Unseen Academicals (Discworld 37)

Pepe patted her on the shoulder. 'Look, she's on the front page of the paper, isn't she? And the Times keeps on at us about wanting to do a lifestyle profile of her. That might not actually be a bad thing, but it's up to you.'

'I don't think she's got a lifestyle,' said Glenda, a little bewildered. 'She's never said. And she doesn't wax. She hardly even dusts. Anyway, just tell them all that she doesn't want to talk to anybody.'

Pepe's expression went strange for a moment, then he said with care, like a man, or dwarf, struggling to be heard across a cultural divide, 'Do you think I was talking about furniture?'

'Well, what else? And I don't think her housework is anyone else's business.'

'Don't you understand? She's popular, and the more we tell people they can't talk to her, the more they want to, and the more you say no the more interested they become. People want to know all about her,' said Pepe.

'Like what her favourite spoon is?' said Glenda.

'I might have been a bit ironic,' said Pepe. 'But there's newspaper writers all over the city looking for her and Bu-bubble want to do a two-page spread on her.' He paused. 'That means they'll write about her and it'll take two pages,' he volunteered helpfully. 'The Low King of the dwarfs has said that she is an icon for our times, according to Satblatt.'

'What's Satblatt?' said Glenda.

'Oh, the dwarf newspaper,' said Pepe. 'You'll probably never see it.'

'But she was just in a fashion show!' wailed Glenda. 'She was just walking up and down! I'm sure she doesn't want to get involved in all that sort of thing.'

Pepe gave her a sharp look. 'Are you?' he said.

And then she thought, really thought about Juliet, who would read Bu-bubble from cover to cover, wouldn't generally go near the Times, but would absorb all kinds of rubbish about frivolous and silly people. People that glittered. 'I don't know where she is,' she said. 'I really haven't seen her since yesterday.'

'Ah, a mystery disappearance,' said Pepe. 'Look, we're already learning about this sort of thing down at the shop. Can we go somewhere a bit more private? I hope none of them followed me up here.'

'Well, I can smuggle you in through the back entrance, as long as there isn't a bledlow around,' said Glenda.

'Fine by me. I'm used to that sort of thing.'

She led him through the doorway and into the maze of cellars and yards that contrasted rather interestingly with the fine frontage of Unseen University.

'Got anything to drink?' said Pepe behind her.

'Water!' snapped Glenda.

'I'll drink water when fish climb out of it to take a piss, but thank you all the same,' said Pepe.

And then Glenda caught the smell of baking coming from the Night Kitchen. She was the only one who baked in her kitchen! No one else was supposed to bake in her kitchen. Baking was her responsibility. Hers. She ran up the steps with Pepe behind her and noted that the mystery cook had yet to master the second most important rule of cooking, which was to tidy things up afterwards. The place was a mess. There were even lumps of dough on the floor. In fact, it looked as though it had been possessed by some kind of frenzy. And in the middle of it all, curled up on Glenda's battered and slightly rancid old armchair, was Juliet.

'Just like Sleeping Beauty, ain't it?' said Pepe behind her.

Glenda ignored him and hurried along the rows of ovens. 'She's been baking pies. What on earth did she want to come along and bake pies for? She's never been any good at baking pies.' That's because I've never let her bake a pie, she told herself. That's because as soon as she found anything difficult you took it away and did it yourself, her inner voice scolded.

Glenda opened oven door after oven door. They had arrived just in time. By the smell of it, a couple of dozen assorted pies were cooked to a turn.

'How about a drink?' said Pepe, in whom thirst sprang eternal. 'I'm sure there's brandy. Every kitchen has some brandy in it somewhere.'

He watched as Glenda pulled the pies out, using her apron to protect her hands. Pepe regarded the pies with the indifference of a man who likes to drink his meals and listened to Glenda's sotto voce monologue as pie after pie was laid out on the table.

'I never told her to do this. Why did she do this?' Because I did tell her to do this, sort of, that's why. 'And these are not half bad pies,' she said more loudly. In surprise.

Juliet opened her eyes, looked around blearily, and then her face contorted in panic.

'It's okay, I've taken them all out,' said Glenda. 'Well done.'

'I didn't know what else to do and Trev was busy with the footballing and I thought they would be wantin' pies tomorrow and I thought I better do some,' said Juliet. 'Sorry.'

Glenda took a step backwards. How to begin? she wondered. How to unravel it and then ravel it all back up again in a better shape because she had been wrong? Juliet hadn't just walked up and down with clothes on, she had become some kind of a dream. A dream of clothes. Sparkling and alive and tantalizingly possible. And in Glenda's memory of the fashion show, she literally shone, as if being lit from the inside. It was a kind of magic and it shouldn't be making pies. She cleared her throat.