Jingo - Terry Pratchett [10]
Captain Carrot bounced the ball once or twice.
“All right, lads, one more try, eh? And this time, no horseplay. William, what are you eating?”
The Artful Nudger scowled. No one knew his name. Kids he’d grown up with didn’t know his name. His mother, if he ever found out who she was, probably didn’t know his name. But Carrot had found out somehow. If anyone else had called him “William” they’d be looking for their ear. In their mouth.
“Chewing gum, mister.”
“Have you brought enough for everybody?”
“No, mister.”
“Then put it away, there’s a good chap. Now, let’s—Gavin, what’s that up your sleeve?”
The one known as Scumbag Gav didn’t bother to argue.
“’s a knife, Mr. Carrot.”
“And I bet you brought enough for everybody, eh?”
“’sright, mister.” Scumbag grinned. He was ten.
“Go on, put them on the heap with the others…”
Constable Shoe looked over the wall in horror. There were about fifty youths in the wide alleyway. Average age in years: about eleven. Average age in cynicism and malevolent evil: about 163. Although Ankh-Morpork football doesn’t usually have goals in the normal sense, two had been nevertheless made at each end of the alley using the time-honored method of piling up things to mark where the posts would be.
Two piles: one of knives, one of blunt instruments.
In the middle of the boys, who were wearing the colors of some of the nastier street gangs, Captain Carrot was bouncing an inflated pig’s bladder.
Constable Shoe wondered if he ought to go and get help, but the man seemed quite at ease.
“Er, captain?” he ventured.
“Oh, hello, Reg. We were just having a friendly game of football. This is Constable Shoe, lads.”
Fifty pairs of eyes said: We’ll remember your face, copper.
Reg edged around the wall and the eyes noted the arrow which had gone straight through his breastplate and protruded several inches from his back.
“There’s been a bit of trouble, sir,” said Reg. “I thought I’d better fetch you. It’s a hostage situation…”
“I’ll come right away. Okay, lads, sorry about this. Play amongst yourselves, will you? And I hope I’ll see you all on Tuesday for the sing-song and sausage sizzle.”
“Yeah, mister,” said the Artful Nudger.
“And Corporal Angua will see if she can teach you the campfire howl.”
“Yeah, right,” said Scumbag.
“But what do we do before we part?” said Carrot expectantly.
The bloods of the Skats and the Mohocks looked bashfully at one another. Usually they were nervous of nothing, it being a banishment matter to show fear in any circumstances. But when they’d variously drawn up the clan rules, no one had ever thought there’d be someone like Carrot.
Glaring at one another with I’ll-kill-you-if-you-ever-mention-this expressions, they all raised the index fingers of both hands to the level of their ears and chorused: “Wib wib wib.”
“Wob wob wob,” Carrot replied heartily. “Okay, Reg, let’s go.”
“How’d you do that, captain?” said Constable Shoe, as the watchmen hurried off.
“Oh, you just raise both fingers like this,” said Carrot. “But I’d be obliged if you don’t tell anyone, because it’s meant to be a secret sig—”
“But they’re thugs, captain! Young killers! Villains!”
“Oh, they’re a bit cheeky, but nice enough boys underneath, when you take the time to understand—”
“I heard they never give anyone enough time to understand! Does Mr. Vimes know you’re doing this?”
“He sort of knows, yes. I said I’d like to start a club for the street kids and he said it was fine provided I took them camping on the edge of some really sheer cliff somewhere in a high wind. But he always says things like that. And I’m sure we wouldn’t have him any other way. Now, where are these hostages?”
“It’s at Vortin’s again, captain. But it’s…sort of worse than that…”
Behind them, the Skats and the Mohocks looked at one another warily. Then they picked up their weapons and edged away with care. It’s not that we don’t want to fight, their manner said. It’s just that we’ve got better things to do right now, and so we’re going to go away and find out what they are.
Unusually for the docks, there was not