Unseen Academicals (Discworld 37)

'Yeah, but there's no way that's goin' to happen, is there?' said the man who had just flicked a soggy piece of paper and had enjoyed it so much that he'd flicked another one.

'But if he tries and succeeds it would be magnificent football, would it not?' said Ponder.

'Where's our team?' said Trev, looking around.

'I've suggested they have an early night,' said Ponder.

'An early night for wizards is two o'clock in the morning,' said Glenda.

'I have also given instructions that the team are to have a special meal this evening,' said Nutt. 'On that note, Miss Glenda, I shall have to ask you to lock the Night Kitchen.'

Stony silence hung over the dining room that evening.

'I don't eat salads,' said Bledlow Nobbs (no relation). 'They gives me the wind.'

'How can a man live without pasta?' said Bengo. 'This is barbaric!'

'I hope you notice that my plate is as barren as yours, gentlemen,' said Ridcully. 'Mister Nutt is training us and I'm allowing Mister Nutt the driver's seat. Nor is there to be any smoking this evening.'

There was a chorus of dismay and he raised his hand for silence. 'Also, his instruction here... ' He looked closer at Nutt's rather untidy writing and gave a little smile. 'There is to be no sexual congress.' This did not meet with the reaction he had expected.

'That means talking about it, doesn't it?' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies.

'No, that's oral sex,' said Rincewind.

'No, that's listening to it.'

Bengo Macarona sat with a dazed look on his face.

'Now, I don't want any sneaking off for midnight snacks,' said Ridcully. 'There are rules. Mrs Whitlow and Miss Sugarbean have been told that I fully back Mister Nutt's authority here. Surely you gentlemen could show some backbone?'

'In an attempt to show solidarity with the rest of the team,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, 'I am led to believe that there is some cheese in the mousetrap in my room.'

Ridcully was left all alone with only the echo of falling chairs for company.

The Archchancellor repaired to his own room and tossed his hat on to its stand. There have to be rules, he said to himself, and there has to be a rule for them and a rule for me. He went to his eight-poster bed and opened the hatch containing the tobacco jar. It now contained a little note instead, saying, 'Dear Archchancellor, In accordance with your ratification of Mister Nutt's instructions that the faculty are not to be allowed food or the implements of smoking this evening, I've taken the liberty of clearing away your cigarettes and pipe tobacco. May I also mention that I have emptied the cool cupboard of the usual cold cuts and pickles to avoid temptation.'

'Bugger,' said Ridcully under his breath.

He walked to his wardrobe and rummaged in the pocket of his smoking jacket, coming up with a note that said, 'In accordance with Mister Nutt's rules, as ratified by yourself, Archchancellor [and it was remarkable how reproachful Mrs Whitlow could make her handwriting], I have taken the liberty of removing your emergency peppermints.'

'Change and decay!' Ridcully declared to the night air. 'I am surrounded by traitors! They thwart me at every turn.' He wandered disconsolately past his bookcase and pulled out Boddrys' Occult Companion, a book he knew by heart. And because he knew the book by heart, page 14 opened on to a neat little cavity, which contained a packet of extra-strong liquorice mints, an ounce of Jolly Sailor tobacco and a packet of Wizzla's... And, as it turned out, a small note: 'Dear Archchancellor, I just didn't have the heart. Mrs Whitlow.'

It seemed darker than usual. Generally, the Archchancellor's rulings were obeyed, and it seemed to the members of Unseen Academicals that every door was closed, indeed slammed, as they searched for food. Every pantry was locked and spell-proofed. The team trudged helplessly from one hall to another.

'I do have some reheatable pasta in my room,' said Bengo Macarona. 'My grandmother gave it to me before I came down here. It will keep for ten years and my grandmother says that it will taste as good after ten years as it does now. I regret that she may have been telling the truth.'

'If you get it, we could cook it up in my room,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

'If you like. It contains alligator testicles, for nourishment. They are very popular at home.'

'I didn't know alligators had testicles,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes.

'They haven't got 'em any more,' said Bledlow Nobbs (no relation).

'I've got a biscuit, we could share that out,' said Ponder Stibbons. He was immediately pierced by their questioning gazes. 'No,' he said, 'I am not going to countermand the Archchancellor's orders any further than that. I would never hear the last of it, gentlemen. Without a hierarchy we are nothing.'

'The Librarian will have some bananas,' said Rincewind.