The World of Poo (Discworld 39.50)
FOREWORD AND HOPEFUL NOTE TO PARENTS BY MISS FELICITY BEEDLE, AUTHOR
WHAT TO TELL children about the reality of the human world is always a subject very close to the thoughts of all parents; traditionally, requests from young ones for enlightenment as to where babies come from can be steered in the direction of the stork and the gooseberry bush with no great harm done. Although, of course, when the child is, shall we say, of the age to understand, the parent should make haste to see that they are fully informed. In a well-run household this ought to be achievable without too much blushing, if the parents are sensible.
However, I fervently believe that not to talk to children about what goes into and out of their bodies, is to let the subject become furtive with a tendency to cause sniggering. What we eat and subsequently excrete plays a major role in human society and especially in what we are pleased to call civilized society. In my experience the thinking of intelligent parents, faced with the subject, tends to fall between two stools, as it were. Surely we can do better than saying it’s nasty?
Our touchstone here is the commonality of mankind: kings and queens and even the likes of our own Lord Vetinari have to eat and excrete. Why should this be a subject of comment or mirth to anyone? Therefore, I decided that young Geoffrey might have a little stroll through what we may call the underside of our world, facing it with interest, curiosity and common sense; after all, one man’s waste is another man’s compost. On this particular point, I must say that I was brought up in the countryside where, on a weekly basis, the night soil was buried in the garden, in an area set aside to be the recipient. I can recall, along with many of my countryfolk, that tomatoes would grow on that site the following year without anyone having to make shift to plant them. And what marvellous tomatoes they were!
As they say, what goes around comes around, although you don’t have to look at it as it floats past. But acting like a cat and believing that if you can’t see it then it’s not there is no way for polite society to behave. Without muck, without dung, there would be no agriculture and without agriculture there would be no people worth talking about.
And so I dedicate this book to my old friend Sir Harry King, a man who can turn dung into gold!
ARRIVING FOR THE FIRST TIME IN ANKH-MORPORK
IT WAS A long journey for young Geoffrey from his home in the Shires to his Grand-mama’s house in the big city of Ankh-Morpork. For the first time in his life he was travelling alone in the coach and he sat, looking out of the window, feeling a bit scared but also a bit excited. There had been so much going on at home; Cook had said that Mama was having great expectations. Quite what that meant no one would tell him, but he did know he’d been moved out of his nursery and was promised a whole new room of his own with space to keep his model boats and his collection of interesting sticks and potato-shaped objects, which was some consolation. And Papa was always busy going off to foreign places on ‘business’, which meant that he was hardly ever there. The upshot of all this was a suggestion that Geoffrey visit his Grand-mama while developments took place.
The landscape gradually changed from hills and forests and farms to acres and acres of cabbages on either side of the road like an endless greeny-yellow sea.
There was no sound apart from the rumbling of the coach wheels and the occasional soft trumpeting of the horses’ farting. What with that and the cabbages, Geoffrey’s world became quite a smelly place. If greeny-yellow could have a smell, Geoffrey thought, it would smell like this, as if the whole world had farted at once.
He knew he was getting near the city when the smell changed to that of wood-smoke and sooty chimneys and, more than anything else, something a bit like the gardener’s outdoor privy at home.1 If this smell could have a colour, thought Geoffrey, it would probably be brown.2
The coach rumbled through the Least Gate and Geoffrey saw, for the first time, City Watchmen in uniforms, dray-horses pulling massive high-sided carts, and tall buildings looming up and blocking out the sky. He saw the commotion and hustle of a street market where pedlars and greengrocers and butchers were shouting out their wares: more people in one place than he had ever seen in his life. After a while, the streets lined with plane trees grew wider and quieter, and the houses had gardens and looked quite grand. The coach gradually slowed and stopped and Thomas, the groom, came around and opened the door with a flourish.
‘Here we are, young sir. Number five Nonesuch Street, your Grand-mama’s house.’
Geoffrey climbed down on to the wide pavement and looked up at the tall house. There were railings and a gate, and a short path leading to steps up to an imposing front door and portico.3 Thomas took him by the hand and together they climbed the steps. Thomas pulled the bell-pull and there came a distant ringing from inside the house. Geoffrey suddenly felt a little bit frightened. He had, of course, met his Grand-mama a few times, but only when she visited his home. Such occasions were always preceded by his Mama being a bit short-tempered, a lecture on remembering to say ‘please’ and ‘thank-you’, a scurrying of maids, a smell of polish and his Papa retiring hurriedly to his study.
The door creaked open and a tall thin figure dressed all in black and wearing fearsome spectacles looked down at him. He recognized his Grand-mama, who quickly bent down to give him a kiss before he had time to flinch, or pull his head between his shoulder blades like a tortoise. She didn’t say, ‘My how you’ve grown’ or ‘How was your journey?’ or even, ‘How are you?’ But she took him by the hand, and said, ‘I’m so pleased you’ve come to stay, Geoffrey. I expect you’d like some cake.’
Standing behind his Grand-mama in the doorway was a sour-faced maid wearing black and white and looking like a penguin that had inexplicably found a lemon to suck on. ‘This is Lily,’ said Grand-mama. ‘She will take you to your room and show you where to wash your hands before we have tea.’
Lily looked so disapproving and unfriendly that Geoffrey was very grateful that she was just the maid and not someone who might be inclined to kiss him. He thought he’d be lucky to keep his nose if she did. He wasn’t to know, but Lily’s life had been somewhat enriched by being the eldest in a family that otherwise consisted of eleven boys. In her experience small boys were nothing but trouble and the main cause of dirt, untidiness and noise. In her somewhat jaundiced view, the only difference between small boys and small dogs was that small boys couldn’t be left chained up outside.
Lily picked up Geoffrey’s small trunk and, indicating that he should follow her, started up a series of narrowing staircases to the very top of the house and a door marked Nursery. Lily opened the door and put down the trunk.
‘There’s water in the basin for you to wash your face and hands,’ she said. ‘Don’t leave the soap in the water, don’t leave the towel on the floor and don’t splash about. When you’re done, young master, come straight down to the dining room for tea.’ With that Lily left, not exactly slamming the door, but closing it, he thought, with a half-slam – or perhaps it could be called a sl—, because it bounced back afterwards.
Geoffrey could hardly take in all the treasures he could see in the room. There was a stuffed dragon hanging from the ceiling, piles of old books, a skipping rope which he looked at with a sneer, a very worn teddy bear and, best of all, a large wooden rocking horse which had a real mane and leather bridle. He was, however, feeling quite hungry and a bit scared of Lily, so after a quick look around and a wash he found his way downstairs to his Grand-mama and cake.
After tea, Grand-mama suggested that Geoffrey might like to explore the garden. She showed him the door to the conservatory, and at the far end of this the small glazed door that led down some steps to a gravelled path between tall hedges. Geoffrey wandered along the path, around a corner and found himself this time at the top of a large area of lawn and flowerbeds. In the distance he could see an orchard and a vegetable patch and a collection of old sheds.4
Geoffrey made a bee-line towards the sheds. In his experience they were often the most interesting thing in a garden. As he walked under the ancient apple trees he felt something fall on his head. It was heavier than a leaf and was wet but not cold. He put his hand up to feel something slimy in his hair. As he looked with some dismay at the greeny-white mess across his fingers he heard a jolly voice behind him boom: ‘Do you know what that is, my lad?’
‘No,’ said Geoffrey, turning round.
‘That’s bird poo,’ said the voice’s owner, who was leaning on a fork, smoking a pipe. ‘It’s very good luck when a bird chooses to poo on your head,5 young shaver, and the first bit of good luck coming to you is a Sto Lat pippin, which is the sweetest apple in the world.’
As he spoke, the old man polished a shiny red apple industriously on his waistcoat before handing it to Geoffrey. ‘My name, as writ down on my birth certificate, is Humphrey Twaddle, but no one calls me that nowadays on account of when they do I hits them with my fork. You can call me Plain Old Humphrey. Although I owe it to my ancestors to tell you, young man, that far from meaning a load of old rubbish, “twaddle” is a valuable ingredient in the making of lemonade. Not many people know that, but now there’s one more,’ he said. ‘I’m the gardener here, and if I were you I’d wipe my hand on the grass over there rather than on that smart white shirt of yours.’
Geoffrey did as he was told and then decided that if bird poo was going to bring him good luck he ought to try to keep what was left of it. He raced back through the conservatory into the house and looked around until he found a large pair of scissors in a sewing basket. He ran all the way up to the nursery and, peering into a mottled old mirror, cut off as much of the clumpy bird-poo-hair as he could and put it on the windowsill to dry out.
It was beginning to get too dark to see much outside and Geoffrey began to feel a bit lonely. He wandered downstairs to find his Grand-mama.
‘It’s been a long and busy day,’ said Grand-mama from her big armchair, ‘and I think it’s time for bed. You may take a candle to go up and you may leave it alight if you like. Don’t forget to say hello to Mister Lavatory on the way and I shall soon be up to tuck you in.’
Holding his candle, Geoffrey started back up the stairs. He wasn’t normally afraid of the dark but the flickering candlelight made strange shadows on the faces in the big old portraits hanging on the walls. He hurried along the passage to the big mahogany door Lily had pointed out earlier as the water closet. He’d heard the term before, but nothing had prepared him for the fantastic sight that now met his eyes. Shiny white tiles glistened like running water and there was a large china hand-basin with painted flowers and, at the far end of the room, a great throne-like construction. This had a huge wooden seat with a large hole in it and underneath what looked like a small chest of drawers but without the handles. A gleaming copper pipe joined the chest to a vast dark-green tank attached to the wall near the ceiling. Hanging down from the tank was a long chain finishing in a round knob. On the tank were letters that he had to think about and spell out in his head.
Geoffrey knew in theory the function of this marvel but he was mystified and intrigued by its operation. He worked out that the chain was there to be pulled, but it was too high for him to reach. He could only manage to do so by clambering on to the wooden seat and had to be careful not to fall into the hole. Looking down into the still pool beneath him he gave the chain a sharp tug and was astonished at the torrent of water that rushed into the bowl: a deluge indeed. He was even more amazed when, as the water came down, the chain pulled him inexorably up into the air. He held on tightly and, as gently as he had risen, he was deposited back down on to the seat. Even so, Geoffrey wasn’t certain whether he wanted to be lifted up in the air twice in one day, especially when there was bubbling water beneath him. He decided that he needed daylight to get the full benefit of the contraption and, taking his candle, made his way up to his room.
He set his candle on the small table beside the bed then searched in the usual place – which was, of course, under the bed – for the familiar receptacle known in polite circles as the pot, the po, the necessary, or the gazunder.