Maskerade

respect, of course.”
    “Oh.”
    “Er…”
    “I’ve always done my best to get along with trolls, you know that.”
    “Oh, yes.”
    “How about the dwarfs?” said Granny, as someone might who had found a hitherto unsuspected boil and couldn’t resist poking it. “Have they got a name for me, too?”
    “Let’s go and see Mr. Goatberger, shall we?” said Nanny brightly.
    “ Gytha! ”
    “Er…well…I think it’s K’ez’rek d’b’duz ,” said Nanny.
    “What does that mean?”
    “Er…‘Go Around the Other Side of the Mountain’,” said Nanny.
    “Oh.”
    Granny was uncharacteristically silent as they made their way up the stairs.
    Nanny didn’t bother to knock. She opened the door and said, “Coo-ee, Mr. Goatberger! It’s us again, just like you said. Oh, I shouldn’t try to get out of the window like that—you’re three flights up and that bag of money is a bit dangerous if you’re climbing around.”
    The man edged around the room so that his desk was between him and the witches.
    “Wasn’t there a troll downstairs?” he said.
    “It’s decided to break out of publishing,” said Nanny. She sat down and gave him a big smile. “I ’spect you’ve got some money for us.”
    Mr. Goatberger realized that he was trapped. His face contorted into a series of twisted expressions as he experimented with some replies. Then he smiled as widely as Nanny and sat down opposite her.
    “Of course, things are very difficult at the moment,” he said. “In fact I can’t recall a worse time,” he added, with considerable honesty.
    He looked at Granny’s face. His grin stayed where it was but the rest of his face began to edge away.
    “People just don’t seem to be buying books,” he said. “And the cost of the etchings, well, it’s wicked.”
    “Everyone I knows buys the Almanack,” said Granny. “I reckon everyone in Lancre buys your Almanack. Everyone in the whole Ramtops buys the Almanack, even the dwarfs. That’s a lot of half dollars. And Gytha’s book seems to be doing very well.”
    “Well, of course, I’m glad it’s so popular, but what with distribution, paying the peddlers, the wear and tear on—”
    “Your Almanack will last a household all winter, with care,” said Granny. “Providing no one’s ill and the paper’s nice and thin.”
    “My son Jason buys two copies,” said Nanny. “Of course, he’s got a big family. The privy door never stops swinging—”
    “Yes but, you see, the point is…I don’t actually have to pay you anything ,” said Mr. Goatberger, trying to ignore this. His smile had the face all to itself now. “You paid me to print it, and I gave you your money back. In fact I think our accounts department made a slight error in your favor, but I won’t—”
    His voice trailed away.
    Granny Weatherwax was unfolding a sheet of paper. “These predictions for next year…” she said.
    “Where’d you get that?”
    “I borrowed it. You can have it back if you like—”
    “Well, what about them?”
    “They’re wrong.”
    “What do you mean, they’re wrong? They’re predictions! ”
    “I don’t see there being a rain of curry in Klatch next May. You don’t get curry that early.”
    “You know about the predictions business?” said Goatberger. “You? I’ve been printing predictions for years.”
    “I don’t do clever stuff for years ahead, like you do,” Granny admitted. “But I’m pretty accurate if you want a thirty-second one.”
    “Indeed? What’s going to happen in thirty seconds?”
    Granny told him.
    Goatberger roared with laughter. “Oh, yes, that’s a good one, you should be writing them for us!” he said. “Oh, my word. Nothing like being ambitious, eh? That’s better than the spontaneous combustion of the Bishop of Quirm, and that didn’t even happen! In thirty seconds, eh?”
    “No.”
    “No?”
    “Twenty-one seconds now,” said Granny.

    Mr. Bucket had arrived at the Opera House early to see if anyone had died so far today.
    He made it as far as his office without a single body dropping out of the shadows.
    He really hadn’t expected it to be like this. He’d liked opera. It had all seemed so artistic . He’d watched hundreds of operas and practically no one had died, except once during the ballet scene in La Triviata when a ballerina had rather over-enthusiastically been flung into the lap of an elderly gentleman in the front row of the Stalls. She hadn’t been hurt, but the old man had died