The Last Continent - Terry Pratchett [57]
“Right. And you kept bettin’ they wouldn’t come down at all. Faid it was bound to happen fooner or later. You got good odds, though.”
“I lost all the money Mad gave me?”
“Yep.”
“How was I paying for my beer, then?”
“Oh, the blokes were queueing up to buy it for you. They faid you were better than a day at the races.”
“And then I…there was something about sheep…” He looked horrified. “Oh, no…”
“Oh, yeah. You faid, ‘Ftrain the fraying crones, a dollar a time for giving fheep a haircut? I could do a beaut foft job like that with my eyes fhut, too right no flaming worries by half bonza fhoot through ye gods this if good beer…’”
“Oh, gods. Did anyone hit me?”
“Nah, mate, they reckoned you were a good sport, ‘specially when you wagered five hundred fquids that you could beat their best man at shearin’.”
“I couldn’t’ve done that, I’m not a betting man!”
“Well, I am, and if you’ve been fhootin’ a line I wouldn’t give tuppence for your chances, Rinfo.”
“Rinso?” said Rincewind weakly. He looked at his beerglass. “What’s in this stuff?”
“Your mate Mad faid you were this big wizard and could kill people just by pointing at ’em and shoutin’,” said Crocodile. “I wouldn’t mind feein’ that.”
Rincewind looked up desperately and his eye caught the Roo Beer poster. It showed some of the damn silly trees they had here, and the arid red earth and—nothing else.
“Huh?”
“What’s that?” said Crocodile.
“What happened to the kangaroo?” Rincewind said hoarsely.
“What kangaroo?”
“There was a kangaroo on that poster last night…wasn’t there?”
Crocodile peered at the poster. “I’m better at smell,” he admitted at last. “But I got to admit, it smells like it’s gorn.”
“Something very strange is going on here,” said Rincewind. “This is a very strange country.”
“We’ve got an opera house,” Crocodile volunteered. “That’s cultcher.”
“And ninety-three words for being sick?”
“Yeah, well, we’re a very…vocal people.”
“Did I really bet five hundred…What was it?”
“Squids.”
“…squids I haven’t got?”
“Yup.”
“So I’ll probably get killed if I lose, right?”
“No worries.”
“I wish people’d stop saying that—”
He caught sight of the poster again. “That kangaroo’s back!”
Crocodile turned around awkwardly, walked up to the poster and sniffed. “Could be,” he said cautiously.
“And it’s facing the wrong way!”
“Take it easy, mate!” said Crocodile Dongo, looking concerned.
Rincewind shuddered. “You’re right,” he said. “It’s the heat and the flies getting to me. It must be.”
Dongo poured him another beer. “Ah well, beer’s good for the heat,” he said. “Can’t do anythin’ about the bloody flies, though.”
Rincewind started to nod, and stopped. He removed his hat and looked at it critically. Then he waved a hand up and down in front of his face, temporarily dislodging a few flies. Finally, he looked thoughtfully at a row of bottles.
“Got any string?” he said.
After a few experiments, and some mild concussion, Dongo advanced the opinion that it’d be better with just the corks.
The Luggage was lost. Usually, it could find its way anywhere in time and space, but trying to do that now was like a man trying to keep his footing on two moving walkways heading in opposite directions, and it simply couldn’t cope. It knew it had been stuck underground for a long time, but it also knew that it had been stuck underground for about five minutes.
The Luggage had no brain as such, even though an outsider might well get the impression that it could think. What it did do was react, in quite complex ways, to its environment. Usually this involved finding something to kick, as is the case with most sapient creatures.
Currently it was ambling along a dusty track. Occasionally its lid would snap at flies, but without much enthusiasm. Its opal coating glowed in the sunlight.
“Oaaw! Isn’t that pretty! Fetch it here, you two!”
It paid no attention to the brightly colored cart that stopped a little way along the track. It was possibly aware at some level that people