Soul Music - Terry Pratchett [43]
“I told you, I know just where to find one,” said Glod.
A tiny part of him was amazed: I’ve hacked a hole in my own wall! It took me days to nail that wallpaper on properly.
Albert was in the stable, with a shovel and a wheelbarrow.
“Go well?” he said, when Susan’s shadow appeared over the half door.
“Er…yes…I suppose…”
“Pleased to hear it,” said Albert, without looking up. The shovel thumped on the barrow.
“Only…something happened which probably wasn’t usual…”
“Sorry to hear that.”
Albert picked up the wheelbarrow and trundled it in the direction of the garden.
Susan knew what she was supposed to do. She was supposed to apologize, and then it’d turn out that crusty old Albert had a heart of gold, and they’d be friends after all, and he’d help her and tell her things, and—
And she’d be some stupid girl who couldn’t cope.
No.
She went back to the stable, where Binky was investigating the contents of a bucket.
The Quirm College for Young Ladies encouraged self-reliance and logical thought. Her parents had sent her there for that very reason.
They’d assumed that insulating her from the fluffy edges of the world was the safest thing to do. In the circumstances, this was like not telling people about self-defense so that no one would ever attack them.
Unseen University was used to eccentricity among the faculty. After all, humans derive their notions of what it means to be a normal human being by constant reference to the humans around them, and when those humans are other wizards, the spiral can only wiggle downward. The Librarian was an orang-utan, and no one thought that was at all odd. The Reader in Esoteric Studies spent so much time reading in what the Bursar referred to as “the smallest room” * that he was generally referred to as the Reader in The Lavatory, even on official documents. The Bursar himself in any normal society would have been considered more unglued than a used stamp in a downpour. The Dean had spent seventeen years writing a treatise on The Use of the syllable ‘ENK’ in Levitation Spells of the Early Confused Period. The Archchancellor, who regularly used the long gallery above the great hall for archery practice and had accidentally shot the Bursar twice, thought the whole faculty was as crazy as loons, whatever a loon was. “Not enough fresh air,” he’d say. “Too much sittin’ around indoors. Rots the brain.” More often, he’d say “Duck!”
None of them, apart from Ridcully and the Librarian, were early risers. Breakfast, if it happened at all, happened around midmorning. Wizards lined the buffet, lifting the big silver lids of the tureens and wincing at every clang. Ridcully liked big, greasy breakfasts, especially if it included those slightly translucent sausages with the green flecks that you can only hope is a herb of some sort. Since it was the Archchancellor’s prerogative to choose the menu, many of the more squeamish wizards had stopped eating breakfast altogether and got through the day just on lunch, tea, dinner, and supper and the occasional snack.
So there weren’t too many in the Great Hall this morning. Besides, it was a bit drafty. Workmen were busy somewhere up in the roof.
Ridcully put down his fork.
“All right, who’s doing it?” he said. “Own up, that man.”
“Doing what, Archchancellor?” said the Senior Wrangler.
“Someone’s tappin’ his foot.”
The wizard looked along the table. The Dean was staring happily into space.
“Dean?” said the Senior Wrangler.
The Dean’s left hand was held not far from his mouth. The other was making rhythmic stroking motions somewhere in the region of his kidneys.
“I don’t know what he thinks he’s doin’,” said Ridcully. “But it looks unhygienic to me.”
“I think he’s playing an invisible banjo, Archchancellor,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
“Well, it’s quiet, at least,” said Ridcully. He looked at the hole in the roof, which was letting unaccustomed daylight into the hall. “Anyone seen the Librarian?”
The orang-utan was busy.
He had holed up in one of the library cellars, which he currently used