Hogfather (Discworld 20)

'The ants are just standing still,' said Ponder. He sighed. 'All right, put the wretched thing back.' Adrian carefully replaced the small fluffy teddy bear above Hex's keyboard. Things immediately began to whirr. The ants started to trot again. The mouse squeaked. They'd tried this three times. Ponder looked again at the single sentence Hex had written. +++ Mine! Waaaah +++ 'I don't actually think,' he said, gloomily, 'that I want to tell the Archchancellor that this machine stops working if we take its fluffy teddy bear away. I just don't think I want to live in that kind of world.'

'Er,' said Mad Drongo, 'you could always, you know, sort of say it needs to work with the FTB enabled... 'You think that's better?' said Ponder, reluctantly. It wasn't as if it was even a very realistic interpretation of a bear. 'You mean, better than “fluffy teddy bear”?' Ponder nodded. 'It's better,' he said. Of all the presents he got from the Hogfather, Gawain told Susan, the best of all was the marble. And she'd said, what marble? And he'd said, the glass marble I found in the fireplace. It wins all the games. It seems to move in a different way. The beggars walked their erratic and occasionally backward walk along the city streets, while fresh morning snow began to fall. Occasionally one of them belched happily. They all wore paper hats, except for Foul Ole Ron, who'd eaten his. A tin can was passed from hand to hand. It contained a mixture of fine wines and spirits and something in a can that Arnold Sideways ha stolen from behind a paint factory in Phedre Road. 'The goose was good,' said the Duck Man, picking his teeth. 'I'm surprised you et it, what with that duck on your head,' said Coffin Henry, picking his nose. 'What duck?' said the Duck Man. 'What were that greasy stuff?' said Arnold Sideways. 'That, my dear fellow, was pâté de foie gras. All the way from Genua, I'll wager. And very good, too.'

'Dun' arf make you fart, don't it?'

'Ah, the world of haute cuisine,' said the Duck Man happily. They reached, by fits and starts, the back door of their favourite restaurant. The Duck Man looked at it dreamily, eyes filmy with recollection. 'I used to dine here almost every night,' he said. 'Why'd you stop?' said Coffin Henry. 'I... I don't really know,' said the Duck Man. 'It's... rather a blur, I'm afraid. Back in the days when I... think I was someone else. But still,' he said, patting Arnold's head, 'as they say, “Better a meal of old boots where friendship is, than a stalled ox and hatred therewith.” Forward, please, Ron.' They positioned Foul Ole Ron in front of the back door and then knocked on it. When a waiter opened it Foul Ole Ron grinned at him, exposing what remained of his teeth and his famous halitosis, which was still all there. 'Millennium hand and shrimp!' he said, touching his forelock. ' “Compliments of the season”,' the Duck Man translated.

The man went to shut the door but Arnold Sideways was ready for him and had wedged his boot in the crack. 25 'We thought you might like us to come round at lunchtime and sing a merry Hogswatch glee for your customers,' said the Duck Man. Beside him, Coffin Henry began one of his volcanic bouts of coughing, which even sounded green. ' No charge, of course.'

'It being Hogswatch,' said Arnold. The beggars, despite being too disreputable even to belong to the Beggars' Guild, lived quite well by their own low standards. This was generally by careful application of the Certainty Principle. People would give them all sorts of things if they were certain to go away. A few minutes later they wandered off again, pushing a happy Arnold who was surrounded by hastily wrapped packages. 'People can be so kind,' said the Duck Man. 'Millennium hand and shrimp.' Arnold started to investigate the charitable donations as they manoeuvred his trolley through the slush and drifts. 'Tastes... sort of familiar,' he said. 'Familiar like what?'

'Like mud and old boots.'

'Cam! That's posh grub, that is.'

'Yeah, yeah... ' Arnold chewed for a while. 'You don't think we've become posh all of a sudden?'

'Dunno. You posh, Ron?'

'Buggrit.'

'Yep. Sounds posh to me.' The snow began to settle gently on the River Ankh. 'Still... Happy New Year, Arnold.'

'Happy New Year, Duck Man. And your duck.'

'What duck?'

'Happy New Year, Henry.'

'Happy New Year, Ron.'

'Buggrem!'

'And god bless us, every one,' said Arnold Sideways. The curtain of snow hid them from view. 'Which god?'

'Dunno. What've you got?'

'Duck Man?'

'Yes, Henry?'

'You know that stalled ox you mentioned?'

'Yes, Henry?'

'How come it'd stalled? Run out of grass, or something?'

'Ah... it was more a figure of speech, Henry.'

'Not an ox?'

'Not exactly. What I meant was-' And then there was only the snow. After a while, it began to melt in the sun.

THE END