The Archchancellor stared desperately around the hall, at a loss. Then his eyes were drawn to a familiar, heavy bottle on one of the sideboards.
“Carbon,” he said. “That’s like charcoal, isn’t it?”
“How should I know? I’m not an alchemist,” sniffed the Dean.
The compost heap emerged from the debris. Steam poured off it.
The Archchancellor looked longingly at the bottle of Wow-Wow Sauce. He uncorked it. He took a deep sniff.
“The cooks here just can’t make it properly, you know,” he said. “It’ll be weeks before I can get anymore from home.”
He tossed the bottle toward the advancing heap.
It vanished into the seething mass.
“Stinging nettles are always useful,” said Modo, behind him. “They add iron. And comfrey, well, you can never get enough comfrey. For the minerals, you know. Myself, I’ve always reckoned that a small quantity of wild yarrow—”
The wizards pe
ered over the top of an overturned table.
The heap had stopped moving.
“Is it just me, or is it getting bigger?” said the Senior Wrangler.
“And looking happier,” said the Dean.
“It smells awful,” said the Bursar.
“Oh, well. And that was nearly a full bottle of sauce, too,” said the Archchancellor sadly. “I’d hardly opened it.”
“Nature’s a wonderful thing, when you come to think about it,” said the Senior Wrangler. “You don’t all have to glare at me like that, you know. I was only passing a remark.”
“There are times when—” Ridcully began, and then the compost heap exploded.
It wasn’t a bang or a boom. It was the dampest, most corpulent eruption in the history of terminal flatulence. Dark red flame, fringed with black, roared up to the ceiling. Pieces of heap rocketed across the hall and slapped wetly into the walls.
The wizards peered out from their barricade, which was now thick with tea-leaves.
A cabbage stalk dropped softly onto the Dean’s head.
He looked at a small, bubbling patch on the flagstones.
His face split slowly into a grin.
“Wow,” he said.
The other wizards unfolded themselves. Adrenaline backwash worked its seductive spell. They grinned, too, and started playfully punching one another on the shoulder.
“Eat hot sauce!” roared the Archchancellor.
“Up against the hedge, fermented rubbish!”
“Can we kick ass, or can we kick ass?” burbled the Dean happily.
“You mean can’t the second time, not can. And I’m not sure that a compost heap can be said to have an—” the Senior Wrangler began, but the tide of excitement was flowing against him.
“That’s one heap that won’t mess with wizards again,” said the Dean, who was getting carried away. “We’re keen and mean and—”