Hogfather

Sophie Langtree, a.k.a. Daddy’s Princess, attic bdrm, 5 The Hippo ;
    “ The Hon. Jeffrey Bibbleton, a.k.a. Trouble in Trousers (home), Foureyes (school), 1st flr bck, Scrote Manor, Park Lane —”
    He stopped. “I say, this is a bit intrusive, isn’t it?”
    “It’s a whole new world,” said Susan. “You haven’t got there yet. Keep going.”
    “ Nuhakme Icta, a.k.a. Little Jewel, basement, The Laughing Falafel, Klatchistan Take-Away and All-Nite Grocery, cnr. Soake and Dimwell ;
    “ Reginald Lilywhite, a.k.a. Banjo, The Park Lane Bully, Have You Seen This Man? The Goose Gate Grabber, The Nap Hill Lurker, Rm 17, YMPA .”
    “YMPA?”
    “It’s what we generally call the Young-Men’s-Reformed-Cultists-of-the-Ichor-God-Bel-Shamharoth Association,” said Susan. “Does that sound to you like someone who’d expect a visit from a tooth fairy?”
    “No.”
    “Me neither. He sounds like someone who’d expect a visit from the Watch.”
    Susan looked around. It really was a crummy room, the sort rented by someone who probably took it never intending to stay long, the sort where walking across the floor in the middle of the night would be accompanied by the crack of cockroaches in a death flamenco. It was amazing how many people spent their whole lives in places where they never intended to stay.
    Cheap, narrow bed, crumbling plaster, tiny window—
    She opened the window and fished around below the ledge, and felt satisfied when her questing fingers closed on a piece of string which was attached to an oilcloth bag. She hauled it in.
    “What’s that?” said the oh god, as she opened it on the table.
    “Oh, you see them a lot,” said Susan, taking out some packages wrapped in secondhand waxed paper. “You live alone, mice and roaches eat everything, there’s nowhere to store food—but outside the window it’s cold and safe. More or less safe. It’s an old trick. Now…look at this. Leathery bacon, a green loaf and a bit of cheese you could shave. She hasn’t been back home for some time, believe me.”
    “Oh dear. What now?”
    “Where would she take the teeth?” said Susan, to the world in general but mainly to herself. “What the hell does the Tooth Fairy do with—”
    There was a knock at the door. Susan opened it.
    Outside was a small bald man in a long brown coat. He was holding a clipboard and blinked nervously at the sight of her.
    “Er” he began.
    “Can I help you?” said Susan.
    “Er, I saw the light, see. I thought Violet was in,” said the little man. He twiddled the pencil that was attached to his clipboard by a piece of string. “Only she’s a bit behind with the teeth and there’s a bit of money owing and Ernie’s cart ain’t come back and it’s got to go in my report and I come round in case…in case she was ill or something, it not being nice being alone and ill at Hogswatch—”
    “She’s not here,” said Susan.
    The man gave her a worried look and shook his head sadly.
    “There’s nearly thirteen dollars in pillow money, see. I’ll have to report it.”
    “Who to?”
    “It has to go higher up, see. I just hope it’s not going to be like that business in Quirm where the girl started robbing houses. We never heard the end of that one—”
    “Report to who?”
    “And there’s the ladder and the pliers,” the man went on, in a litany against a world that had no understanding of what it meant to have to fill in an AF17 report in triplicate. “How can I keep track of stocktaking if people go around taking stock?” He shook his head. “I dunno, they get the job, they think it’s all nice sunny nights, they get a bit of sharp weather and suddenly it’s good-bye Charlie I’m off to be a waitress in the warm. And then there’s Ernie. I know him. It’s a nip to keep out the cold, and then another one to keep it company, and then a third in case the other two get lost…It’s all going to have to go down in my report, you know, and who’s going to get the blame? I’ll tell you—”
    “It’s going to be you, isn’t it?” said Susan. She was almost hypnotized. The man even had a fringe of worried hair and a small, worried mustache. And the voice suggested exactly that here was a man who, at the end of the world, would worry that it would be blamed on him.
    “That’s right ,” he said, but in a slightly grudging voice. He was not about to allow a bit of understanding to lighten his day. “And the girls all go on about the job but I tell