Hogfather - Page 28/41

'I know, I know! Some little kid who's been allowed to stay up wins everyone's money by being a nasty little cut-throat swot!'

'Right!'

'Er . . .' said Ponder, who rather suspected that he had been that child. 'And don't forget the presents,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies, as if reading off some internal list of gloom. 'How ... how full of potential they seem in all that paper, how pregnant with possibilities ... and then you open them and basically the wrapping paper was more interesting and you have to say "How thoughtful, that will come in handy!' It's not better to give than to receive, in my opinion, it's just less embarrassing.'

'I've worked out,' said the Senior Wrangler, 'that over the years I have been a net exporter of Hogswatch presents--'

'Oh, everyone is,' said the Chair. 'You spend a fortune on other people and what you get when all the paper is cleared away is one slipper that's the wrong colour and a book about earwax.' Ridcully sat in horrified amazement. He'd always enjoyed Hogswatch, every bit of it. He'd enjoyed seeing ardent relatives, he'd enjoyed the food, he'd been good at games like Chase My Neighbour Up The Passage and Hooray Jolly Tinker. He was always the first to don a paper hat. He felt that paper hats lent a special festive air to the occasion. And he always very carefully read the messages on Hogswatch cards and found time for a few kind thoughts about the sender. Listening to his wizards was like watching someone kick apart a doll's house. 'At least the Hogswatch cracker mottoes are fun...?' he ventured. They all turned to look at him, and then turned away again. 'If you have the sense of humour of a wire coathanger,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'Oh dear,' said Ridcully. 'Then perhaps there isn't a Hogfather if all you chaps are sitting around with long faces. He's not the sort to let people go around being miserable!'

'Ridcully, he's just some old winter god,' said the Senior Wrangler wearily. 'He's not the Cheerful Fairy or anything.' The Lecturer in Recent Runes raised his chin from his hands. 'What Cheerful Fairy?'

'Oh, its just something my granny used to go on about if it was a wet afternoon and we were getting on her nerves,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'She'd say “I'll call the Cheerful Fairy if you're. . .” ' He stopped, looking guilty. The Archchancellor held a hand to his ear in a theatrical gesture denoting 'Hush. What was that I heard?'

'Someone tinkled,' he said. 'Thank you, Senior Wrangler.'

'Oh no,' the Senior Wrangler moaned. 'No, no, no!' They listened for a moment. 'We might have got away with it,' said Ponder. 'I didn't hear anything - . .'

'Yes, but you can just imagine her, can't you?' said the Dean. 'The moment you said it, I had this picture in my mind. She's going to have a whole bag of word games, for one thing. Or she'll suggest we go outdoors for our health.' The wizards shuddered. They weren't against the outdoors, it was simply their place in it they objected to. 'Cheerfulness has always got me down,' said the Dean. 'Welt if some wretched little ball of cheerfulness turns up I shan't have it for one,' said the Senior Wrangler, folding his arms. 'I've put up with monsters and trolls and big green things with teeth, so I'm not sitting still for any kind of--'

'Hello!! Hello !!' The voice was the kind of voice that reads suitable stories to children. Every vowel was beautifully rounded. And they could hear the extra exclamation marks, born of a sort of desperate despairing jollity, slot into place. They turned. The Cheerful Fairy was quite short and plump in a tweed skirt and shoes so sensible they could do their own tax returns, and was pretty much like the first teacher you get at school, the one who has special training in dealing with nervous incontinence and little boys whose contribution to the wonderful world of sharing consists largely of hitting a small girl repeatedly over the head with a wooden horse. In fact, this picture was helped by the whistle on a string around her neck and a general impression that at any moment she would clap her hands. The tiny gauzy wings just visible on her back were probably just for show, but the wizards kept on staring at her shoulder. 'Hello--' she said again, but a lot more uncertainly. She gave them a suspicious look. 'You're rather big boys,' she said, as if they'd become so in order to spite her. She blinked. 'It's my job to

chase those blues away,' she added, apparently following a memorized script. Then she seemed to rally a bit and went on. 'So chins up, everyone, and lets see a lot of bright shining faces!!' Her gaze met that of the Senior Wrangler, who had probably never had a bright shining face in his entire life. He specialized in dull, sullen ones. The one he was wearing now would have won prizes. 'Excuse me, madam,' said Ridcully. 'But is that a chicken on your shoulder?'

'It's, er, its, er, it's the Blue Bird of Happiness,' said the Cheerful Fairy. Her voice now had the slightly shaking tone of someone who doesn't quite believe what she has just said but is going to go on saying it anyway, just in case saying it will eventually make it true. 'I beg your pardon, but it is a chicken. A live chicken,' said Ridcully. 'It just went cluck.'

'It is blue,' she said hopelessly. 'Well, that at least is true,' Ridcully conceded, as kindly as he could manage. 'Left to myself, I expect I'd have imagined a slightly more streamlined Blue Bird of Happiness, but I can't actually fault you there.' The Cheerful Fairy coughed nervously and fiddled with the buttons on her sensible woolly jumper. 'How about a nice game to get us all in the mood?' she said. 'A guessing game, perhaps? Or a painting competition? There may be a small prize for the winner.'

'Madam, we're wizards,' said the Senior Wrangler. 'We don't do cheerful.'

'Charades?' said the Cheerful Fairy. 'Or perhaps you've been playing them already? How about a sing-song? Who knows “Row Row Row Your Boat”?' Her bright little smile hit the group scowl of the assembled wizards. 'We don't want to be Mr Grumpy, do we?' she added hopefully. 'Yes,' said the Senior Wrangler. The Cheerful Fairy sagged, and then patted frantically at her shapeless sleeves until she tugged out a balled-up handkerchief. She dabbed at her eyes. 'It's all going wrong again, isn't it?' she said, her chin trembling. 'No one ever wants to be cheerful these days, and I really do try. I've made a Joke Book and I've got three boxes of clothes for charades and ... and ... and whenever I try to cheer people up they all look embarrassed ... and really I do make an effort . . She blew her nose loudly. Even the Senior Wrangler had the grace to look embarrassed. 'Er . . .' he began. 'Would it hurt anyone just occasionally to try to be a little bit cheerful?' said the Cheerful Fairy. 'Er ... in what way?' said the Senior Wrangler, feeling wretched. 'Well, there's so many nice things to be cheerful about,' said the Cheerful Fairy, blowing her nose again. 'Er ... raindrops and sunsets and that sort of thing?' said the Senior Wrangler, managing some sarcasm, but they could tell his heart wasn't in it. 'Er, would you like to borrow my handkerchief? It's nearly fresh.'

'Why don't you get the lady a nice sherry?' said Ridcully. 'And some corn for her chicken . . .'

'Oh, I never drink alcohol,' said the Cheerful Fairy, horrified. 'Really?' said Ridcully. 'We find it's something to be cheerful about. Mr Stibbons ... would you be so kind as to step over here for a moment?' He beckoned him up close.

'There's got to be a lot of belief sloshing around to let her be created,' he said. 'She's a good fourteen stone, if I'm any judge. If we wanted to contact the Hogfather, how would we go about it? Letter up chimney?'

'Yes, but not tonight, sir,' said Ponder. 'He'll be out delivering.'

'No telling where he'll be, then,' said Ridcully. 'Blast.'

'Of course, he might not have come here yet,' said Ponder. 'Why should he come here?' said Ridcully. The Librarian pulled the blankets over himself and curled up. As an orang-utan he hankered for the warmth of the rainforest. The problem was that he'd never even seen a rainforest, having been turned into an orang-utan when he was already a fully grown human. Something in his bones knew about it, though, and didn't like the cold of winter at all. But he was also a librarian in those same bones and he flatly refused to allow fires to be lit in the library. As a result, pillows and blankets went missing everywhere else in the University and ended up in a sort of cocoon in the reference section, in which the ape lurked during the worst of the winter. He turned over and wrapped himself in the Bursar's curtains. There was a creaking outside his nest, and some whispering. 'No, don't fight the lamp.'

'I wondered why I hadn't seen him all evening.'

'Oh, he goes to bed early on Hogswatch Eve, sir. Here we are . . .' There was some rustling. 'We're in luck. It hasn't been filled,' said Ponder. 'Looks like he's used one of the Bursar's.'

'He puts it up every year?'

'Apparently.'

'But it's not as though he's a child. A certain child-like simplicity, perhaps.'

'It might be different for orang-utans, Archchancellor.'

'Do they do it in the jungle, d'you think?'

'I don't imagine so, sir. No chimneys, for one thing.'

'And quite short legs, of course. Extremely underfunded in the sock area, orang-utans. They'd be quids in if they could hang up gloves, of course. Hogfather'd be on double shifts if they could hang up their gloves. On account of the length of their arms.'

'Very good, Archchancellor.'

'I say, what's this on the... my word, a glass of sherry. Well, waste not, want not.' There was a damp glugging noise in the darkness. 'I think that was supposed to be for the Hogfather, sir.'

'And the banana?'

'I imagine that's been left out for the pigs, sir.'

'Pigs?'

'Oh, you know, sir. Tusker and Snouter and Gouger and Rooter. I mean,' Ponder stopped, conscious that a grown man shouldn't be able to remember this sort of thing, 'that's what children believe.'

'Bananas for pigs? That's not traditional, is it? I'd have thought acorns, perhaps. Or apples or swedes.'

'Yes, sir, but the Librarian likes bananas, sir.'

'Very nourishin' fruit, Mr Stibbons.'

'Yes, sir. Although, funnily enough it's not actually a fruit, sir.'

'Really?'

'Yes, sir. Botanically, it's a type of fish, sir. According to my theory it's cladistically associated with the Krullian pipefish, sir, which of course is also yellow and goes around in bunches or shoals.'

'And lives in trees?'

'Well, not usually, sir. The banana is obviously exploiting a new niche.'

'Good heavens, really? It's a funny thing, but I've never much liked bananas and I've always been a bit suspicious of fish, too. That'd explain it.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Do they attack swimmers?'

'Not that I've heard, sir. Of course, they may be clever enough to only attack swimmers who're far from land.'

'What, you mean sort of... high up? In the trees, as it were?'

'Possibly, sir.'

'Cunning, eh?'

'Yes, sir.'

'Well, we might as well make ourselves comfortable, Mr Stibbons.'

'Yes, sir.' A match flared in the darkness as Ridcully lit his pipe. The Ankh-Morpork wassailers had practised for weeks. The custom was referred to by Anaglypta Huggs, organizer of the best and most select group of the city's singers, as an occasion for fellowship and good cheer. One should always be wary of people who talk unashamedly of 'fellowship and good cheer' as if it were something that can be applied to life like a poultice. Turn your back for a moment and they may well organize a Maypole dance and, frankly, there's no option then but to try and make it to the treeline. The singers were halfway down Park Lane now, and halfway through 'The Red Rosy Hen' in marvellous harmony. 19 Their collecting tins were already full of donations for the poor of the city, or at least those sections of the poor who in Mrs Huggs' opinion were suitably picturesque and not too smelly and could be relied upon to say thank you. People had come to their doors to listen. Orange light spilled on to the snow. Candle lanterns glowed among the tumbling flakes. If you could have taken the lid off the scene, there would have been chocolates inside. Or at least an interesting biscuit assortment. Mrs Huggs had heard that wassailing was an ardent ritual, and you didn't need anyone to tell you what that meant, but she felt she'd carefully removed all those elements that would affront the refined ear. And it was only gradually that the singers became aware of the discord. Around the corner, slipping and sliding on the ice, came another band of singers. Some people march to a different drummer. The drummer in question here must have been trained elsewhere, possibly by a different species on another planet. In front of the group was a legless man on a small wheeled trolley, who was singing at the top of his voice and banging two saucepans together. His name was Arnold Sideways. Pushing him along was Coffin Henry, whose croaking progress through an entirely different song was punctuated by bouts of off-the-beat coughing. He was accompanied by a perfectly ordinary-looking man in torn, 19 The red rosy hen greets the dawn of the day'. In fact the hen is not the bird traditionally associated with heralding a new sunrise, but Mrs Huggs, while collecting many old folk songs for posterity, has taken care to rewrite them where necessary to avoid, as she put it, 'offending those of a refined disposition with unwarranted coarseness'. Much to her surprise, people often couldn't spot the unwarranted coarseness until it had been pointed out to them. Sometimes a chicken is nothing but a bird.