‘I meant we’re not going to be intimidated by the certain prospect of complete and
utter failure, master.’
AREN’T WE? OH, GOOD. WELL, I SUPPOSE WE’D BETTER BE GOING. The
figure picked up the reins. UP, GOUGER! UP, ROOTER! UP, TUSKER! UP,
SNOUTER! GIDDYUP!
The four large boars harnessed to the sledge did not move.
WHY DOESN’T THAT WORK? said the figure in a puzzled, heavy voice.
‘Beats me, master,’ said the sacks.
IT WORKS ON HORSES.
7 This is very similar to the suggestion put forward by the Quirmian philosopher Ventre, who said, ‘Possibly the gods exist, and possibly they do not. So why not believe in them in any case? If it’s all true you’ll go to a lovely place when you die, and if it isn’t then you’ve lost nothing, right?’ When he died he woke up in a circle of gods holding nasty-looking sticks and one of them said, ‘We’re going to show you what we think of Mr Clever Dick in these parts . . .’
‘You could try “Pig-hooey! “‘
PIG-HOOEY. They waited. NO … DOESN’T SEEM TO REACH THEM.
There was some whispering.
REALLY? YOU THINK THAT WOULD WORK?
‘It’d bloody wel work on me if I was a pig, master.’
VERY WELL, THEN.
The figure gathered up the reins again.
APPLE! SAUCE!
The pigs’ legs blurred. Silver light flicked across them, and exploded outwards. They
dwindled to a dot, and vanished.
SQUEAK?
The Death of Rats skipped across the snow, slid down a drainpipe and landed on the
roof of a shed.
There was a raven perched there. It was staring disconsolately at something.
SQUEAK!
‘Look at that, wil ya?’ said the raven rhetorical y. It waved a claw at a bird table in the
garden below. ‘They hangs up half a bloody coconut, a lump of bacon rind, a handful
of peanuts in a bit of wire and they think they’re the gods’ gift to the nat’ral world. Huh.
Do I see eyebal s? Do I see entrails? I think not. Most intel igent bird in the temperate
latitudes an’ I gets the cold shoulder just because I can’t hang upside down and go
twit, twit. Look at robins, now. Stroppy little evil buggers, fight like demons, but al they
got to do is go bob-bob-bobbing along and they can’t move for breadcrumbs. Whereas
me myself can recite poems and repeat many hum’rous phrases–‘
SQUEAK!
‘Yes? What?’
The Death of Rats pointed at the roof and then the sky and jumped up and down
excitedly. The raven swivel ed one eye upwards.
‘Oh, yes. Him,’ he said. ‘Turns up at this time of year. Tends to be associated
distantly with robins, which-‘
SQUEAK! SQUEE IK IR IK! The Death of Rats pantomimed a figure landing in a
grate and walking around a room. SQUEAK EEK IK IK, SQUEAK ‘HEEK HEEK HEEK’!
IK IK SQUEAK!
‘Been overdoing the Hogswatch cheer, have you? Been rustling around in the brandy
butter?’
SQUEAK?
The raven’s eyes revolved.
‘Look, Death’s Death. It’s a ful -time job right?
it’s not as though you can run, like, a window cleaning round on the side or nip round