Unseen Academicals (Discworld 37)

Gloing! Gloing!

'Perfectly identical,' he said.

'Trevor Likely said they had it made by a dwarf for twenty dollars,' said Ponder.

'Did he really?'

'Yes, sir, and he gave me the change and the receipt.'

'You seem puzzled, Mister Stibbons?'

'Well, yes, sir. I feel I have been rather misjudging him.'

'Possibly even small leopards can change their shorts,' said Ridcully, slamming him on the back convivially. 'Call it score one for human nature. Now, which of these balls is the one that's going back to the Cabinet?'

'Amazingly, sir, they did think to mark the new ball and there's a tiny little dot of white paint on this one here... I mean this one here... I think it was here... Ah! Here it is. It's ours. I'll send one of the students to put the other one back shortly. We still have an hour and a half.'

'No, I'd rather you did it yourself, Mister Stibbons, I'm sure it would only take a few minutes. Do hurry back, I'd like to try a little experiment.'

When Ponder returned, he found Ridcully loitering unobtrusively by one of the big doors. 'You have your notebook ready, Mister Stibbons?' he said quietly.

'And a fresh pencil, Archchancellor.'

'Very well, then. The experiment begins.'

Ridcully gently rolled the new football out on to the floor, straightened up and glanced at his stopwatch.

'Ah, the ball has been kicked aside by the Professor of Illiberal Studies, quite possibly by accident... Now one of the bledlows, Mister Hipney I think his name is, has kicked it somewhat uncertainly. One of the students, Pondlife, I believe, has prodded it back... We have momentum, Mister Stibbons. Undirected, it is true, but promising. Ah, but we can't have this...

'No touching the ball with your hands, gentlemen!' shouted the Archchancellor, deftly trapping the travelling ball with his boot. 'That's a rule! We really could do with that whistle, Stibbons.'

He bounced the ball on the stone floor.

Gloing!

'Don't just mess about like kids kicking a tin! Play football! I am the Archchancellor of this university, by Io, and I will rusticate, or otherwise expel, any man who skives off without a note from his mother, hah!'

Gloing!

'You will arrange yourself into two teams, set up goals and strive to win! No man will leave the field of play unless injured! The hands are not to be used, is that clear? Any questions?' A hand went up. Ridcully sought the attached face.

'Ah, Rincewind,' he said, and, because he was not a determinedly unpleasant man, amended this to, 'Professor Rincewind, of course.'

'I would like permission to fetch a note from my mother, sir.'

Ridcully sighed. 'Rincewind, you once informed me, to my everlasting puzzlement, that you never knew your mother because she ran away before you were born. Distinctly remember writing it down in my diary. Would you like another try?'

'Permission to go and find my mother?'

Ridcully hesitated. The Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography had no students and no real duties other than to stay out of trouble. Although Ridcully would never admit it, it was against all reason an emeritus position. Rincewind was a coward and an unwitting clown, but he had several times saved the world in slightly puzzling circumstances. He was a luck sink, the Archchancellor had decided, doomed to being a lightning rod for the fates so that everyone else didn't have to. Such a person was worth all his meals and laundry (including an above-average level of soiled pants) and a bucket of coal every day even if he was, in Ridcully's opinion, a bit of a whiner. However, he was fast, and therefore useful.

'Look,' said Rincewind, 'a mysterious urn turns up and suddenly it's all about football. That bodes. It means something bad is going to happen.'

'Come now, it could be something wonderful,' Ridcully protested.

Rincewind appeared to give this due consideration. 'Could be wonderful, will be dreadful. Sorry, that's how it goes.'

'This is Unseen University, Rincewind. What is there to fear?' Ridcully said. 'Apart from me, of course. Good heavens, this is a sport.' He raised his voice. 'Arrange yourselves into two teams and play football!'