The Wee Free Men (Discworld 30)

“Then it is an extremely dangerous one!” said the toad ungratefully.

“No, it’s lovely,” said Tiffany. “It’s wonderful. Look at the way the light dances on the waves.”

“Where are the notices warning people they could drown?” complained the toad. “No life preservers or shark nets. Oh, dear. Do I see a qualified lifeguard? I think not. Supposing someone was to—”

“It’s a beach,” said Tiffany. “Why are you talking like this?”

“I—I don’t know,” said the toad. “Can you put me down, please? I feel a headache coming on.”

Tiffany put it down, and it shuffled into some seaweed. After a while she heard it eating something.

The sea was calm.

It was peaceful.

It was exactly the moment anyone sensible should distrust.

But nothing happened. It was followed by nothing else happening. Wentworth picked up a pebble from the beach and put it in his mouth, on the basis that anything might be a candy.

Then, suddenly, there were noises from the lighthouse. Tiffany heard muffled shouts, and thuds, and once or twice the sound of breaking glass. At one point there was a noise like something heavy falling down a long spiral staircase and hitting every step on the way.

The door opened. The Nac Mac Feegle came out. They looked satisfied.

“Nae problemo,” said Rob Anybody. “No one there.”

“But there was a lot of noise!”

“Oh, aye. We had to make sure,” said Daft Wullie.

“Weewee men!” shouted Wentworth.

“I’ll wake up when I go through the door,” said Tiffany, pulling Roland out of the boat. “I always do. It must work. This is my dream.” She hauled the boy upright. “Can you bring Wentworth?”

“Aye.”

“And you won’t get lost or—or drunk or anything?”

Rob Anybody looked offended. “We ne’er get lost!” he said. “We always ken where we are! It’s just sometimes mebbe we aren’t sure where everything else is, but it’s no’ our fault if everything else gets lost! The Nac Mac Feegle are never lost!”

o;Now, that’s a heid that’d be a day’s work e’en for Big Yan,” said Rob Anybody. “I reckon we’d have to come back tomorrow! Row, boys!”

“It’s a dream of mine,” said Tiffany, as calmly as she could manage. “It’s the whale fish.”

I never dreamed the smell, though, she added to herself. But here it is, a huge, solid, world-filling smell of salt and water and fish and ooze—

“Whut does it eat?” Daft Wullie asked.

“Ah, I know that,” said Tiffany, as the boat rocked on the swell. “Whales aren’t dangerous, because they just eat very small things…”

“Row like the blazes, lads!” Rob Anybody yelled.

“How d’ye ken it only eats wee stuff?” said Daft Wullie as the whale fish’s mouth began to open.

“I paid a whole cucumber once for a lesson on beasts of the deep,” said Tiffany as a wave washed over them. “Whales don’t even have proper teeth!”

There was a creaking sound and a gust of fishy halitosis about the size of a typhoon, and the view was full of enormous, pointy teeth.

“Aye?” said Wullie. “Weel, no offense meant, but I dinna think this beastie went to the same school as ye!”