Once More With Footnotes

nevertheless impressed me by h aving a sense of humour while nevertheless being an accountant, an achievement of such magnitude that it most certainly earns him an honourary degree in magic. In order to make him a member of Unseen University, of course, he must don ... the official hat ... the official scarf, with the University's crest ... and the Octagonal badge worn by all alumni. There ... you are now, professor, causas diabolici volentus, an honorary Batchelor of Fluencing. Due to a lack of foresight this does means that you will ha ve to have the letters BF after your name, but that is a small price, I am sure you will agree, to pay for greatness.
     
                  Thank you very much, Vice-chancellor, ladies, and gentlemen.
     

Argh, argh, argh ... if I put my fingers in my ears and go "lalalala" lou dly I won't hear you read this story.
     
    It's juvenile. Mind you, so was I, being thirteen at the time. It's the first thing I ever wrote that got published. In fact it's the first thing I ever wrote with the feeling that I was writing a real story.
     
    It bega n as a piece of homework. The English teacher gave me twenty marks out of twenty for it, and put it in the school magazine. The kids liked it. I was a writer.
     
    And this was a big deal, because I hadn't really been anything up until then. I was good at Engl ish. At everything else I was middling, one of those kids that don't catch the teacher's eye and are very glad of it. I was even bad at sports, except for the one wonderful term when they let us play hockey, when I was bad and very dangerous.
     
    But the othe r kids had liked it. I'd sniffed blood.
     
    There were three, yes, three professional sf and fantasy magazines published in the UK in those days. Unbelievable, but true. I persuaded my aunt, who had a typewriter, to type it out for me, and I sent it to John C arnell, who edited all three. The nerve of the kid.
     
    He accepted it.
     
    Oh boy.
     
    The £ 14 pounds he paid was enough to buy a second-hand Imperial 58 typewriter from my typing teacher (my mother had decided that I ought to be able to do my own typing, what wit h being a writer and everything) and, as I write, it seems to me that it was a very good machine for fourteen quid and I just wonder if mum and dad didn't make up the difference on the quiet.
     
    Fortunately, before I could do too much damage with the thing, study and exams swept me up and threw me out into a job on the local paper, where I learned to write properly or, at least, journalistically.
     
    I've re-read the story and my fingers have itched to strip it down, give it some pacing, scramble those cliché s, and in, short, re-write it from the bottom up. But that would be silly, so I'm going to grit my teeth instead.
     
    Go ahead, read.
     
    I can't hear you! Lalalalalalala!
     
     
     
     
     
T he H ades B usiness
     
                  Crucible opened his front door and stood rooted to the doormat.
     
                  Imagine the interior of a storm cloud. Sprinkle liberally with ash and garnish with sulphur to taste. You now have a rough idea as to what Crucible's front hall resembled.
     
                  The smoke was coming from under the study door. Dimly remembering a film he had once seen, Crucible clapped a handkerchief to his nose and staggered to the kitchen. One bucket of water later, he returned. The door would not budge. The phone was in the study, so as to be handy in an emergency. Putting down the pail, Crucible applied h i s shoulder to the door, which remained closed. He retreated to the opposite wall of the hall, his eyes streaming. Gritting his teeth, he charged.
     
                  The door opened of its own accord. Crucible described a graceful arc across the room, ending in the fireplac e, then everything went black, literally and figuratively, and he knew no more.
     
                  A herd of elephants were doing the square dance, in clogs, on Crucible's head. He could see a hazy figure kneeling over him.
     
                  "Here, drink this."
     
                  Ah, health-giving joy-jui ce! Ah, invigorating stagger-soup! Those elephants, having changed into slippers, were now dancing a sedate waltz: the whisky was having the desired effect. Crucible opened his eyes again and regarded the visitor.
     
                  "Who the devil are you?"