The World of Poo (Discworld 39.50)

‘I want to know where they poo. Gargoyle poo would be a very interesting find for my museum

.’

Lily opened the door to them when they arrived back at Grand-mama’s house. ‘Wipe your feet on the mat,’ she said, wrinkling her nose in distaste. ‘And who’s got a bonfire going?’

Geoffrey and Emma went into the drawing room to see Grand-mama, who was having a cup of tea. ‘My goodness,’ she said, ‘what is that smell? It’s as if someone’s been letting off fireworks.’ Her eyes went straight to Geoffrey’s jacket. ‘Whatever have you got in your pockets, my boy?’ Geoffrey reluctantly extracted the bags of sweets from one pocket. ‘Now come on, Geoffrey, you know I mean the other pocket.’

‘It’s baby swamp-dragon poo for my museum,’ said Geoffrey defensively as Emma helped him off with his jacket while Grand-mama extracted the charred ember with the sugar tongs and transferred the hot little nodule to an empty snuff tin. ‘He just laid it in my hand.’

‘Well, let me tell you that you are going to wash those hands before you eat anything, my boy,’ said Grand-mama. ‘I shall also have to buy you a new jacket before we go to the Guild annual luncheon.’

She gave Geoffrey a severe look from top to bottom and continued, ‘Your late uncle Cedric was very much the same. If I remember rightly he had a very large collection of things that looked like other things; one of the largest such collections in the world, I’ve been given to understand.’ She made a tut-tutting noise and added, ‘There’s no doubt about it, incongruity runs in this family. Now I think you should take your new acquisitions down to your museum before it gets too dark.’

Geoffrey made his way down to the end of the garden, where in the dusk he saw the shape of Plain Old Humphrey leaning on a shovel.

‘Hello, young man, what have you been up to today?’

‘I’ve had a lovely time,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I’ve spoken to a gargoyle and I’ve been to a sweet shop – would you like one? – and visited the dragon sanctuary and guess what I’ve got?’ He opened the snuff tin and showed the contents to Plain Old Humphrey.

‘Ah, that smells a bit like dragons to me. When I was a boy we had a little swamp dragon to light the fires. But one day my dad had a bit of an accident and my mum wouldn’t have them in the house after that.’

‘It’s my best poo so far,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I must put it somewhere really safe so I can label it up tomorrow morning.’

Later that evening, before he got into bed, Geoffrey remembered to take a few lumps of toffee from the crumpled paper bag and laid them out on the windowsill just in case Old Pediment the gargoyle were to drop by.

1 By and large all rivers passing through cities and towns emerge a lot muckier than they start out. The River Ankh is notorious for its crusted, evil-smelling waters – mainly the result of the inhabitants using it as a drain, occasional burial ground and repository for all manner of ordure. The worst offenders are those who live or work along the bridges. Human nature being what it is, if it’s a question of paying someone to remove a bucket of poo from your dwelling or simply sitting above a hole where out of sight is out of mind, the latter option will win every time. In addition, if you’re having a bad day there’s the small consolation that you can give someone beneath an even worse one, if you time it right.

2 When in good health, Draco vulgaris (the herbivorous swamp dragon) produces hardly any waste material at all, because combustion is complete. However, swamp dragons are notoriously susceptible to digestive disorders and if their diet is not strictly controlled they can become very unstable. The resulting symptoms range from violent explosions to the production of large amounts of black or green ash. Like all immature creatures, baby swamp dragons are unable to completely digest their food.

Draco nobilis on the other hand is a carnivore. This species is particularly fond of virgins, but knights in armour are a bonus because they add a certain amount of roughage to the diet. Draco nobilis poo is like that of any carnivore, but if knights in armour have featured on the menu in the recent past, the dragons excrete small tin roundels not unlike corned beef, but still in the tin as it were.

3 The word ‘said’ is used rather carefully here. If you want to know what a gargoyle talks like, imagine having a conversation with a reasonably friendly rock, and if you want to know what they look like, think of those lizards that spend an awful lot of time apparently staring at nothing, and then suddenly there is a movement in the air and something has suddenly become lunch at an extremely fast speed.

A TRIP TO THE MENAGERIE AND CONVERSATION WITH A GARGOYLE

GEOFFREY WAS USED to waking up to birdsong at home, and he’d got used to the early morning sounds of Ankh-Morpork, but what woke him this morning was quite different. A grinding of stone on stone and a crunching sound drew him to the window where, to his delight, he saw a very large gargoyle chewing the last of the toffee he’d left out.

‘Don’t go away,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I’m just going to get dressed.’

The gargoyle shuffled along to make room as Geoffrey and Widdler climbed out on to the windowsill to join him.

‘I saw you put that toffee out from across the road. I’ve not had a bit of toffee for a long time, very nice too.’

‘What do you normally eat?’ asked Geoffrey.

‘Pigeons are good,’ munched the gargoyle and Geoffrey hardly liked to draw his attention to the pigeon sitting on his head wearing a very smug expression. But the gargoyle saw him looking and said, ‘Ah, that’s my decoy; it’s no good getting old if you don’t get artful. The silly buggers fly over thinking it’s a safe roost and Bob’s your uncle! A clever chap over in the Street of Cunning Artificers made it for me. In return I go down there every week or so and get rid of all of the pigeons on his skylight.’1

‘I’d better go down to breakfast; Grand-mama is taking me to the menagerie today. But I hope I’ll see you again,’ said Geoffrey, crawling back through the window. ‘If I can get back to the sweet shop I’ll bring you some more toffee.’

‘Thank you, but the old grinding teeth are not what they were,’ replied the gargoyle. ‘Cake is a favourite, though, especially fruit cake, but not with nuts, they give me the tweaks.’

‘There’s lots of cake here,’ said Geoffrey. ‘I’ll put some out for you tonight if I can.’

After breakfast, Geoffrey and Grand-mama set out for the Palace.

‘I think you should find this very interesting,’ said Grand-mama. ‘I’m sorry we can’t take Widdler with us, but they don’t allow dogs where we’re going.’

Geoffrey knew it would be somewhere important because Grand-mama was wearing a large hat that looked like the top of a big boat and Lily had pressed his trousers. After much muttering about the state of them, she’d also polished his shoes.