Once More With Footnotes

back to the Jurassic, all the other periods have already been pinched by other companies —
     
                  My word! That was a heavy one! Nearly brought the hut down!
     
                  It was a whole trilithon went over that time. Oh — it's ok, all it got was a sociologist. Last winter, when we couldn't go hunting a whole research team from Keele University disappeared in very mysterious circumstances, nudge nudge, so take my t ip and refuse any sausages you get offered by the Bronze Age lot.
     
                  Now, if you'll excuse me, I've just got to do a bit of pottery ...
     
     
     
     
     
                  Editors' note: this was followed by a photograph of an ancient-style tent village with arrows and the following captions:
     
                  "Anyone see what I did with my library book?"
     
                  "Gosh, rat soup, my favourite."
     
                  "Of course the goat is angry. You're sitting in her seat."
     
                  "Hey, I've invented a druid-yourself kit."
     
                  "Only another five months, three weeks, four days to go. "
     
                  "After you with the midden."
     
                  "What I miss most is 'Points West'."
     

I wrote this in 1996, while I was evolving ideas for the book which was eventually published as Hogfather. The technology has been slightly updated!
     
     
     
     
     
FTB
     
                  The metal panel cla ttered off the wall of the silent office. A pair of black boots scrambled into view. The man in the red coat backed out carefully and dragged his sack after him.
     
                  The typewriters were asleep under their covers, the telephones were quiet, emptiness and the smell of warm carpet filled the space from side to side. But one small green light glowed on the office computer. Father Christmas looked at the crumpled paper in his hand. "Hmm," he said, "a practical joke, then."
     
                  The light blinked. One of the screens — and there were dozens in the shadows — lit up.
     
                  The letters That's torn it appeared. They were followed by Sorry. Then came Does it count if I wake up?
     
                  Father Christmas looked down at the letter in his hand. It was certainly the neatest he'd ever got. Ver y few letters to him were typed and duplicated 50,000 times, and almost none of them listed product numbers and prices to six decimal places. He was more used to pink paper with rabbits on it. But you're not a major seasonal spirit for hundreds of years wi thout being able to leap a large conclusion from a standing start.
     
                  "Let me see if I understand this," he said. "You're Tom?"
     
                  T.O.M. Yes. Trade & Office Machines.
     
                  "You didn't say you were a computer," said Father Christmas. Sorry. I didn't know it was important.
     
                  Father Christmas sat down on a chair, and gave a start when it swivelled underneath him. It was three in the morning. He still had forty million houses to do.
     
                  "Look," he said, as kindly as he could manage, "computers can't go around believi ng in me. That's just for children. Small humans, you know. With arms and legs."
     
                  And do they?
     
                  "Do they what?"
     
                  Believe in you.
     
                  Father Christmas sighed.
     
                  "Of course not," he said. "I blame the electric light, myself."
     
                  I do.
     
                  "Sorry?"
     
                  I believe in you. I believe everything I am told. I have to. It is my job. If you start believing two and two don't make four, a man comes along and takes your back off and wobbles your boards. Take it from me, it's not something you want to happen twice.
     
                  "That's terrible!" said Father Christmas.
     
                  I just have to sit here all day and work out wages. Do you know, they had a Christmas party here today, and they didn't invite me. I didn't even get a balloon. I certainly didn't get a kiss.
     
                  "Fancy."
     
                  Someone