Moving Pictures (Discworld 10)

'This is going to be a great picture!' he said.

'Oh, good,' said Victor weakly.

'You play this bandit chieftain,' said Dibbler, 'only a nice guy, too, kind to women and so forth, and you raid this village and you carry off this slave girl only when you look into her eyes, see, you fall for her, and then there's this raid and hundreds of men on elephants come charging-'

'Camels,' said a skinny youth behind Dibbler. 'It's camels.'

'I ordered elephants!'

'You got camels.'

'Camels, elephants,' said Dibbler dismissively. 'We're talking exotic here, OK? And-'

'And we've only got one,' said the youth.

'One what?'

'Camel. We could only find one camel,' said the youth.

'But I've got dozens of guys with bedsheets on their heads waiting for camels!' shouted Dibbler, waving his hands in the air. 'Lots of camels, right?'

'We only got one camel 'cos there's only one camel in Holy Wood and that's only 'cos a guy from Klatch rode all the way here on it,' said the youth.

'You should have sent away for more!' snapped Dibbler.

'Mr Silverfish said I wasn't to.'

Dibbler growled.

'Maybe if it moves around a lot it'll look like more than one camel,' said the youth optimistically.

'Why not ride the camel past the picture box, and then get the handleman to stop the demons, and lead it back and put a different rider on it, then start up the box again and ride it past again?' said Victor. 'Would that work?'

Dibbler looked at him open-mouthed.

'What did I tell you?' he said, to the sky in general. 'The lad is a genius! That way we can get a hundred camels for the price of one, right?'

, bark,' said Gaspode. Ginger stared at him. Victor could almost read her thoughts: he said Bark, bark. And he's a dog, and that's the kind of noise dogs make, isn't it?

'I'm a cat person, myself,' she said, vaguely.

A low-level voice said: 'Yeah? Yeah? Wash in your own spit, do you?'

'What was that?'

Victor backed away, waving his hands frantically. 'Don't look at me!' he said. 'I didn't say it!'

'Oh? I suppose it was the dog, was it?' she demanded.

'Who, me?' said Gaspode.

Ginger froze. Her eyes swivelled around and down, to where Gaspode was icily scratching an ear.

'Woof?' he said.

'That dog spoke-' Ginger began, pointing a shaking finger at him.

'I know,' said Victor. 'That means he likes you.' He looked past her. Another light was coming up the hill.