for your ma-
‘D’you like apples?’ Banjo rumbled
Brown struggled
‘You got to say yes,’ Banjo said
‘Yes!
‘D’You like pears? You got to say yes.
‘Al right, yes!
‘D’you like fal ing down the stairs?
Medium Dave held up his hands for quiet
He glared at the gang
‘This place is getting to you, right? But we’ve al been in bad places before, right?
‘Not this bad,’ said Chickenwire. ‘I’ve never been anywhere where it hurts to look at
the sky. It give me the creeps.
‘Chick’s a little baby, nyer nyer nyer,’ sang Careers
They looked at him. He coughed nervously
‘Sorry… don’t know why I said that.
‘If we stick together we’l be fine-
‘Teeny meeny minty me…’ mumbled Catseye
‘What? What are you talking about?
‘Sorry… it just sort of slipped out…
‘What I’m trying to say,’ said Medium Dave, ‘is that if–
‘Peachy keeps making faces at me!
‘I didn’t!
‘Liar, liar, pants on fire!
Two things happened at this point. Medium Dave lost his temper, and Peachy
screamed
A smal wisp of smoke was rising from his trousers
He hopped around, beating desperately at himself
‘Who did that? Who did that?’ demanded Medium Dave
‘I didn’t see anyone,’ said Chickenwire. ‘I mean, no one was near him. Catseye said
“pants on fire” and next minute-
‘Now he’s sucking his thumb!’ Catseye jeered. Nyer nyer nyer! Crying for Mummy!
You know what happens to kids who suck their thumbs, there’s this big monster with
scissors al —
‘Wil you stop talking like that!’ shouted Medium Dave. ‘Blimey, it is like dealing with a bunch of-Someone screamed, high above. It went on for a while and seemed to be getting
nearer, but then it stopped and was replaced by a rush of thumping and an occasional
sound like a coconut being bounced on a stone floor
Medium Dave got to the door just in time to see the body of Mr Brown the locksmith
tumble past, moving quite fast and not at al neatly. A moment later his bag
somersaulted around the curve of the stairs. It split as it bounced and ther
was a jangle as tools and lockpicks bounced out and fol owed their late owner
He’d been moving quite fast. He’d probably rol al the way to the bottom
Medium Dave looked up. Two turns above him, on the opposite side of the huge
shaft, Banjo was watching him
Banjo didn’t know right from wrong. He’d always left that sort of thing to his brother
‘Er… poor guy must’ve slipped,’ Medium Dave mumbled
‘Oh, yeah… slipped,’ said Peachy
He looked up, too
It was funny. He hadn’t noticed them before. The white tower had seemed to glow
from within. But now there were shadows, moving across the stone. In the stone
‘What was that?’ he said. ‘That sound..
‘What sound?
‘It sounded… like knives scraping,’ said Peachy. ‘Real y close.
‘There’s only us here!’ said Medium Dave. ‘What’re you afraid of? Attack by daisies?
Come on… let’s go and help him…
She couldn’t walk through the door. It simply resisted any such effort. She ended up
merely bruised. So Susan turned the doorknob instead
She heard the oh god gasp. But she was used to the idea of buildings that were
bigger on th
inside. Her grandfather had never been able to get a handle on dimensions
The second thing the eye was drawn to were the staircases. They started opposite
one another in what was now a big round tower, its ceiling lost in the haze. The spirals
circled into infinity
Susan’s eyes went back to the first thing
It was a large conical heap in the middle of the floor
It was white. It glistened in the cool light that shone down from the mists
‘It’s teeth,’ she said
‘I think I’m going to throw up,’ said the oh god miserably
‘There’s nothing that scary about teeth,’ said Susan. She didn’t mean it. The heap
was very horrible indeed
‘Did I say I was scared? I’m just hung over again… Oh, me…
Susan advanced on the heap, moving warily
They were smal teeth. Children’s teeth. Whoever had piled them up hadn’t been
very careful about it, either. A few had been scattered across the floor. She knew
because she trod on one, and the slippery little crunching sound made her desperate
not to tread on any more
Whoever had piled them up had presumably been the one who’d drawn the chalk
marks around the obscene heap
‘There’re so many,’ whispered Bilious
‘At least twenty mil ion, given the size of th
average milk tooth,’ said Susan. She was shocked to find that it came almost
automatical y
‘How can you possibly know that?
‘Volume of a cone,’ said Susan. ‘Pi times the square of the radius times the height
divided by three. I bet Miss Butts never thought it’d come in handy in a place like this.
‘That’s amazing. You did it in your head?
‘This isn’t right,’ said Susan quietly. ‘I don’t think this is what the Tooth Fairy is al
about. Al that effort to get the teeth, and then just to dump them like this? No. Anyway,
there’s a cigarette end on the floor. I don’t see the Tooth Fairy as someone who rol s
her own.
She stared down at the chalk marks
Voices high above her made her look up. She thought she saw a head look over the
stair rail, and then draw back again. She didn’t see much of the face, but what she saw
didn’t look fairylike
She glanced back at the circle of chalk around the teeth. Someone had wanted al
the teeth in one place and had drawn a circle to show people where they had to go
There were a few symbols scrawled around the circle
She had a good memory for smal details. It was another family trait. And a smal
detail stirred in her memory like a sleepy bee
‘Oh, no,’ she breathed. ‘Surely no one would try to-
Someone shouted, someone up in the whiteness
A body rol ed down the stairs nearest her. I
had been a skinny, middle-aged man. Technical y it stil was, but the long spiral
staircase had not been kind
It tumbled across the white marble and slid to a boneless halt
Then, as she hurried towards the body, it faded away, leaving nothing behind but a
smear of blood
A jingle noise made her look back up the stairs. Spinning over and over, making
salmon leaps in the air, a crowbar bounded over the last dozen steps and landed point
first on a flagstone, staying upright and vibrating
Chickenwire reached the top of the stairs, panting
‘There’s people down there, Mister Teatime!’ he wheezed. ‘Dave and the others’ve
gone down to catch them, Mister Teatime!
‘Teh-ah-tim-eh,’ said Teatime, without taking his eyes off the wizard
‘That’s right, sir!
‘Wel ?’ said Teatime. ‘Just… do away with them.
‘Er… one of them’s a girl, sir.
Teatime stil didn’t look round. He waved a hand vaguely
‘Then do away with them politely.
‘Yes, Mister… yes, right…’ Chickenwire coughed. ‘Don’t you want to find out why
they’re here, sir?
‘Good heavens, no. Why should I want to do that? Now go away.
Chickenwire stood there for a moment, and then hurried off
As he scurried down the stairs he thought he heard a creak, as of an ancient wooden
door
He went pale
It was just a door, said the sensible bit in front of his brain. There were hundreds of them in this place, although, come to think of it, none of them had creaked
The other bit, the bit that hung around in dark places nearly at the top of his spinal
column, said: But it’s not one of them, and you know it, because you know which door
it real y is..
He hadn’t heard that creak for thirty years
He gave a little yelp and started to take the stairs four at a time
In the hol ows and corners, the shadows grew darker
Susan ran up a flight of stairs, dragging the oh god behind her
‘Do you know what they’ve been doing?’ she said. ‘You know why they’ve got al
those teeth in a circle? The power… oh my…
‘I’m not going to,’ said the head waiter, firmly
‘Look, I’l buy you a better pair after Hogswatch-
‘There’s two more Shoe Pastry, one for Purée de la Terre and three more Tourte à la
Boue,’ said a waiter, hurrying in
‘Mud pies!’ moaned the waiter. ‘I can’t believe we’re sel ing mud pies. And now you
want my boots!
‘With cream and sugar, mind you. A real taste of AnkhMorpork. And we can get at
least four helpings off those boots. Fair’s fair. We’re al in our socks–
‘Table seven says the steaks were lovely but a bit tough,’ said a waiter, rushing past
‘Right. Use a larger hammer next time and boil them for longer.’ The manager turned