Unseen Academicals (Discworld 37)

'That's the rules, innit? Play until full time, first dead man or first score.'

'Who won?'

'Dunno.'

'You don't know?'

'When we left it was being decided on head wounds. Anyway, I went with Rotten Johnny, didn't I.'

'I thought you'd broken up with him.'

'He bought me supper, didn't 'e.'

'You shouldn't have gone. That's not the sort of thing you should do.'

'Like you know?' said Juliet, who sometimes thought that questions were answers.

'Just do the washing-up, will you?' said Glenda. And I'll have to do it again after you, she thought, as her best friend drifted over to the line of big stone sinks. Juliet didn't exactly wash dishes, she gave them a light baptism. Wizards weren't the type of people who noticed yesterday's dried egg on the plate, but Mrs Whitlow could see it from two rooms away.

Glenda liked Juliet, she really did, although sometimes she wondered why. Of course, they'd grown up together, but it had always amazed her that Juliet, who was so beautiful that boys went nervous and occasionally fainted as she passed, could be so, well, dumb about everything. In fact it was Glenda who had grown up. She wasn't sure about Juliet; sometimes it seemed to Glenda that she had done the growing up for both of them.

'Look, you just have to scrub a bit, that's all,' she snapped after a few seconds of listless dipping, and took the brush out of Juliet's perfect hand, and then, as the grease was sent down the drain, she thought: I've done it again. Actually, I've done it again again. How many times is that? I even used to play with her dolls for her!

Plate after plate sparkled under Glenda's hands. Nothing cleans stubborn stains like suppressed anger.

Rotten Johnny, she thought. Ye gods, he smells of cat wee! He's the only boy stupid enough to think he's got a chance. Good grief, she's got a figure like that and all she ever dates are total knobheads! What would she do without me?

After this brief excitement, the Night Kitchen settled into its routine and those who had been referred to as 'the other girls' got on with their familiar tasks. It has to be said that girlhood for most of them had ended a long time previously, but they were good workers and Glenda was proud of them. Mrs Hedges ran the cheeseboards like a champion. Mildred and Rachel, known officially on the payroll as the vegetable women, were good and reliable, and indeed it was Mildred who had come up with the famous recipe for beetroot and cream cheese sandwiches.

Everybody knew their job. Everybody did their job. The Night Kitchen was reliable and Glenda liked reliable.

She had a home to go to and made sure she went to it at least once a day, but the Night Kitchen was where she lived. It was her fortress.

Ponder Stibbons stared at the page in front of him. His mind filled up with nasty questions, the biggest and nastiest of which was simply: Is there any way at all in which people can make out that this is my fault? No. Good!

'Er, there is one tradition here that regrettably we don't appear to have honoured for some considerable time, Archchancellor,' he said, managing to keep the concern out of his voice.

'Well, does that matter?' said Ridcully, stretching.

'It is traditional, Archchancellor,' said Ponder reproachfully. 'Although I might go so far as to say that not observing it has now, alas, become the tradition.'

'Well, that's fine, isn't it?' said Ridcully. 'If we can make a tradition of not observing another tradition, then that's doubly traditional, eh? What's the problem?'

'It's Archchancellor Preserved Bigger's Bequest,' said the Master of The Traditions. 'The university does very well out of the Bigger estates. They were a very rich family.'

'Hmm, yes. Name rings a faint bell. Decent of him. So?'

'Er, I would have been happier had my predecessor paid a little more attention to some of the traditions,' said Ponder, who believed in drip-feeding bad news.

'Well, he was dead.'

'Yes, of course. Perhaps, sir, we should, ahem, start a tradition of checking on the health of the Master of The Traditions?'

'Oh, he was quite healthy,' said the Archchancellor. 'Just dead. Quite healthy for a dead man.'

'He was a pile of dust, Archchancellor!'

'That's not the same as being ill, exactly,' said Ridcully, who believed in never giving in. 'Broadly speaking, it's stable.'