Hogfather

up his club. And it would have gone very hard for the raven if the Death of Rats hadn’t chosen that moment to bite Igor on the ear.

    D OWN THERE , said Death.
    The reins were hauled so sharply so quickly that the hogs ended up facing the other way.
    Albert fought his way out of a drift of teddy bears, where he’d been dozing.
    “What’s up? What’s up? Did we hit something?” he said.
    Death pointed downward. An endless white snow field lay below, only the occasional glow of a window candle or a half-covered hut indicating the presence on this world of brief mortality.
    Albert squinted, and then saw what Death had spotted.
    “’s some old bugger trudging through the snow,” he said. “Been gathering wood, by the look of it. A bad night to be out,” he said. “And I’m out in it, too, come to that. Look, master, I’m sure you’ve done enough now to make sure—”
    S OMETHING’S HAPPENING DOWN THERE . H O . H O . H O .
    “Look, he’s all right ,” said Albert, hanging on as the sleigh tumbled downward. There was a brief wedge of light below as the wood-gatherer opened the door of a snow-drifted hovel. “See, over there, there’s a couple of blokes catching him up, look, they’re weighed down with parcels and stuff, see? He’s going to have a decent Hogswatch after all, no problem there. Now can we go—”
    Death’s glowing eye sockets took in the scene in minute detail.
    I T’S WRONG .
    “Oh, no…here we go again .”

    The oh god hesitated.
    “What do you mean, you can’t walk through the door?” said Susan. “You walked through the door in the bar.”
    “That was different. I have certain god-like powers in the presence of alcohol. Anyway, we’ve knocked and she hasn’t answered and whatever happened to Mr. Manners?”
    Susan shrugged, and walked through the cheap woodwork. She knew she probably shouldn’t. Every time she did something like this she used up a certain amount of, well, normal . And sooner or later she’d forget what doorknobs were for, just like Grandfather.
    Come to think of it, he’d never found out what doorknobs were for.
    She opened the door from the inside. The oh god stepped in and looked around. This did not take long. It was not a large room. It had been subdivided from a room that itself hadn’t been all that big to start with.
    “ This is where the Tooth Fairy lives?” Bilious said. “It’s a bit…poky, isn’t it? Stuff all over the floor…What’re these things hanging from this line?”
    “They’re…women’s clothes,” said Susan, rummaging through the paperwork on a small rickety table.
    “They’re not very big,” said the oh god. “And a bit thin…”
    “Tell me,” said Susan, without looking up. “These memories you arrived here with…They weren’t very complicated, were they…? Ah…”
    He looked over her shoulder as she opened a small red notebook.
    “I’ve only talked to Violet a few times,” she said. “I think she delivers the teeth somewhere and gets a percentage of the money. It’s not a highly paid line of work. You know, they say you can Earn $$$ in Your Spare Time but she says really she could earn more money waiting on tables—Ah, this looks right…”
    “What’s that?”
    “She said she gets given the names every week.”
    “What, of the children who’re going to lose teeth?”
    “Yes. Names and addresses,” said Susan, flicking through the pages.
    “That doesn’t sound very likely.”
    “Pardon me, but are you the God of Hangovers? Oh, look, here’s Twyla’s tooth last month.” She smiled at the neat gray writing. “She practically hammered it out because she needed the half-dollar.”
    “Do you like children?” said the oh god.
    She gave him a look. “Not raw,” she said. “Other people’s are okay. Hold on…”
    She flicked some pages back and forth.
    “There’s just blank days,” she said. “Look, the last few days, all unticked. No names. But if you go back a week or two, look, they’re all properly marked off and the money added up at the bottom of the page, see? And… this can’t be right, can it?”
    There were only five names entered on the first unticked night, for the previous week. Most children instinctively knew when to push their luck and only the greedy or dentally improvident called out the Tooth Fairy around Hogswatch.
    “Read the names,” said Susan.
    “ William Wittles, a.k.a. Willy (home), Tosser (school), 2nd flr bck bdrm, 68 Kicklebury Street ;
    “