stranger, on the other hand, was here. Incredibly here
‘Er… wel , in the circumstances… er… shal I wrap it up for you?
NO. I WILL TAKE IT AS IT IS. THANK YOU. I WILL LEAVE VIA THE BACK WAY, IF
IT’S ALL THE SAME TO YOU
‘Er… how did you get in?’ said the shopkeeper, pul ing the horse out of the window
THROUGH THE WALL. SO MUCH MORE CONVENIENT THAN CHIMNEYS,
DON’T YOU THINK
The apparition dropped a smal clinking bag on the counter and lifted the horse
easily. The shopkeeper wasn’t in a position to hold on to anything. Even yesterday’s
dinner was threatening to leave him
The figure looked at the other shelves
YOU MAKE GOOD TOYS
‘Er… thank you.
INCIDENTALLY, said the customer, as he left, THERE IS A SMALL BOY OUT
THERE WITH HIS NOSE FROZEN TO THE WINDOW. SOME WARM WATER
SHOULD DO THE TRICK
Death walked out to where Binky was waiting in the snow and tied the toy horse
behind the saddle
ALBERT WILL BE VERY PLEASED. I CAN’T WAIT TO SEE HIS FACE. HO. HO.
HO
As the light of Hogswatch slid down the towers of Unseen University, the Librarian
slipped into the Great Hal with some sheet music clenched firmly in his feet
As the light of Hogswatch lit the towers of Unseen University, the Archchancel or sat
down with a sigh in his study and pul ed off his boots
It had been a damn long night, no doubt about it. Lots of strange things. First time
he’d ever seen the Senior Wrangler burst into tears, for one thing
Ridcul y glanced at the door to the new bathroom. Wel , he’d sorted out the teething
troubles, and a nice warm shower would be very refreshing. And then he could go
along to the organ recital al nice and clean
He removed his hat, and someone fel out of it with a tinkling sound. A smal gnome
rol ed across the floor
‘Oh, another one. I thought we’d got rid of you fel ows,’ said Ridcul y. ‘And what are
you?
The gnome looked at him nervously
‘Er… you know whenever there was another magical appearance you heard the
sound of, er, bel s?’ it said. Its expression suggested it was owning up to something it
just knew was going to get it a smack
.’Yes?
The gnome held up some rather smal handbel s and waved them nervously. They
went glingleglingleglingle, in a very sad way
‘Good, eh? That was me. Im the Glingleglingleglingle Fairy.
`Get out.
‘I also do sparkly fairy dust effects that go twing too, if you like..
`Go away!
‘How about ” The Bel s of St Ungulant’s”?’ said the gnome desperately. ‘Very
seasonal. Very nice. Why not join in? It goes: ‘ The bel s [clong] of St [clang]… ”
Ridcul y scored a direct hit with the rubber duck, and the gnome escaped through the
bath overflow. Cursing and spontaneous handbel ringing echoed away down the
pipes
In perfect peace at last, the Archchancel or pul ed off his robe
The organ’s storage tanks were wheezing at the rivets by the time the Librarian had
finished pumping. Satisfied, he knuckled his way up to the seat and paused to survey,
with great satisfaction, the keyboards in front of him
Bloody Stupid Johnson’s approach to music was similar to his approach in every field
that was caressed by his genius in the same way that a potato field is touched by a
late frost. Make it loud, he said. Make it wide. Make it al embracing. And thus the Great
Organ of Unseen University was the only one in the world where you could play an
entire symphony scored for thunderstorm and squashed toad noises
Warm water cascaded off Mustrum Ridcul y’s pointy bathing cap
Mr Johnson had, surely not on purpose, designed a perfect bathroom – at least,
perfect for singing in. Echoes and resonating pipeways smoothed out al those little
imperfections and gave even the weediest singer a rol ing, dark brown voice
And so Ridcul y sang
‘ -as I walked out one dadadadada for to something or other and to take the dadada,
I did espy a fair pretty may-ay-den I think it was, and I—
The organ pipes hummed with pent-up energy. The Librarian cracked his knuckles.
This took some time. Then he pul ed the pressure release valve
The hum became an urgent thrumming
Very careful y, he let in the clutch
Ridcul y stopped singing as the tones of the organ came through the wal
Bathtime music, eh? he thought. Just the job
It was a shame it was muffled by al the bathroom fixtures, though
It was at this point he espied a smal lever marked `Musical pipes
Ridcul y, never being a man to wonder what any kind of switch did when it was so
much easier and quicker to find out by pul ing it, did so. But instead of the music he
was expecting he was rewarded simply with several large panels sliding silently aside, revealing row upon row of brass nozzles
The Librarian was lost now, dreaming on th
wings of music. His hands and feet danced over the keyboards, picking their way
towards the crescendo which ended the first movement of Bubble’s Catastrophe Suite
One foot kicked the ‘Afterburner’ lever and the other spun the valve of the nitrous
oxide cylinder
Ridcul y tapped the nozzles
Nothing happened. He looked at the controls again, and realized that he’d never
pul ed the little brass lever marked ‘Organ Interlock`
He did so. This did not cause a torrent of pleasant bathtime accompaniment,
however. There was merely a thud and a distant gurgling which grew in volume
He gave up, and went back to soaping his chest
‘—-running of the deer, the playing of… huh? What–
Later that day he had the bathroom nailed up again and a notice placed on the door,
on which was written
‘Not to be used in any circumstances. This is IMPORTANT.
However, when Modo nailed the door up he didn’t hammer the nails in al the way but
left just a bit sticking up so that his pliers would grip later on, when he was told to
remove them. He never presumed and he never complained, he just had a good
working knowledge of the wizardly mind
They never did find the soap
Ponder and his fel ow students watched Hex careful y
‘It can’t just, you know, stop,’ said Adrian ‘Mad Drongo’ Tumipseed
‘The ants are just standing stil ,’ said Ponder. He sighed. ‘Al right, put the wretched
thing back.
Adrian careful y replaced the smal fluffy teddy bear above Hex’s keyboard. Things
immediately began to whirr. The ants started to trot again. The mouse squeaked
They’d tried this three times
Ponder looked again at the single sentence Hex had written
+++ Mine! Waaaah +++
‘I don’t actual y think,’ he said, gloomily, ‘that I want to tel the Archchancel or that this
machine stops working if we take its fluffy teddy bear away. I just don’t think I want to
live in that kind of world.
‘Er,’ said Mad Drongo, ‘you could always, you know, sort of say it needs to work with
the FTB enabled..
‘You think that’s better?’ said Ponder, reluctantly. It wasn’t as if it was even a very
realistic interpretation of a bear
‘You mean, better than “fluffy teddy bear”?
Ponder nodded. ‘It’s better,’ he said
Of al the presents he got from the Hogfather, Gawain told Susan, the best of al was
the marble
And she’d said, what marble
And he’d said, the glass marble I found in the fireplace. It wins al the games. It
seems to move in a different way
The beggars walked their erratic and occasional y backward walk along the city
streets, while fresh morning snow began to fal
Occasional y one of them belched happily. They al wore paper hats, except for Foul
Ole Ron, who’d eaten his
A tin can was passed from hand to hand. It contained a mixture of fine wines and
spirits and something in a can that Arnold Sideways h
stolen from behind a paint factory in Phedre Road
‘The goose was good,’ said the Duck Man, picking his teeth
‘I’m surprised you et it, what with that duck on your head,’ said Coffin Henry, picking
his nose
‘What duck?’ said the Duck Man
‘What were that greasy stuff?’ said Arnold Sideways
‘That, my dear fel ow, was pâté de foie gras. Al the way from Genua, I’l wager. And
very good, too.
‘Dun’ arf make you fart, don’t it?
‘Ah, the world of haute cuisine,’ said the Duck Man happily
They reached, by fits and starts, the back doo
of their favourite restaurant. The Duck Man looked at it dreamily, eyes filmy with
recol ection
‘I used to dine here almost every night,’ he said
‘Why’d you stop?’ said Coffin Henry