Unseen Academicals (Discworld 37)

It is said that the onlooker sees most of the game. But the Librarian could smell as well, and the game, seen from outside, was humanity. Not a day went past without his thanking the magical accident that had moved him a few little genes away from it. Apes had it worked out. No ape would philosophize, 'The mountain is, and is not.' They would think, 'The banana is. I will eat the banana. There is no banana. I want another banana.'

He peeled one now, in a preoccupied way, while watching the evolving tableau below. Not only does said onlooker see most of the game, he might even see more than one game.

This street was indeed a crescent, which would probably have an effect on tactics if the players had any truck with such high-flown concepts.

People were pouring in from either end and also from a couple of alleyways. Mostly they were male-extremely so. The women fell into two categories: those who had been tugged there by the ties of blood or prospective matrimony (after which they could stop pretending that this bloody mess was in any way engrossing), and a number of elderly women of a 'sweet old lady' construction, who bawled indiscriminately, in a rising cloud of lavender and peppermint, screams of 'Get 'im dahn an' kick 'im inna nuts!' and similar exhortations.

And there was another smell now, one he'd learned to recognize but could not quite fathom. It was the smell of Nutt. Tangled with it were the smells of tallow, cheap soap and shonky-shop clothing that the ape part of him categorized as belonging to 'Tin Flinging Man'. He had been just another servant in the maze of the university, but now he was a friend of Nutt, and Nutt was important. He was also wrong. He had no place in the world, but he was in it, and the world was becoming aware of him soon enough.

The Librarian knew all about this sort of thing. There had been no space in the fabric of reality marked 'simian librarian' until he'd been dropped into one, and the ripples had made his life a very strange one.

Ah, another scent was riding the gentle updraught. It was easy: Screaming Banana Pie Woman. The Librarian liked her. Oh, she had screamed and run away the first time she'd seen him. They all did. But she had come back, and she'd smelled ashamed. She also respected the primacy of words, and, as a primate, so did he. And sometimes she baked him a banana pie, which was a kind act. The Librarian was not very familiar with love, which had always struck him as a bit ethereal and soppy, but kindness, on the other hand, was practical. You knew where you were with kindness, especially if you were holding a pie it had just given you. She was a friend of Nutt, too. Nutt made friends easily for someone who had come from nowhere. Interesting...

The Librarian, despite appearances, liked order. Books about cabbages went on the Brassica shelves, (blit) UUSSFY890¨C9046 (antiblit1.1), although obviously Mr Cauliflower's Big Adventure would be better placed in UUSS J3.2 (>blit) 9, while The Tau of Cabbage would certainly be a candidate for UUSS (blit+) 60-sp55-o9-hl (blit). To anyone familiar with a seven-dimensional library system in blit dimensional space it was as clear as daylight, if you remembered to keep your eye on the blit.

Ah, and here came his fellow wizards, walking awkwardly in the chafing trousers and trying so hard not to stand out in a crowd that they would have stood out even more if the rest of the crowd had been the least bit interested.

Nobody noticed. It was enthralling and exciting at the same time, Ridcully concluded. Normally the pointy hat, robe and staff cleared the way faster than a troll with an axe.

They were being pushed! And shoved! But it was not as unpleasant as the words suggested. There were moderate pressures on all sides as people poured in behind, as though the wizards were standing chest deep in the sea, and were swaying and shifting to the slow rhythm of the tide.

'My goodness,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. 'Is this football? It's a bit dull, isn't it?'

'Pies were mentioned,' said the Lecturer in Recent Runes, craning his neck.

'People are still coming in, guv,' said Ottomy.

'But however do we see things?'

'Depends on the Shove, guv. Usually people near the action shout out.'

'Ah, I see a pie seller,' said the Chair of Indefinite Studies. He took a couple of steps forward, there was a random shift and sway in the crowd, and he vanished.

'How is it now, Mister Trev?' said Nutt, as people surged around them.

'Hurts like buggery, excuse my Klatchian,' muttered Trev, clutching his injured arm to his coat. 'Are you sure you weren't holding a hammer?'

'No hammer, Mister Trev. I'm sorry, but you did ask me - '

'I know, I know. Where did you learn to punch like that?'

'Never learned, Mister Trev. I must never raise my hand to another person! But you went on so, and - '

'I mean, you're so skinny!'

'Long bones, Mister Trev, long muscles. I really am very sorry!'

'My fault, Gobbo, I didn't know your own strength - ' Suddenly Trev shot forward, cannoning into Nutt.

'Where've you been, my man?' said the person who had just slapped him hard on the back. 'We said to meet at the eel-pie stall!'

Now the speaker looked at Nutt and his eyes narrowed. 'And who's this stranger who thinks he's one of us?'

He did not exactly glare at Nutt, but there was a definite sense of a weighing in the balance, and on unfriendly scales.

Trev brushed himself off, looking uncharacteristically embarrassed. 'Hi, Andy. Er, this is Nutt. He works for me.'

'What as? A bog brush?' said Andy. There was laughter from the group behind him. Andy always got a laugh. It was the first thing you noticed, after the glint in his eye.