A Hat Full Of Sky - Terry Pratchett [10]
“That’s it,” she said at last. “A bonny effort!”
Rob Anybody stood back and looked critically at the paper.
“That’s it?” he asked.
“Aye,” said Jeannie. “Ye’ve writ your ain name, Rob Anybody!”
Rob stared at the letters again. “I’m gonna go to pris’n noo?” he asked.
There was a polite cough from beside Jeannie. It belonged to the toad. He had no other name, because toads don’t go in for names. Despite sinister forces that would have people think differently, no toad has ever been called Tommy the Toad, for example. It’s just not something that happens.
This toad had once been a lawyer (a human lawyer; toads manage without them) who’d been turned into a toad by a fairy godmother who’d intended to turn him into a frog but had been a bit hazy on the difference. Now he lived in the Feegle mound, where he ate worms and helped them out with the difficult thinking.
“I’ve told you, Mr. Anybody, that just having your name written down is no problem at all,” he said. “There’s nothing illegal about the words Rob Anybody. Unless, of course”—and the toad gave a little legal laugh—“it’s meant as an instruction!”
None of the Feegles laughed. They liked their humor to be a bit, well, funnier.
Rob Anybody stared at his very shaky writing. “That’s my name, aye?”
“It certainly is, Mr. Anybody.”
“An’nothin’bad’s happenin’at a’,” Rob noted. He looked closer. “How can you tell it’s my name?”
“Ah, that’ll be the readin’ side o’ things,” said Jeannie.
“That’s where the lettery things make a sound in yer heid?” asked Rob.
“Exactly so,” said the toad. “But we thought you’d like to start with the more physical aspect of the procedure.”
“Could I no’ mebbe just learn the writin’ and leave the readin’ to someone else?” Rob asked, without much hope.
“No, my man’s got to do both,” said Jeannie, folding her arms. When a female Feegle does that, there’s no hope left.
“Ach, it’s a terrible thing for a man when his wumman gangs up on him wi’ a toad,” said Rob, shaking his head. But when he turned to look at the grubby paper, there was just a hint of pride in his face.
“Still, that’s my name, right?” he said, grinning.
Jeannie nodded.
“Just there, all by itself and no’ on a WANTED poster or anything. My name, drawn by me.”
“Yes, Rob,” said the kelda.
“My name, under my thumb. No scunner can do anythin’ aboot it? I’ve got my name, nice and safe?”
Jeannie looked at the toad, who shrugged. It was generally held by those who knew them that most of the brains in the Nac Mac Feegle clans ended up in the women.
“A man’s a man o’ some standin’ when he’s got his own name where no one can touch it,” said Rob Anybody. “That’s serious magic, that is—”
“The R is the wrong way roond and you left the A and a Y out of Anybody,” said Jeannie, because it is a wife’s job to stop her husband actually exploding with pride.
“Ach, wumman, I didna’ ken which way the fat man wuz walkin’,” said Rob, airily waving a hand. “Ye canna trust the fat man. That’s the kind of thing us nat’ral writin’ folk knows about. One day he might walk this way, next day he might walk that way.”
He beamed at his name:
“And I reckon you got it wrong wi’ them Y’s,” he went on. “I reckon it should be N E Bo D. That’s Enn…eee…bor…dee, see? That’s sense!”
He stuck the pencil into his hair and gave her a defiant look.
Jeannie sighed. She’d grown up with seven hundred brothers and knew how they thought, which was often quite fast while being totally in the wrong direction. And if they couldn’t bend their thinking around the world, they bent the world around their thinking. Usually, her mother had told her, it was best not to argue.
Actually, only half a dozen Feegles in the Long Lake clan could read and write very well. They were considered odd, strange hobbies. After all, what—when you got out of bed in the morning—were they good for? You didn’t need to know them to wrestle a trout or mug