The Last Continent - Terry Pratchett [29]
“Exactly. It’ll be plain sailing after that, Dean. Ahaha.”
He glanced up, and swallowed hard. Mrs. Whitlow was sitting on a log in the shade, fanning herself with a large leaf.
The sight stirred things in the Senior Wrangler. He was not at all sure what they were, but little details like the way something creaked when she moved twanged bits of the Senior Wrangler as well.
“You all right, Senior Wrangler? You look as if the heat is getting to you.”
“Just a little…warm, Dean.”
The Dean looked past him as he loosened his collar. “Well, they haven’t been long,” he said.
The other wizards were walking down the beach. One advantage of a long wizarding robe is that it can be held like an apron, and the Chair of Indefinite Studies was bulging at the front even more than usual.
“Found anything to eat?” said the Senior Wrangler.
“Er…yes.”
“Fruit and nuts, I suppose,” grumbled the Dean.
“Er…yes, and then again, no,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “Um…it’s rather odd…”
The Chair of Indefinite Studies let his burden spill out on to the sand. There were coconuts, other nuts of various sizes, and assorted hairy or knobbly vegetable things.
“All rather primitive,” said the Dean. “And probably poisonous.”
“Well, the Bursar’s been eating things like there’s no tomorrow,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes. The Bursar burped happily.
“That doesn’t mean there will be,” said the Dean. “What’s up with you fellows? You keep looking at one another.”
“Er…we’ve tasted a few things too, Dean,” said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.
“Ah, I see the gatherers have returned!” roared Ridcully happily, walking towards them. He waved three fish on a string. “Anything resembling potatoes in there, chaps?”
“You’re not going to believe any of this,” mumbled the Lecturer in Recent Runes. “You’re going to accuse us of trickery.”
“What are you talking about?” said the Dean. “They don’t look very tricky to me.”
The Chair of Indefinite Studies gave a sigh. “Have a coconut,” he said.
“Do they go off bang or something?”
“No, nothing like that at all.”
The Dean picked up a nut, gave it a suspicious look, and banged it on a stone. It fell into two exact halves.
There was no milk to spill out. Inside the husk was a brown inner shell, full of soft white fibers.
Ridcully picked up a bit of it and sniffed. “I don’t believe this,” he said. “That’s not natural.”
“So?” said the Dean. “It’s a coconut full of coconut. What’s odd about that?”
The Archchancellor broke off a piece of the shell and handed it over. It was soft and slightly crumbly.
The Dean tasted it. “Chocolate?” he said.
Ridcully nodded. “Dairy milk, by the taste of it. With a creamy coconut filling.”
“Thaf’s nod poffible,” said the Dean, his cheeks bulging.
“Spit it out, then.”
“I think I might perhaps try a little more,” said the Dean, swallowing. “In a spirit of enquiry, you understand.”
The Senior Wrangler picked up a knobbly bluish nut about the size of a fist and tapped it experimentally. It shattered but was held together because of the gooey contents.
The smell was very familiar. A careful taste confirmed it. The wizards regarded the nut’s innards in shocked silence.
“It’s even got the blue veins,” said the Senior Wrangler.
“Yes, we know, we tried one,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies weakly. “And, after all, there is such a thing as a bread fruit—”
“I’ve heard of it,” said Ridcully. “And I might believe there’s such a thing as a nat’rally chocolate-covered coconut, because chocolate’s a kind of potato—”
“A bean, possibly,” said Ponder Stibbons.
“Whatever. But I damn well don’t believe there’s such a thing as a mature Lancre Blue runny cheese nut!” He prodded the thing.
“But nature does come up with some very funny coincidences, Archchancellor,” said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. “Why, I myself, as a child, once dug up a carrot which, ahaha, most amusingly looked just like a man with a—”
“Er…” said the Dean.
It was only a little sound, but it had a certain portentous quality. They turned to